Jupiter Odyssey: The Story of NASA's Galileo Mission (Springer Praxis Books)

This book takes you on a ride with the famous robot spacecraft Galileo. Although the first couple chapters describe the spacecraft and deal briefly with the administrative headaches and unfortunate events that led to the greatly delayed launch, the bulk of the book literally follows the robot around as it makes its 6-year interplanetary journey and subsequent groundbreaking observations of remote Jupiter and the Galilean moons.Despite communications being severely hindered by the early loss of the high-gain antenna, Galileo was still able to send back lots of high-resolution pictures of the Jovian system as well as tons of readings from other instruments. Many of these pictures are printed in this book. The previous reviewer was correct in stating that the pictures on the Internet look better due to more dramatic image scale, but this is a paperback book and the pictures had to be shrunk to fit in. Nevertheless, many of the photographs are stunning, especially of Europa and Io, the two moons closest to Jupiter.The story really sheds light on how much was lost due to the failure of the main antenna, because instead of a few high-resolution shots of selected areas of the surface like we got, all four moons would have been covered in glorious detail. Anyway, it's still remarkable what the programming team was able to achieve with data compression.Also, the accounting of the numerous radiation-induced glitches and resets suffered by Galileo helps us understand how incredibly hostile Jovian space is. If a well-shielded electronic device encounters so many problems with radiation out there, how much worse would it be for living creatures??Overall, a fantastic telling of an incredible story, somewhat accessible to the layman but especially so to the amateur astronomer or space science enthusiast.

Overall the book details the Galileo mission and at a level suitable for higher-level readers. The only dissapointment I had if any was just not seeing more specifics on the spacecraft's engineering and design than I had in other books. It was good to read into bits of the planning process, mission events, and concerns the team had before and during flight.Worth getting if you like Jupiter and Galileo.

A very detailed summary of the Galileo, which can be found nowhere else, except by paying for hundreds of journal articles. Just what I needed.

In the author's preface to his latest book, JUPITER ODYSSEY: THE STORY OF NASA'S GALILEO MISSION, renowned science writer David M. Harland notes that while the NASA History Office will publish the "official" history of the Galileo Project in 2003, he is only providing an account of the spacecraft's journey and its scientific discoveries. After reading the book, though, one might well conclude that Harland is being too modest and that he has accomplished much more. Like his previous book, EXPLORING THE MOON: THE APOLLO EXPEDITIONS, Harland does not merely chronicle a highly successful scientific endeavor, he also adds his considerable knowledge of planetary science to the task of interweaving an interesting narrative with a highly readable interpretation of the science results; in this case, from Galileo's exploration of the jovian system, as well as from the many targets of opportunity en route to Jupiter. From the inception of the Galileo Project in the mid-1970's, through its repeated launch delays (culminating in a launch in 1989), through the end of its primary and extended missions at the turn of the century, Harland literally traces the circuitous, politically volatile, and often star-crossed journey of this highly successful robotic explorer. Unlike his colleagues in this genre (e.g. Henry S.F. Cooper, Eric Burgess, Jeffrey Kluger, etc.) Harland provides more than just a serial history. In addition to first-person accounts from many of the key scientists and engineers on the mission, he draws on a plethora of primary sources that include formally published, peer-reviewed science papers and conference proceedings to give the reader a very thorough lesson on the Galileo Mission. The book is abundantly footnoted and richly illustrated with hundreds of images, many of which have been composited and mosaicked by the author from original datasets. A minor drawback is that the illustrations are all black and white, but Harland does provide full references so that one may access the original data in the Galileo archives, which are fully accessible via the Internet. I highly recommend JUPITER ODYSSEY to all readers, beginner to advanced, all of who will surely gain new insight into one of the most successful interplanetary missions ever flown.