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Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto
Alan Stern and David Grinspoon take us behind the scenes of the science, politics, egos, and public expectations that fueled the greatest space mission of our time: New Horizons' mission to Pluto.
On July 14, 2015, something amazing happened. More than 3 billion miles from Earth, a small NASA spacecraft called New Horizons screamed past Pluto at more than 32,000 miles per hour, focusing its instruments on the long mysterious icy worlds of the Pluto system, and then, just as quickly, continued on its journey out into the beyond.
Nothing like this has occurred in a generation--a raw exploration of new worlds unparalleled since NASA's Voyager missions to Uranus and Neptune--and nothing like it is planned to happen ever again. The photos that New Horizons sent back to Earth graced the front pages of newspapers on all 7 continents, and NASA's website for the mission received more than 2 billion hits in the days surrounding the flyby. At a time when so many think our most historic achievements are in the past, the most distant planetary exploration ever attempted not only succeeded but made history and captured the world's imagination.
How did this happen? Chasing New Horizons is the story of the men and women behind the mission: of their decades-long commitment; of the political fights within and outside of NASA; of the sheer human ingenuity it took to design, build, and fly the mission; and of the plans for New Horizons' next encounter, 1 billion miles past Pluto. Told from the insider's perspective of Dr. Alan Stern--the man who led the mission--Chasing New Horizons is a riveting story of scientific discovery, and of how far humanity can go when people focused on a dream work together toward their incredible goal.
On July 14, 2015, something amazing happened. More than 3 billion miles from Earth, a small NASA spacecraft called New Horizons screamed past Pluto at more than 32,000 miles per hour, focusing its instruments on the long mysterious icy worlds of the Pluto system, and then, just as quickly, continued on its journey out into the beyond.
Nothing like this has occurred in a generation--a raw exploration of new worlds unparalleled since NASA's Voyager missions to Uranus and Neptune--and nothing like it is planned to happen ever again. The photos that New Horizons sent back to Earth graced the front pages of newspapers on all 7 continents, and NASA's website for the mission received more than 2 billion hits in the days surrounding the flyby. At a time when so many think our most historic achievements are in the past, the most distant planetary exploration ever attempted not only succeeded but made history and captured the world's imagination.
How did this happen? Chasing New Horizons is the story of the men and women behind the mission: of their decades-long commitment; of the political fights within and outside of NASA; of the sheer human ingenuity it took to design, build, and fly the mission; and of the plans for New Horizons' next encounter, 1 billion miles past Pluto. Told from the insider's perspective of Dr. Alan Stern--the man who led the mission--Chasing New Horizons is a riveting story of scientific discovery, and of how far humanity can go when people focused on a dream work together toward their incredible goal.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 2018
281 people are currently reading
4716 people want to read
About the author
Alan Stern
10 books25 followersSol Alan Stern is an American engineer and planetary scientist. He is the principal investigator of the New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Chief Scientist at Moon Express.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 392 reviews
July 16, 2019
Chasing New Horizons details the exciting NASA/APL mission that started in the late 1980s with the pitching to NASA of a Pluto mission, and ultimately culminated in New Horizon's successful flyby of Pluto in 2015. Along the way, the book takes us into the inner workings of a space mission to see how it was funded, planned, designed, built, and executed. It was a long and arduous journey, with numerous obstacles and setbacks along the way, which added to make this fascinating account even more thrilling.
I'm a total space buff, so this book was right up my alley. At the time of the Pluto flyby, I had some personal things going on that made me less aware of this event, so it's wonderful to have a second chance to relive this momentous occasion. The last time a new world had been explored was during Voyager 2's flyby of Uranus and Neptune in the 1980s, and I was too young then to understand. So New Horizon's Pluto mission is even more special to me because it is the defining space exploration mission of my lifetime.
I've read a few space exploration books in the past, which cover missions to the moon and aboard the International Space Station. After a while, the content of those books did overlap a bit, so going in, I was worried that this book may be similar. But that didn't turn out to be the case at all. This book's content was completely novel and fresh to me, so I was learning something new on every page.
As an aside: Pluto is and will forever remain a planet in my eyes. I'm not sure what the IAU was smoking when they said otherwise, but it seems like their proclamation wasn't even based on science or logic. So there.
Needless to say, I found this book to be utterly captivating. If you are even a little bit interested in space exploration, I highly recommend it. It is uplifting and inspirational, reminding us all of what we can be accomplish through perseverance, hard work, and ingenuity.
