Product Description

An account of the men and women on the other side of the right stuff - they probe the billions of miles that separate the Earth from the moons of the other planets. The book tells the stories of scientists and spacecraft on the cutting edge of exploration and describes the remarkable discoveries. It recounts the daring missions, filled with drama, of manned flights to other planets - including the Pioneer and Voyager missions to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. On the moons that we visit we find places where the ordinary rules don't apply and where life, even now, may be taking hold. They are strange, almost whimsical places, where volcanoes spew sparkling snow, and rivers run with scalding ammonia. Fires burning on one moon actually dust another's cliffs with ash. And in the most startling of these places all the essential ingredients for life are present.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1414850 in Books
• Published on: 2001-03-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 314 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Earth's moon, called Selene by the Greeks, is a grey, lifeless place, interesting geologically but perhaps a little disappointing to those of us looking for strange, colourful new worlds. But our moon is only one of more than 60 planetary satellites in the solar system, most of which are entirely unexplored. In Journey Beyond Selene, Jeffrey Kluger chronicles these unsung places and the heroes who explore them: the Jet Propulsion Lab's staff of dedicated adventurers, who build and fly sleek, unmanned spacecraft to investigate other moons. "When astronauts finally did reach the moon" Kluger writes, "the lean, fleet ships of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory had already gone elsewhere."

Why explore the satellites of other planets when the planets themselves remain mysterious? Kluger describes astronomers' first realisation that in contrast to the lifeless gas giant Jupiter, its moons were a veritable scientific playground:

There were big moons and small moons, patterned moons and plain moons, brightly coloured moons and pasty-pale moons ... There were moons that could have atmospheres, water and even, perhaps, a spark of internal heat. Put them together and you had moons that could, in theory, harbour life.

Journey Beyond Selene chronicles the history of a little-understood aspect of humanity's quest to discover new worlds. From the early Ranger orbiters through to the incredible journeys of Voyager and Galileo, Kluger gives credit where credit is long overdue. They may not be astronauts but these space jockeys have the right stuff. --Therese Littleton, Amazon.com

JIM LOVEL, COMMANDER APOLLO 13
* 'Fasten your seatbelt as Jeff Kluger takes you on an exciting excursion to the moons of the solar system.'

About the Author
Jeff Kluger is the co-author of LOST MOON, the book on which the Oscar-winning film Apollo 13 (starring Tom Hanks) was based. He is a Senior Writer at TIME magazine.

Customer Reviews

Interesting and informative
I enjoyed this book a great deal. It tells the story of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and their unmanned missions to the outer planets. If you want the story of manned exploration, then this book is not for you. If on the other hand you are interested in the science of the Solar System, and the human efforts that have gone into creating the amazing machines that have travelled so much further than any human, then I wholeheartedly recommend Kluger's book. My only criticism is that I would have liked a few more photographs!

A journey into tedium
A dissapointment on many counts. Initially intrigued by the book's slant on the human side of umnanned planetary exploration, it all too readily becomes apparent to the reader that this is a shallow treatment - reading less like a book, this merely feels like a series of magazine articles hashed together as chapters. The author's intention is to be applauded - to cover the politics and emotions behind planetary missions - yet it is written in bland tabloid prose bereft of insight. From the lunar Ranger missions, to the Galileo mission to Jupiter, so much human effort and scientific revelation is reduced to a dry sequence of names and events. Those interested in the resonances and implications of what we have found elsewhere in the solar system will find this volume a dissapointment.