Customer Reviews

Moon Hunters: NASA's Remarkable Expeditions to the Ends of the Solar Systems

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Don't overlook this book. It is extremely well written and the content held my attention from beginning to end. It is the best account I have ever read regarding the US unmanned space program from the early space race through the Apollo era. The book provides fine accounts of the people and technology involved in the unmanned program, particularly the contributions of the scientists at JPL. I'm awestruck at the technology invented by these scientists and their scientific discoveries. The JPL was often ignored in the shadow of the more popular manned space program. Moreover, I believe the discoveries discussed in "Moon Hunters" contribute more to space science than the manned space program. The book is easy to read and has extremely intersting information about the planets and moons of our Solar System. Perhaps more remarkable is how the JPL scientists were able to navigate unmanned craft in deep space with such great accuracy to "visit" the many moons of the solar system.

This was a pretty easy read about the history of Jet Propulsion Laboratory, especially the unmanned missions to the different moons in the solar system.

I couldn't put the book down when I started it. I loved the "behind the scenes" view into the workings of the JPL project teams, and how they dealt with failures as much as their successes. That and the way that each new discovery is described it gives a very differnent perspective on events you might have read about in a textbook or seen the standard pictures of a million times. I liked reading about the not so-well known events like the fact that Voyager 1 only went to Titan but was then sent outside the plane of the solar system due to the unique orbital encounter with Titan.

My only problem is that the copy of the book I had ended with the Galileo mission to Jupiter, the Cassini mission was still enroute. Would have liked to read more about the missions to Mars as well as Cassini and any future missions, such as DAWN, Deep Impact, etc..

Maybe time for a sequel?

This was an excellent survey of the USA's unmanned missions to explore the solar system. Kluger wisely chose the Ranger program to delve into detail for the first American space program, and his description of the problems of getting a Ranger to the Moon and to fulfill its duty (the first six missions were failures) were a great way to highlight the later successes of the Viking, Mariner and especially, Voyager 1 and 2 missions to the outer planets. He gives an entertaining, if somewhat melodramatic, view of the science and human factors involved in developing space programs. The latter part of the book gives emphasis to the Voyager mission, a good choice to contrast with the early failures of Ranger.

It's not stated directly, but the book ultimately makes a great case for the further use of unmanned missions as the most cost-effective way to do scientific exploration in space, as opposed to the stunts of manned missions to the Moon and Mars. The present success of the Cassini mission to Saturn and the Spirit and Opportunity rovers on Mars is making the case stronger still, that unmanned missions are the way to go if you really want to do science in space.

The writer often uses too many adjectives. The book is however full of interesting tidbits of information about the science returned from voyager etc. It also has some interesting anecdotes about the people and events surrounding a mission.
Over all : a good book to get you started on solar system science
-kg

Kluger has tackled the task of covering the complete history of the exploration of the solar system's moons. In 320 pages Kluger has managed to fill a long standing gap in the historic documentation of space exploration. Beginning with the Ranger projects of the 1960's the author continues summarizing the major planetary/moon visits up until this time (2001). While, in so few pages, the book cannot delve into the level of technical and management detail that many would like to see, the author has done justice to the task in so few pages. Kluger has gone well beyond the usual abbreviated technical presentations found in NASA/JPL news releases.
This book should prove of great interest to engineers involved in space and ocean exploration where technical failure is a constant threat. Those who practice engineering understand that learning how things fail is as important as learning how things succeed and Kluger has shown several examples of the engineering difficulties and work arounds that led to the most far reaching and remarkable exploratory effort in human history. From a scientific perspective the author has done a nice job summarizing the scientific interests and expectations for the known moons in the solar system.
This book will prove to be a good one source reading for a concise summary of planetary exploration to this time.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Its intended audience is probably those who have an interest in space, without being true fanatics (I use that term in a good way), since a great deal of what is presented in the book probably would be well-known to the long-time enthusiast. It should also be enlightening for those who just wish to learn more about the early space program and some of the robot probes first sent to the outer solar system.

The book is arranged chronologically and begins with the Ranger program, which was intended to send probes crashing into our own moon. This may be a program readers under 30 or so will have very little knowledge of (this reviewer is slightly older than that and still had little working knowledge of it). This portion of the book is most effective in its descriptions of the personalities involved (again, most of whom most people have never heard of) and the long, tedious, error-prone process by which these things got off the ground and to their eventual destination. The descriptions of the various problems that caused the first Rangers to fail is enlightening and shows how difficult spaceflight was (and is) even when the mission is fairly simple. Also of particular interest is the effects of failure on programs and personnel; recent events regarding the shuttle fleet show that constant vigilance on quality and safety issues are a recurring, probably an intrinsic, problem within NASA and really any organization.

I would have liked more discussion on the followup Surveyor missions, but from that point focus shifts outwards to the outer planets, and Mars and Venus. The Voyager program is where the book hits its stride, describing the inception of the program and the tradeoffs that had to be made within congressional budget constraints. Also fascinating is the explanation of how these things are navigated through space a billion miles away, a tedious job that most people don't think about. It is sure to increase our respect for the accomplishment of flying a small, barely-powered spacecraft to within a few thousands of miles away from a moon from over a billion miles away. It was truly an extraordinary accomplishment.

The later missions, Casini and Galileo, are probably more familiar to most readers so the novelty somewhat wears off at this point. There is still a good deal of useful information, much of which did not make it into the general news media so it is worth reading for this reason.

The great strength of the book is its descriptions of the spacecraft systems themselves and the personalities that built and flew them. The instruments, how they worked (or didn't), and the myriad of small things that had to go exactly right for the mission to succeed makes this book an excellent read for the technologically interested. Just as remarkable are the systems that didn't work and the ways the engineers and flight controllers worked around them. Less effective, though necessary of course, are the scientific examinations of the moons themselves and what was learned about them. However, this is a minor quibble and Kluger handles these issues effectively, providing enough detail for context but not getting bogged down in planetary detail. All in all, definitely a worthwhile read if you are at all interested in this aspect of NASA's history of unmanned spaceflight.

The content is not bad, not technical enough, and, frankly, the book is definitly too short to cover those 60 moons. The main problem, IMHO, is that the text is cluttered with the most incredible collection of vain tentatives to make the story even more spectacular than it is by using all the literary tricks possible... boring, boring, boring.