I'm a total space buff, so this book was right up my alley. At the time of the Pluto flyby, I had some personal things going on that made me less aware of this event, so it's wonderful to have a second chance to relive this momentous occasion. The last time a new world had been explored was during Voyager 2's flyby of Uranus and Neptune in the 1980s, and I was too young then to understand. So New Horizon's Pluto mission is even more special to me because it is the defining space exploration mission of my lifetime.
I've read a few space exploration books in the past, which cover missions to the moon and aboard the International Space Station. After a while, the content of those books did overlap a bit, so going in, I was worried that this book may be similar. But that didn't turn out to be the case at all. This book's content was completely novel and fresh to me, so I was learning something new on every page.
As an aside: Pluto is and will forever remain a planet in my eyes. I'm not sure what the IAU was smoking when they said otherwise, but it seems like their proclamation wasn't even based on science or logic. So there.
Needless to say, I found this book to be utterly captivating. If you are even a little bit interested in space exploration, I highly recommend it. It is uplifting and inspirational, reminding us all of what we can be accomplish through perseverance, hard work, and ingenuity.
August 5, 2022
This book documents the journey of these two authors\ scientists from their realization that Pluto was scientifically interesting but still unexplored in the 80s to the actual flyby in 2015. It starts with a loving tribute to discoverer of Pluto Clyde Tombaugh, whose ashes are on the probe itself, then it proceeds to tell an exciting tale of actually getting it there.
Contrary to popular belief the journey of New Horizons didn't start in 2006. It's start was painfully in 1989. Yes, that is how long it apparently takes. From the acceptance that someone should send a probe to Pluto, through a large number of mission revisions (you have to keep up with the trends), one cancellation, than building it and launching it, and finally making sure it does its job when it gets there, who would have guessed that the rocket science and design were the easy part.
Unfortunately this book was written too early to tell us the tale of the Ultima Thule flyby and all of the science that was obtained, but still a great read.
Contrary to popular belief the journey of New Horizons didn't start in 2006. It's start was painfully in 1989. Yes, that is how long it apparently takes. From the acceptance that someone should send a probe to Pluto, through a large number of mission revisions (you have to keep up with the trends), one cancellation, than building it and launching it, and finally making sure it does its job when it gets there, who would have guessed that the rocket science and design were the easy part.
Unfortunately this book was written too early to tell us the tale of the Ultima Thule flyby and all of the science that was obtained, but still a great read.
July 28, 2023
Traveling from Earth to Pluto is ”the equivalent of hitting a golf ball from L.A. to New York and landing it in a target the size of a soup can!” p.206
This book tells the remarkably gripping story of the New Horizons mission to Pluto, which dazzled me in 2015 along with millions of others around the world. Since childhood, I’ve been utterly fascinated with outer space, and with our sister planets in particular, including Pluto. It will always be Planet #9 to me; the opinions of the astronomy community be damned!
The book details the conception of the mission, and the many hurdles that had to be overcome in order to make it a reality, as well as the 10-year flight of the probe itself, and the extraordinary payoff, culminating in the revealing of Pluto in all its glory for the first time.
The sheer determination and dedication of those who worked on New Horizons is simply inspirational. The years of hard work and planning were vindicated—so many things could have gone wrong, and the project was extremely fortunate to have even been approved in the first place. In the end, against so many odds, the mission was a complete triumph, made possible by those who bent over backward to make it happen.
The success of New Horizons makes one ponder: Is there nothing humanity can’t do if it sets its collective mind to it?
5 stars.
This book tells the remarkably gripping story of the New Horizons mission to Pluto, which dazzled me in 2015 along with millions of others around the world. Since childhood, I’ve been utterly fascinated with outer space, and with our sister planets in particular, including Pluto. It will always be Planet #9 to me; the opinions of the astronomy community be damned!
The book details the conception of the mission, and the many hurdles that had to be overcome in order to make it a reality, as well as the 10-year flight of the probe itself, and the extraordinary payoff, culminating in the revealing of Pluto in all its glory for the first time.
The sheer determination and dedication of those who worked on New Horizons is simply inspirational. The years of hard work and planning were vindicated—so many things could have gone wrong, and the project was extremely fortunate to have even been approved in the first place. In the end, against so many odds, the mission was a complete triumph, made possible by those who bent over backward to make it happen.
The success of New Horizons makes one ponder: Is there nothing humanity can’t do if it sets its collective mind to it?
