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The Depths of Space: The Story of the Pioneer Planetary Probes

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This is a great book on NASA's Pioneer project (not only the well-known - though already half-forgotten - Pioneer 10 and 11 missions to Jupiter and Saturn, but the whole series, including the highly successful 1978 mission to Venus). Very well written and researched, by a very talented young author, who's definitely in love with his subject. As the foreword of astronomer James van Allen states correctly, this book is first of all `a tale of human achievement', i.e. the emphasis of this book is very much on the project as such and on the people that made it possible (and how they did it). Wolverton does pay substantial attention to technical issues and to the scientific results of the various missions, it's true, but I would have preferred him going into more detail on all these things, providing more data and explaining more of the scientific achievements. To my tastes, he spends too much time discussing `the human factor' and the adventure side of it. But then again, this is the book's explicit `mission'. It just wasn't exactly what I expected, although I enjoyed it very much (especially the story about the controversy around the famous plaque with the naked couple on it, and on the old DEC PDP 11-14 `mini-`computer that was still being used in 2000 to communicate with Pioneer 10). So, this book is highly recommended and a Must for space buffs. It's also a very beautiful book, solid and robust. It's a bit of a pity that the - not too many - photographs and pictures are all in black-and-white. You can look into the book (all of the pages, and with color pictures!!!) on the publisher's website.

The Pioneer missions were important milestones in the exploration of space. The book is a nice, concise and well-written history of the Pioneer program, from the early and unsuccessful probes flown by the military in the immediate post-Sputnik era to the trail-blazing missions to Jupiter, Saturn and Venus. All of the book was interesting, but I thought that the story of how Ames Research Center got involved in deep space exploration, the maneuvering to get access to the Deep Space Network, and the continued gathering of data from Pioneers 10 and 11 long after their primary missions ended to be particularly interesting and never before told. I wish that the book had been a little longer, with some more detail about the spacecraft and their scientific findings. Also the meager selection of small black and white photos is inadequate. But those are minor points and this book is a must-have if the subject interests you.

The Depths Of Space: The Story Of The Pioneer Planetary Probes by by author and NASA expert Mark Wolverton provides the reader with an informed and informative historical overview of the Pioneer space probe mission program that saw the first mission launched in August 17, 1958 that had the misfortune to blow up 77 seconds into lift off. But every failure was a learning experience and subsequent missions ventured to probe the sun, go beyond the asteroid belt, went on to Jupiter, Saturn, and finally out of the solar system and on to the stars. Superbly written, The Depths Of Space is a seminal and enthusiastically recommended addition to personal and community library Space Exploration History reading lists and reference shelves.

"The Depths of Space" by Mark Wolverton includes all the details for those of us who weren't born or were too young to know when these remarkable spacecraft began their journeys. Mr. Wolverton's tale shows the politics and competition between NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Ames Research Center in the early days of spaceflight primarily through the stories of Pioneers 10 and 11, though without neglecting the other flights of the Pioneer series. For those interested in the history of NASA and spaceflight, this book is an excellent place to start. The Pioneer series of flights racked up a long list of "firsts", not to mention blazing the trail for JPL's Voyagers in the 1970's and 1980's. Pioneers 10 and 11 got there first, scouting ahead for the much more celebrated Voyagers a decade later. Mr. Wolverton's book is a solid first step in remembering the often overlooked and forgotten Pioneers.

Mark Woolverton does a superb job of presenting the story of Pioneer Space Probes to the outer Planets. Pioneer 10 & 11 were "improbable" missions, starting late late and working after a 2-year voyage in the unknown regions of space travel. Woolverton accurately presents a description of how an unusually competant NASA Program Manager, working very closely with the Experiment Scientists, all in a hostile political environment, pulled off an exceptionally precarious "Mission Impossible".

'The Depths Of Space' is a story of two little spacecraft and a NASA research center that could. This book is not a dryly written documentary, but an engaging tale that encourages the reader to keep turning pages, to find out what will happen next. Like the story of Apollo 13, we all know the outcome. But it's the journey to get there that matters, and Mark Wolverton delivers.

