Ambassadors from Earth

4.08 (36 ratings by Goodreads)
Regular price €25.99
Regular price €27.50 Sale Sale price €25.99
1950s
20-50
A01=Jay Gallentine
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Astronautical History
Author_Jay Gallentine
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Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=WNX
COP=United States
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
Emme Award
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Exploration
Explorer
George Ludwig
James Van Allen
Jupiter
Language_English
Mars
NASA
PA=Available
Planetary Rings
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
Saturn
softlaunch
Soviet Space Program
Soviet Union
Space Exploration
Space Photography
Spaceflight
Sputnik
Unmanned Spacecraft
Venus
Voyager

Product details

  • ISBN 9780803249233
  • Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
  • Publication Date: 01 Jun 2014
  • Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
  • Publication City/Country: US
  • Product Form: Paperback
  • Language: English
Delivery/Collection within 10-20 working days

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Ambassadors from Earth reminds us that our first mad scrambles to reach orbit, the moon, and the planets were littered with enough histrionics and cliff-hanging turmoil to rival the most far-out sci-fi film. But it all really happened!

Drawing on original interviews with key players and bolstered by previously unpublished photographs, journal excerpts, and primary source documents, Jay Gallentine delivers a quirky and unforgettable look at the lives and legacy of the people who conceived, built, and guided our first unmanned spacecraft and planetary probes. From the Sputnik and Explorer satellites of the late 1950s, to the thrilling Voyager “Grand Tour” of the ’70s and ’80s, they yielded some of the most celebrated successes and spectacular failures of the space age.

Confessed one participant, “We were making it up as we went along.”

Gallentine fearlessly clambers to the bottom of a surprisingly bitter controversy over who first developed the technique of using gravity to steer a spacecraft. Also of special note are his candid discussions with James Van Allen, the discoverer of the rings of planetary radiation that now bear his name.

Jay Gallentine is a space historian who strives to tell never-before-heard stories of the space age in a lightheartedly appealing, readable, and nontechnical style.