5 stars.
October 31, 2018
I always thought that the most difficult part of a space mission was the technical one. Building a machine that could travel millions of kilometers during a decade or more without blowing up.
After reading this book, I believe I was probably wrong. The hard part is the political one, all the effort required to get the mission approved and funded. I really could not believe the amount of approvals and consequent cancellations the New Horizons mission went through, the political machinations it had to overcome. Personally I don't think I could have found the energies to persevere through all that. Dr. Stern (the mission lead) and his team were true heroes for that.
I you're interested in space exploration, this book is a must read. It provides a great insight on the effort required to successfully complete a space exploration mission. Spoiler: it's probably a much bigger effort than you thought. It also sheds light on the human part of a space mission, the
people involved and the sacrifices they had to endure in the name of space exploration.
After reading this book, I believe I was probably wrong. The hard part is the political one, all the effort required to get the mission approved and funded. I really could not believe the amount of approvals and consequent cancellations the New Horizons mission went through, the political machinations it had to overcome. Personally I don't think I could have found the energies to persevere through all that. Dr. Stern (the mission lead) and his team were true heroes for that.
I you're interested in space exploration, this book is a must read. It provides a great insight on the effort required to successfully complete a space exploration mission. Spoiler: it's probably a much bigger effort than you thought. It also sheds light on the human part of a space mission, the
people involved and the sacrifices they had to endure in the name of space exploration.
June 19, 2018
I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Every once in a while, I wonder where I would have ended up had I stayed at Ohio State instead of joining the Air Force in the mid-80s. My major was astronomy, with a minor in physics, topics which still fascinate me to this day. Maybe I would have ended up on one of these exploration projects... who knows?
Anyway, this is a great book on the trials and tribulations of the Plutophiles, scientists and engineers that pushed NASA leadership for decades to have Pluto explored, as well as the Kuiper Belt on the extreme outer edge of our solar system. The New Horizons is still transmitting, and after reaching Pluto after nine years of flight in 2015, is now approaching the strange planetoids of Kuiper. Amazing!
Every once in a while, I wonder where I would have ended up had I stayed at Ohio State instead of joining the Air Force in the mid-80s. My major was astronomy, with a minor in physics, topics which still fascinate me to this day. Maybe I would have ended up on one of these exploration projects... who knows?
Anyway, this is a great book on the trials and tribulations of the Plutophiles, scientists and engineers that pushed NASA leadership for decades to have Pluto explored, as well as the Kuiper Belt on the extreme outer edge of our solar system. The New Horizons is still transmitting, and after reaching Pluto after nine years of flight in 2015, is now approaching the strange planetoids of Kuiper. Amazing!
November 24, 2018
I’m very glad I read this book, it really chronicles how the movement to explore Pluto began 20 years ago and how it was a struggle to finally be able to launch a rocket to explore it and how the result of exploring Pluto launched a fervor in humankind about planet exploration and how in the future the same generation that enjoyed the first clear pictures of Pluto in 2015 could be the one that take us out of earth and into the stars . Very well detailed book with a lot of information that could overwhelm the novice reader especially in the middle of it but with an amazing conclusion.
December 6, 2018
I read this book because I really enjoyed "Roving Mars" by Steven Squyres and "Curiosity" by Rob Manning. This book was a disappointment.
Those other books were at their best when describing the engineering problems encountered and the way they were solved. They make you feel just a bit like you are personally living through the excitement of the development process vicariously. This book by contrast consists primarily of alternating between self-pity that about the political and bureaucratic hurdles the project had to overcome and self-congratulation over the results. Neither of these reflect well on the authors. While this book briefly describes a few of the technical challenges faced by the project, there is essentially no description of the engineering aspects or actual solutions. Rather, it just uses identified technical issues as a pretense to constantly remind the reader how hard the people involved had to work. This is no doubt true, but it is boring and starts to sound whiny after a while.
While the book dwells at length on trying to convince the reader of the significance of the mission, I found this more irritating than inspiring. Perhaps this is because I feel general disdain for the popularity of expressing faux outrage at the "demotion" of Pluto. I think the public "interest" in Pluto related to this has nothing to do with public interest in legitimate planetary science characterizations and much to do with the worst sort of human irrationality and internet group-think. Therefore when I read the authors crowing about the public interest in the mission, I see something fueled by an unbecoming mob mentality about the "demotion of Pluto" rather than anything based on inspiring desires to explore that the authors seem to think they aroused.
