Ambassadors from Earth

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 manoeuvre a spaceship through a thirty-year journey to the literal edge of our solar system?Ambassadors from Earthrelates 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 Earthis 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."

Jay Gallentine is a film and video engineer with a lifelong interest in space exploration.

List of Illustrations	p. xi
Acknowledgments	p. xv
Introduction	p. 1
Aboard the Glacier	p. 7
Problem Child	p. 12
The Convict	p. 30
Light Fuse, Get Away	p. 39
New Moon	p. 60
Let's Make a Deal	p. 82
The Creators and the Makers	p. 100
Storming the Sea of Dreams	p. 125
Moving at the Speed of Design	p. 155
Job Number MA-II	p. 184
The Science and the Cyclist	p. 201
Get Off the Bus	p. 229
Swing in Time	p. 247
The Meeting and the Mechta	p. 266
Think Like Gravity	p. 278
Didn't They Get It?	p. 287
The Death and the Funeral	p. 292
One Hundred Percent Failure	p. 302
Three-Problem Shipley	p. 323
Pete and Al's Little Field Trip	p. 337
Irradiated Plans	p. 358
Embarking	p. 382
Get It	p. 391
Instant Science	p. 406
Circles of Gold	p. 434
Last Light	p. 442
Continuum	p. 454
Sources	p. 469
Index	p. 489
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

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