Voyager; Seeking Newer Worlds in the Third Great Age of Discovery
New York: Viking, 2010. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. xix, [1], 444 pages. Illustrations. Appendix (includes Chronology of Major Lunar and Planetary Missions). Notes. Sources. Index. Stephen J. Pyne is a professor in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University, specializing in environmental history, the history of exploration, and the history of fire. Pyne received his bachelor's degree at Stanford University after graduating from Brophy College Preparatory, a Jesuit high school, in Phoenix, Arizona. He later attained his master's (1974) and Ph.D. degrees (1976) at the University of Texas at Austin. A MacArthur Fellowship came to him in 1988. He has also received a Fulbright Fellowship to Sweden, been awarded two National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships (one to Antarctica), and has enjoyed two tours at the National Humanities Center. He has been a professor at Arizona State University since 1985. His writings have focused on the history of exploration, using the concept of three great ages of discovery as an organizing theme. Derived from a Kirkus review: A unique account of the Voyager space program. Pyne sets for himself a difficult task—vivifying for the general reader the 30-year journey of an unmanned spacecraft. The author ingeniously places the Voyager mission—two spacecraft designed to visit the outer planets of our solar system and beyond—squarely within the context of several hundred years of exploration. The International Geophysical Year of 1957–58, a project designed to take the scientific temperature of the Earth, oceans and space, kicked off the Third Great Age of Discovery, which arose from quickened national rivalries inspiring an unusual period of expansion. Voyager is a crowning gesture of remarkable cultural consequence. Pyne reports fully on the program’s genesis and evolution, Voyager’s discoveries and its signal encounters with the asteroid belt, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and interstellar space. A challenging but immensely rewarding read. Condition: Very good / Very good.
Keywords: Voyager Spacecraft, Arthur C. Clarke, Cold War, Discovery, Exploration, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA, Astronautics, Pioneer Spacecraft, Robots, Carl Sagan, Voyager 1, Voyager 2, Voyager Spacecraft
ISBN: 9780670021833
[Book #75811]
Price: $50.00