The interstellar age : inside the forty-year Voyager mission / Jim Bell.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bell, Jim, 1965- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Planets--Exploration.

Planets.

Outer space--Exploration.

Outer space.

Voyager Project.

Aeronautics.

Astronautics.

Exploration of outer space.

United States.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

x, 324 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

New York, New York : Dutton, [2015]

Summary:

"The story of the men and women who drove the Voyager spacecraft mission--told by a scientist who was there from the beginning. The Voyager spacecraft are our farthest-flung emissaries-11.3 billion miles away from the crew who built and still operate them, decades since their launch. Voyager 1 left the solar system in 2012; its sister craft, Voyager 2, will do so in 2015. The fantastic journey began in 1977, before the first episode of Cosmos aired. The mission was planned as a grand tour beyond the moon; beyond Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn; and maybe even into interstellar space. The fact that it actually happened makes this humanity's greatest space mission. In The Interstellar Age, award-winning planetary scientist Jim Bell reveals what drove and continues to drive the members of this extraordinary team, including Ed Stone, Voyager's chief scientist and the one-time head of NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab; Charley Kohlhase, an orbital dynamics engineer who helped to design many of the critical slingshot maneuvers around planets that enabled the Voyagers to travel so far; and the geologist whose Earth-bound experience would prove of little help in interpreting the strange new landscapes revealed in the Voyagers' astoundingly clear images of moons and planets. Speeding through space at a mind-bending eleven miles a second, Voyager 1 is now beyond our solar system's planets. It carries with it artifacts of human civilization. By the time Voyager passes its first star in about 40,000 years, the gold record on the spacecraft, containing various music and images including Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode," will still be playable"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Outbound

Alignment. Voyagers ; Gravity assist ; Message in a bottle

The Grand Tour. New worlds among the king's court ; Drama within the rings ; Bull's-eye at a tilted world ; Last of the ice giants

Looking back, looking ahead. Five billion people per pixel ; The edge of interstellar space ; Other stars, other planets, other life

NewSpace.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 297-308) and index.

ISBN:

9780525954323

0525954325

OCLC:

881888108

Online:

Cover image