Description
Book SynopsisExplores a critical period of space history when humans dared an expansive leap into the inner solar system. With an irreverent and engaging style, Jay Gallentine conveys the trials and triumphs of the people on the ground who conceived and engineered the missions that put robotic spacecraft on the heavenly bodies nearest our own.
Trade Review"Based on numerous interviews, Gallentine delivers a rich variety of stories involving the men and women, American and Russian, responsible for such groundbreaking endeavors as the Mars Viking missions of the 1970s and the Soviet Venera flights to Venus in the 1980s. . . . Their legacy is our better understanding of our own planet and our place in the cosmos."—
Lunar and Planetary Information Bulletin“In this lively and memorable journey, Jay Gallentine captures the amazing people behind history’s robotic explorers, who journeyed where no machines had gone before.”—Andrew Chaikin, author of
A Man on the Moon and
A Passion for Mars“Jay Gallentine has written a truly engaging account of lunar and planetary exploration in the halcyon days of the 1970s and 1980s, when scientists and engineers were boldly pushing into the unknown. . . . [He brings] to life the struggles, triumphs, and disappointments of the first great era of deep space exploration. Highly recommended.”—Asif Siddiqi, author of
The Red Rockets’ Glare: Spaceflight and the Soviet Imagination, 1857–1957 “
Infinity Beckoned is a stirring account of [the robotic race to the moon, Venus, and Mars] and its bobs and weaves over more than thirty years as both nations expanded knowledge of the solar system, expended resources for science, and competed for stature on the world stage.”—Roger Launius, associate director for collections and curatorial affairs at the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution
“With
Infinity Beckoned you’ll read a big piece of history you never even knew was there.”—Jeffrey Kluger, coauthor of
Apollo 13Table of ContentsList of Illustrations
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Beach Brainstorm
2. What If…
3. Dead at Birth
4. Failure to Communicate
5. Halt the Work, Destroy All Materials
6. There and Back Again
7. Sitting Cosmonauts
8. Cauldron of Contradictions
9. Buy-In
10. "Prepared Area"
11. Laying Eggs (Somehow)
12. How Low Can You Go?
13. Three Mistakes
14. Devil from Redondo
15. The Boy to Be Beaten
16. How to Buy a Computer That Does Not Exist
17. Downsurfing
18. Gulliver’s Travels
19. Too Much Too Soon
20. Scientific Charity
21. Last Man Home
22. Bonneville, Notch Rock, Double-Squirt, Sudden Death
23. Post-Mortem
24. Sons of a Bitch
25. The Sum of All Nations
26. Hang Time
27. The Rules of Resigning
28. Wonders Never Cease
Sources
Index
