Space Probes: 50 Years of Exploration from Luna 1 to New Horizons

Ever since Sputnik made Earth orbit in 1957, mankind has been flinging tiny flecks of metal…farther and farther from home in an effort to get a grip on our solar system’s secrets…. Philippe Seguela compiles them all, cataloging each unmanned mission that one or another earthbound nation has hurled toward a heavenly body….. Seguela also looks at spacecraft still in transit, including the Pluto-bound New Horizons. They may look like sci-fi space junk, but Seguela sees the majesty therein: Just like the pyramids and great cathedrals, solar-system space probes represent glorious monuments to human ingenuity.– (11/14/2011)This was, thankfully, not the heavy-going encyclopedic tome I had been expecting, but an easy-to-read, accessible story of space exploration.–Emily Baldwin”Astronomy Now” (04/01/2012)

Philippe Seguela is a professor of neuroscience at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. He has been passionate about space exploration for more than 30 years. James Oberg, the NBC News space consultant, is a well-known interpreter of space exploration. He spent 22 years as a NASA space engineer and has written 10 books and more than a thousand articles about space flight.