Exploring Space: Voyages in the Solar System and Beyond

Chronicles NASA's odyssey of planetary discovery, from the Viking mission to Mars to the Voyager probe, which travelled three billion miles, photographed all the outer planets but Pluto, and was never more than a minute behind schedule

Journalist Burrows's ( Deep Black ) time-capsule history of interplanetary space flight focuses on the "golden age" of unmanned space exploration: the robot flights of deep-space probes like Voyager, Pioneer, Ranger and Magellan. Political wrangling by sketchily-drawn bigwigs in U.S. space programs cast a pall over achievements in space as reported here. Even launch-room quotes from NASA officials do not add enough flavor to this dense stew of technical tidbits, committee reports and personality profiles. Only in late-chapter accounts of "Astropolitics: No Parades for Robots" and "Tomorrowland" do Burrows's arguments for extending the reach of technology into the solar system finally lift off from the muddle of bureaucratic history. Photos.
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