Outward Odyssey: A People's History of Spaceflight Series
520 pages
49 photographs, 1 illustration
November 2021
978-1-4962-2868-0
$24.95 Add to CartAmbassadors 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Drawing on original interviews with key players and bolstered by previously unpublished photographs, journal excerpts, and primary source documents, Jay Gallentine delivers a quirky and unforgettable look at the lives and legacy of the people who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.
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Aboard the Glacier
2. Problem Child
3. The Convict
4. Light Fuse, GET AWAY
5. New Moon
6. Let's Make a Deal
7. The Creators and the Makers
8. Storming the Sea of Dreams
9. Moving at the Speed of Design
10. Job Number MA-11
11. The Science and the Cyclist
12. Get Off the Bus
13. Swing in Time
14. The Meeting and the Mechta
15. Think Like Gravity
16. Didn't They Get It?
17. The Death and the Funeral
18. One Hundred Percent Failure
19. Three-Problem Shipley
20. Pete and Al's Little Field Trip
21. Irradiated Plans
22. Embarking
23. Get It
24. Instant Science
25. Circles of Gold
26. Last Light
27. Continuum
Sources
Index
Winner of the 2009 Emme Award for Astronautical Literature, sponsored by the American Astronautical Society