Those other books were at their best when describing the engineering problems encountered and the way they were solved. They make you feel just a bit like you are personally living through the excitement of the development process vicariously. This book by contrast consists primarily of alternating between self-pity that about the political and bureaucratic hurdles the project had to overcome and self-congratulation over the results. Neither of these reflect well on the authors. While this book briefly describes a few of the technical challenges faced by the project, there is essentially no description of the engineering aspects or actual solutions. Rather, it just uses identified technical issues as a pretense to constantly remind the reader how hard the people involved had to work. This is no doubt true, but it is boring and starts to sound whiny after a while.
While the book dwells at length on trying to convince the reader of the significance of the mission, I found this more irritating than inspiring. Perhaps this is because I feel general disdain for the popularity of expressing faux outrage at the "demotion" of Pluto. I think the public "interest" in Pluto related to this has nothing to do with public interest in legitimate planetary science characterizations and much to do with the worst sort of human irrationality and internet group-think. Therefore when I read the authors crowing about the public interest in the mission, I see something fueled by an unbecoming mob mentality about the "demotion of Pluto" rather than anything based on inspiring desires to explore that the authors seem to think they aroused.
January 3, 2019
An excellent book about the mission to explore Pluto. Starting with the initial desire of Alan Stern to explore Pluto, the book then looks at the bureaucratic, political and technological hurdles the New Horizons mission had to overcome before being built and launched, followed by the mission itself and finally the fly-by of Pluto and the amazing discoveries New Horizons made about the world and beyond.
Chapter 1 looks at the early life of Alan Stern who was fascinated with space from an early age and wanted to get involved in the space effort. This he does with an education on orbital mechanics and space engineering. But his fascination with Pluto would start when his advisor gives him a problem on Pluto to work on. A brief history on the discovery of Pluto itself is covered as well as the space probes Voyager 1 and 2 and the decision that would lead to Pluto being the only object not visited by the Voyager probes.
Chapter 2 covers the early discoveries about Pluto, from its moon, Charon, to its chemistry. These discoveries would reveal what a strange world Pluto was. This would galvanise Stern to organise a group of mainly young scientists into advocating for a mission to Pluto at NASA.
Chapter 3 looks at the early period of Stern and colleagues' numerous proposals and studies for proposed missions to Pluto. This was a period of ups and downs when they put in a lot of work, pull strings and generally navigate the various political and bureaucratic hurdles to keep the plan for a mission to Pluto alive. But it would appear to come to nothing when NASA's then administrator says enough is enough and halts all plans for a Pluto mission.
Chapter 4 looks at the aftermath of that decision. A public campaign to restart a Pluto mission gets under way. NASA finally relents and agrees to a Pluto mission. That decision starts a challenge as various teams, including one lead by Stern, must now submit detailed proposals for the proposed decision and do it within months (instead of the usual years). The pressure to perform is incredible and it would all come down to a final phone call from NASA when Stern finally learns that his proposal has won the day. It was during this proposal period that Stern comes up with the name for the mission: New Horizons.
Chapter 5 sees several more political and bureaucratic obstacles blocking the New Horizons project. It's budget is summary cancelled, then restored, on condition that it got top priority for a top NASA review. This, it does only for other obstacles to appear until, finally, the go ahead is given to actually start putting the mission together.
Chapter 6 looks the building of the New Horizons probe. The logistics of preparing for the mission is covered, followed by an overview of the instruments New Horizons would carry to Pluto. But logistical and technological problems and delays would appear and the mission was in danger of coming in over budget and delayed, killing the mission. It would need a project manager to see the danger the mission was in and convince NASA to provide help to overcome the issues.
Chapter 7 looks at the nuclear power supply used by New Horizons and the challenges it brings to the project; in getting the needed plutonium for the power supply and in answering the necessary environmental impact studies required for any nuclear powered mission in an extremely short time. But in the end, it all comes together and the mission is now ready to be launched.
Chapter 8 covers the decision to launch New Horizons. Just when New Horizons was to be certified ready to fly, an external event occurs that would throw the launch in doubt: a test of a rocket fuel tank by the manufacturer of the rocket used to launch New Horizons fails. That starts to create doubts about the rocket used for New Horizons. The final meeting held to decided whether to launch New Horizons or not would come done to whether the head of NASA would agree to the launch or not. In the end, it was decide to go ahead with the launch.
