eBook - ePub

Ambassadors from Earth

Name: Ambassadors from Earth
ISBN: 9781496228680

Pioneering Explorations with Unmanned Spacecraft

Jay Gallentine,

522 pages
English
ePUB (mobile friendly)
Available on iOS & Android

eBook - ePub

Ambassadors from Earth

Pioneering Explorations with Unmanned Spacecraft

Jay Gallentine,

About this book

Rewind to the 1950s and ponder: was America’s first satellite really built by a college student? How did a small band of underappreciated Russian engineers get pictures of the moon’s far side—using stolen American film? As the 1960s progressed, consider: how the heck did people learn to steer a spacecraft using nothing but gravity? And just how were humans able to goose a spaceship through a thirty-year journey to the literal edge of our solar system?

Ambassadors from Earth relates the story of the first unmanned space probes and planetary explorers—from the Sputnik and Explorer satellites launched in the late 1950s to the thrilling interstellar Voyager missions of the '70s—that yielded some of the most celebrated successes and spectacular failures of the space age. Keep in mind that our first mad scrambles to reach orbit, the moon, and the planets were littered with enough histrionics and cliffhanging turmoil to rival the most far-out sci-fi film. Utilizing original interviews with key players, bolstered by never-before-seen photographs, journal excerpts, and primary source documents, Jay Gallentine delivers a quirky and unforgettable look at the lives and legacy of the Americans and Soviets who conceived, built, and guided those unmanned missions to the planets and beyond. Of special note is his in-depth interview with James Van Allen, the discoverer of the rings of planetary radiation that now bear his name.

Ambassadors from Earth is an engaging bumper-car ride through a fog of head-banging uncertainty, bleeding-edge technology, personality clashes, organizational frustrations, brutal schedules, and the occasional bright spot. Confessed one participant, “We were making it up as we went along.”

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Yes, you can access Ambassadors from Earth by Jay Gallentine in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Physical Sciences & Modern History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.