Exploring Space: Voyages in the Solar System and Beyond

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Journalist Burrows's ( Deep Black ) time-capsule history of interplanetary space flight focuses on the ``golden age'' of unmanned space exploration: the robot flights of deep-space probes like Voyager, Pioneer, Ranger and Magellan. Political wrangling by sketchily-drawn bigwigs in U.S. space programs cast a pall over achievements in space as reported here. Even launch-room quotes from NASA officials do not add enough flavor to this dense stew of technical tidbits, committee reports and personality profiles. Only in late-chapter accounts of ``Astropolitics: No Parades for Robots'' and ``Tomorrowland'' do Burrows's arguments for extending the reach of technology into the solar system finally lift off from the muddle of bureaucratic history. Photos. (Jan.)