Publisher's Weekly Review
Unmanned spaceships have investigated all the planets in our solar system except Pluto. More significant to NASA's search for extraterrestrial life, these spaceships have also beamed back vivid closeups of 63 moons. For it is on moons like Jupiter's ice-covered satellite Europa that scientists believe we may discover primitive forms of life. Kluger, a writer for Time magazine and coauthor of the bestselling Lost Moon, does a terrific job of tracing the history of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, whose scientists have directed the unmanned exploration of space from the first failed attempts to land on earth's moon (Selene) to the Pioneer and Voyager missions that captured the public's imagination with their color photos of giant gas planets and bizarre moons. Kluger wisely doesn't dwell on the bureaucracy and infighting always present in an institution as large as JPL, but he does portray enough of it for readers to appreciate how pressured the staff were to produce a spacecraft that could reach the moon and send back pictures. Kluger's explanations of the technical hurdles faced in guiding a tiny spaceship close to as many planets as possible without either hitting them or being set off course by their gravity can be followed easily by anyone with a general science background. His descriptions of our small galactic neighborhood convey scientists' excitement about what we may find when a probe lands on one of these strange worlds. An enticing narrative of scientific exploration, this book is strongly recommended to anyone interested in the search for life in space. 8-page color insert. Agent, Joy Harris. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
As is detailed here, there is more than one moon in the solar system, and many of them are far more interesting than our own. Kluger, a veteran space journalist for Time and co-author with Jim Lovell of Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13 (1994), focuses on NASA'S Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), in Pasadena, Calif., where much of the serious business of exploring our solar system is conducted. Before the Apollos sent men to the moon, JPL sent probes to scout out safe landing sites'there was some speculation that the moon was covered with a deep layer of fine dust in which the landers would sink without a trace. After several embarrassing failures, a Ranger probe successfully crash-landed on the lunar surface, proving it to be solid rock. By the time the Apollos landed, JPL was already planning trips deeper into space. Its greatest triumph undoubtedly came with the Voyager probes launched in 1977 to take advantage of an unusual planetary alignment to explore Jupiter, Saturn, and (with Voyager 2) Uranus and Neptune, and their moons. Kluger details both the technical and the bureaucratic problems JPL faced in getting the Voyager missions working, then gives the reader the story of their remarkable results: the discovery of dozens of new moons orbiting the four planets, as well as the return of close-up photographs of the previously known ones, many reproduced in full color here. The discoveries included active volcanos on Jupiter's moon Io, Europa's surface of cracked water ice (suggesting oceans below), and the fragmented face of Uranus's moon Miranda. These and other results constitute nothing short of a revolution in planetary astronomy. The reader also gets a good look at the inner workings of NASA and JPL, with due attention to the unsung technicians who do much of the real work. Kluger's style is a bit on the cheeky side, but on the whole he does his subject justice. A solid survey of a major advance in our knowledge of the solar system.
Booklist Review
A splendid chronicler of the missions to the gas planets, Kluger opens with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's (JPL) teething days, cut on the Explorer and Ranger spacecraft. Even while struggling to hit its lunar target in the 1960s, JPL aimed for remote orbs, since it knew the solar system would in the 1980s, as it will every 176 years, line up and allow a single craft to visit Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The two Voyager craft were ordered up, and Kluger revels in reporting their incredible discoveries. A journalist who assisted in James Lovell's Apollo 13 memoir (Lost Moon, 1994), Kluger injects personalities into the technical side of Voyager, touching on the planners, crisis managers, and flight controllers who guided the trailblazers through thickets of moons. Strange domains revealed to be as interesting as their parent planets, the moons' essentials unfold in Kluger's space-age travelogue. A book that space flight fans will flock to, Kluger's work should keep them happy until JPL's next outer-planets flotilla returns data for a sequel. --Gilbert Taylor
Library Journal Review
A senior writer at Time who covers science and particularly the space program takes us on a journey to the many moons in the solar system beyond our own. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
