The mission, or, how a disciple of Carl Sagan, an ex-motocross racer, a Texas Tea Party congressman, the world's worst typewriter saleswoman, California mountain people, and an anonymous NASA functionary went to war with Mars, survived an insurgency at Saturn, traded blows with Washington, and stole a ride on an Alabama moon rocket to send a space robot to Jupiter in search of the second Garden of Eden at the bottom of an alien ocean inside of an ice world called Europa (a true story) / David W. Brown.
Edition:
First Custom House paperback edition
Publisher:
Custom House,
Copyright Date:
2022
Description:
467 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 20 cm
Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages [393]-453) and index.
Contents:
The course of icy moons -- Situations vacant -- The Dark Ages -- The center of the universe -- Station -- Maestro -- The Death Star -- Auto-da-f�e -- Grand theft orbiter -- This Earth of majesty, this seat of Mars -- E Pur Si Muove -- The Baltimore Gun Club -- Clipper -- Princess-who-can-defend-herself -- Ocean rising -- Train driver -- Step forward, Tin Man -- One inch from Earth.
Summary:
A narrative chronicle of NASA's deep-space mission to Jupiter's ocean moon, Europa, discusses the remarkable work of scientists who overcame formidable hurdles in their effort to determine if organic life exists elsewhere in the solar system. In the spirit of Tom Wolfe and John McPhee, The Mission is an exuberant master class of creative nonfiction that reveals how a motley, determined few expanded the horizon of human achievement. When scientists discovered the first ocean beyond Earth, they had two big questions: "Is it habitable?" and "How do we get there?" To answer the first, they had to solve the second, and so began a vivacious team's twenty-year odyssey to mount a mission to Europa, the ocean moon of Jupiter. Standing in their way: NASA, fanatically consumed with landing robots on Mars; the White House, which never saw a science budget it couldn't cut; Congress, fixated on going to the moon or Mars--anywhere, really, to give astronauts something to do; rivals in academia, who wanted instead to go to Saturn; and even Jupiter itself, which guards Europa in a pulsing, rippling radi-ation belt--a halo of death whose conditions are like those that follow a detonated thermonuclear bomb. The Mission is the Homeric, never-before-told story of modern space exploration, and a magnificent portrait of the inner lives of scientists who study the solar system's mysterious outer planets. David W. Brown chronicles the remarkable saga of how Europa was won, and what it takes to get things done--both down here, and up there.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.