de Goursac, Olivier 1959-

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de Goursac, Olivier 1959-

Personal

Born 1959, in France; married; children: five children.

Addresses

Office—Planète Mars, 28 rue de la gaîté, 75014 Paris, France.

Career

Space imaging specialist. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, served on Viking mission team, c. 1980s, outreach correspondent in France for Mars Pathfinder mission, 1993-98; Taurus International, Rouen, France, mapped RMS Titanic wreck site, 1991; Planète Mars (French chapter of Mars Society), Paris, France, outreach manager for Mars exploration missions, 1999—.

Writings

À la conquête de Mars, Larousse (Paris, France), 2000, translated by Lenora Ammon as Visions of Mars, foreword by Jim Garvin, Harry N. Abrams (New York, NY), 2005.

Space: Exploring the Moon, the Planets, and Beyond, illustrated by Pascal Laye, Harry N. Abrams (New York, NY), 2006.

Coauthor of The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Space; contributor to Le Figaro.

Sidelights

Olivier de Goursac, a space imaging specialist, is the author of Visions of Mars and Space: Exploring the Moon, the Planets, and Beyond. An outreach manager for the French chapter of the Mars Society, de Goursac began his career as an imaging technician at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory during the 1980s. He helped process images from the Viking Mission, the first successful landing on Mars, and later served as a correspondent in France for the Mars Pathfinder mission, which delivered a free-ranging robotic rover to the surface of the Red Planet. De Goursac has also used his experience to map the Titanic wreck site for Taurus International, one of the sponsors of the recovery expedition sent out to explore the remains of the ill-fated ocean liner, and he developed a model based on his findings that is still on exhibit at the National Sea Museum in France.

De Goursac received considerable acclaim for his work on the images of Mars' Valles Marineris, a vast system of canyons nearly seven miles deep and more than 3,000 miles long, done in collaboration with Andrew Lark. Using satellite data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, an instrument that measures Martian topography through the use of a laser beam, de Goursac and Lark produced an extremely accurate map of the region. "My goal was to obtain the most natural-looking views, as if an astronaut was standing on the surface of Mars, or as if we were flying above Valles Marineris," he told Robert Roy Britt in an interview on Space.com. "Also, the dust opacity of the Martian atmosphere is accurately rendered and all colors and luminosity were very carefully balanced to be as close as possible to reality." In an interview with Aude Lecrubier for Popsci.com, de Goursac proclaimed, "We have revealed this canyon like no one before us."

In Visions of Mars, a 2005 work, de Goursac offers a selection of photographs, many previously unpublished, that are drawn from NASA's robotic exploration missions of the planet. The images capture Mars's polar ice caps, vast windswept plains, and towering peaks, including Olympus Mons, the solar system's largest known volcano. In addition, he presents a panoramic view of the Mars Pathfinder landing site, a look at stratocumulus clouds billowing over the Chasma Australe valley, and a picture of Phobos, one of the planet's two moons. The volume also contains a summary of the data collected about the planet. "After de Goursac's towering achievement, visible on these pages," remarked a contributor in the London Sunday Times, "all that remains is for us to find life" on the Red Planet.

In Space de Goursac discusses such topics as space travel, the history of rocketry, and the practical applications of space exploration. He also examines celestial bodies, including the planets of the solar system, asteroids, and the Earth's moon. Some critics felt that color photos and artists' renditions were the strength of the book; a contributor in Kirkus Reviews stated that "content takes a back seat to production value in this glossy, oversized, superficial survey of space exploration." "Space fans will love poring over the graphics," observed School Library Journal critic Jeffrey A. French.