Exploring the Solar System: The History and Science of Planetary Exploration

Front Matter....Pages i-ix
Introduction....Pages 1-21
Front Matter....Pages 23-23
Homer Newell and the Origins of Planetary Science in the United States....Pages 25-44
The Survival Crisis of the US Solar System Exploration Program in the 1980s....Pages 45-76
Faster, Better, Cheaper: A Sociotechnical Perspective on Programmatic Choice, Success, and Failure in NASA’s Solar System Exploration Program....Pages 77-101
Front Matter....Pages 103-103
Redefining Celestial Mechanics in the Space Age: Astrodynamics, Deep-Space Navigation, and the Pursuit of Accuracy....Pages 105-127
Big Science in Space: Viking, Cassini, and the Hubble Space Telescope....Pages 129-148
Visual Imagery in Solar System Exploration....Pages 149-164
Returning Scientific Data to Earth: The Parallel but Unequal Careers of Genesis and Stardust and the Problem of Sample Return to Earth....Pages 165-180
Front Matter....Pages 181-181
Planetary Science and the “Discovery” of Global Warming....Pages 183-202
Exploring Planet Earth: The Development of Satellite Remote Sensing for Earth Science....Pages 203-221
Venus-Earth-Mars: Comparative Climatology and the Search for Life in the Solar System....Pages 223-247
Missions to Mars: Reimagining the Red Planet in the Age of Spaceflight....Pages 249-272
Front Matter....Pages 273-273
Parachuting onto Another World: The European Space Agency’s Huygens Mission to Titan....Pages 275-321
Pluto: The Problem Planet and its Scientists....Pages 323-362
Transcendence and Meaning in Solar System Exploration....Pages 363-374
Back Matter....Pages 375-381