The Interstellar Age
Subtitle
The Story of the NASA Men and Women who Flew the Forty-Year Voyager Mission
"Voyager 1" left the solar system in 2012; its sister craft, "Voyager 2," did 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, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune; 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.
Bio
Jim Bell is a professor at the School of Earth and Space Exploration and is president of the Planetary Society. He has been involved in such NASA robotic exploration missions as the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR), Mars Pathfinder, the Mars rovers "Spirit," "Opportunity," and "Curiosity," and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Praise for this book
Part memoir, part anecdotal history and part sermon on the delights of science, "The Interstellar Age" is a captivating read.
Nature
A lucid account of the magnificent scientific accomplishments of the Voyager Missions with a cheerfulness that it deserves.
Publisher's Weekly