In the early days of space exploration, all the NASA centers were focused on the "do-or-die" space race. Except the Ames Research Center. Ask anyone at the time and they would say that Ames might come up with an interesting idea in material shape, vehicle design, or even a heat shield, but nothing more exciting than that. Ames was quite happy not to be in the limelight, as it was "not given to flights of fancy involving outlandish ideas such as space flight." To Ames, space flight was viewed as a fad of the day, with no long-term future. There would always be a need for better airplanes, which was the focus of Ames.

Then Ames found itself reorganized, with a new branch called the Vehicle Environment Division (VED), dedicated to support NASA's space flight goals. Albert Eggers, an idea man, was put in charge, and put forth a challenge to his engineers at the VED: to design, build, and launch a series of solar probes. Eggers' deputy assistant, and a very capable engineer in his own right, Charles Frederick "Charlie" Hall was given the task to oversee this project.

Meanwhile, the Army and Air Force were attempting to get probes to the Moon before the Soviets succeeded. Their project was called Pioneer, and they were instrumental in launching Pioneers 0 through 5. The first five of these six spacecraft went out in a blaze of failed glory, but each one getting further than its predecessor. Pioneer 0's Thor rocket booster blew up 77 seconds after launch. Pioneer 1 launched two weeks later, edging itself out of Earth's atmosphere to touch the inner Van Allen radiation belt, then burned up on re-entry two days later. Pioneer 2 made it up a thousand miles before it met with an untimely death, the victim of pre-mature burnout of one stage of its launch rocket and the failure of the booster rocket to even fire. Pioneer 3 made it 63,000 miles above Earth's surface, discovering the second Van Allen belt, before falling back and burning up. Pioneer 4 made it the closest to its goal, escaping Earth's gravity and passing within 37,000 miles of the Moon before it was lost in space. After this the Russians landed spacecraft on the Moon. Pioneer 5's mandate was to be the first spacecraft to be intentionally launched into solar orbit, which it succeeded at. 3 months later it would pass too far from Earth for any of its signals to be picked up again.

After this the Pioneer project was handed over to Charlie Hall and Ames. From the ground up, they designed, built, launched, and operated the Pioneer 6 through 9 spacecraft, all solar probe explorers, designed solely to measure the Sun's activity. Thus began Ames' move from being a purely research-oriented institute to a contender in space exploration.

Wolverton follows this substory with the main focus of the book: the design, construction, launch, and operations of the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft. These were to be the first manmade probes to explore the reaches of space beyond the orbit of Mars. Having been involved in missions such as Hubble, FUSE, and MESSENGER, I can say from experience that Wolverton captured the atmosphere of what went on behind the closed doors of the Pioneer project (which really hasn't changed all that much 30-40 years later with contemporary missions). From the scientists proposing experiments (both in working with engineers and management to the interplays in dealing with each other), to the work of the design and development teams, to mission operations and the realities imposed on operating spacecraft, you are put in the very rooms with these people as they argue, cajole, and support one another in order to make these spacecraft a success.

Again, as with the Apollo 13 story, Wolverton captures the tension in the air as the science and operations teams watch with trepidation as their little spacecraft penetrate the asteroid belt, skirt the radiation fields of Jupiter, and in the case of Pioneer 11, dance outside of Saturn's rings (in prep for the two follow-on JPL missions called Voyager).

While no longer operating (Pioneer 11's signal was lost in 1995, Pioneer 10 was last heard from in 2003), these two little emissaries of our world continue to this day heading out deeper into space, on course to transition from the outer boundaries of our solar system into interstellar space. Each probe carries with it a 6x9 gold anodized aluminum plaque with etchings of our solar system and two generic "naked people", should on some off chance the probes be discovered by an extraterrestrial intelligence. However remotely unlikely that is to occur. Space, you see, is really REALLY big, and the probes in it are infinitesimally small, a mere few tens of feet long. Traveling at 2.6 astronomical units (AU) per year (where 1 AU is the mean Earth-Sun distance), it will be over 26,000 years before Pioneer 10 passes within 6 light-years of Proxima Centauri, and over another 6,000 years before it passes within 4 light-years of the star Ross 248.

Mark Wolverton pulls together all the above, and more, into an excellent, non-technical historical story that should be a "must read" for every space exploration aficionado. All it really needs now is a soundtrack.