Pyne, Stephen J. Voyager: Seeking Newer Worlds in the Third Great Age of Discovery.
Budget cutbacks have for the moment shelved the American manned spaced program. Ray Bradbury, who recently turned ninety, has denounced President Obama for turning away from the next goal of visiting Mars. Yet after the Apollo mission ended the U. S. was able despite money considerations to launch in 1977 the long planned-for Voyager probes. Profiting from an alignment of the planets only available every 176 years, Voyager 1 and 2 have bounced via gravity from one sphere to the next mapping the universe. Pyne, a professor at Arizona State University, compares this exploratory saga to previous eras where political, economic, military, and scientific climates lined up to make possible the great discoverers of Earth. The irony regarding the unmanned Voyagers is that unlike Columbus and Magellan there is no one who will come back to interpret the data gained from the galaxies and say how it will bear on the future.
Revieved by Bob.
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