Chapter 9 covers the preparation for the actual launch itself. It not without drama: two aborted attempts made before New Horizons is finally launched on its way to Pluto. Before that, the book describes the various decisions taken by mission control, the deep space tracking network, the weather, etc. before it could be launch. The launch itself was a success.
Chapter 10 describes the shake-down and testing done on New Horizons during the first phase of its journey to Jupiter before going on to Pluto. Huge emphasis is placed on making sure no mistakes in the code sent to New Horizons because any mistake, as shown by the list of previous missions that had failed, would be fatal. Some problems would be encountered but on the whole, they are able to overcome them.
Chapter 11 looks at the planning done for the Pluto flyby itself. This planning was intensive and involved juggling many factors, many conflicting, as demands are made on flyby timing, instruments used, the power involved, etc. Each change in one factor would cause cascading changes in others. But in the end, a flyby plan was decided upon. Now, to execute it.
Chapter 12 looks at concerns over the safety of the New Horizons probe as it approaches Pluto over as yet unknown hazards (like extra moons or rings). Fail-safe options were developed that would return some data before New Horizons' closest approach so that some information would be obtained in the event the probe is destroyed during the encounter. Other options to shield the craft from potential debris (and giving some some science observations) were also developed.
Chapter 13 looks at the plans for New Horizons to observe and fly-by other objects after Pluto. Now, as New Horizons approaches Pluto and is woken from hibernation, the excitement over the fly-by begins to build. New observations using New Horizons' instruments determine that there were no known hazards in its path and it go for approach with full science observations.
Chapter 14 looks at the events leading up to the encounter, when the loading of the observation program to New Horizons causes an error and lost of communication. It is only when the backup system re-establishes contact that the cause of the error is known for certain. Now, with time to the fly-by ticking away, the team has to reboot the computer, and reload the program without causing any other problems and all in a matter of days. In the end, it was done with hours to spare and New Horizons is ready for its flyby.
Chapter 15 looks at the initial images and data returned by New Horizons prior to fly-by and they caused a sensation. The 'heart' of Pluto and other geological features are revealed, showing Pluto to be an amazing world. All of it heightens the excitement as New Horizons breaks contact with Earth to perform its fly-by observations and the Earth holds it breath.
Chapter 16 covers the events when New Horizons contacts Earth again, to the delight of observers, with a full suite of data. As the data is downloaded and revealed, they show Pluto to be a world unlike any other, with features and properties unlike any other world in the Solar System. New Horizons would prove to be a sensational success.
Chapter 17 looks at New Horizons after the Pluto fly-by. It's primary mission accomplished, New Horizons is now prepared for its next encounter with another object on New Year's Day, 2019, and afterwards, performing observations on interstellar space, joining the Voyager probes.
Chapter 1 looks at the early life of Alan Stern who was fascinated with space from an early age and wanted to get involved in the space effort. This he does with an education on orbital mechanics and space engineering. But his fascination with Pluto would start when his advisor gives him a problem on Pluto to work on. A brief history on the discovery of Pluto itself is covered as well as the space probes Voyager 1 and 2 and the decision that would lead to Pluto being the only object not visited by the Voyager probes.
Chapter 2 covers the early discoveries about Pluto, from its moon, Charon, to its chemistry. These discoveries would reveal what a strange world Pluto was. This would galvanise Stern to organise a group of mainly young scientists into advocating for a mission to Pluto at NASA.
Chapter 3 looks at the early period of Stern and colleagues' numerous proposals and studies for proposed missions to Pluto. This was a period of ups and downs when they put in a lot of work, pull strings and generally navigate the various political and bureaucratic hurdles to keep the plan for a mission to Pluto alive. But it would appear to come to nothing when NASA's then administrator says enough is enough and halts all plans for a Pluto mission.
Chapter 4 looks at the aftermath of that decision. A public campaign to restart a Pluto mission gets under way. NASA finally relents and agrees to a Pluto mission. That decision starts a challenge as various teams, including one lead by Stern, must now submit detailed proposals for the proposed decision and do it within months (instead of the usual years). The pressure to perform is incredible and it would all come down to a final phone call from NASA when Stern finally learns that his proposal has won the day. It was during this proposal period that Stern comes up with the name for the mission: New Horizons.
Chapter 5 sees several more political and bureaucratic obstacles blocking the New Horizons project. It's budget is summary cancelled, then restored, on condition that it got top priority for a top NASA review. This, it does only for other obstacles to appear until, finally, the go ahead is given to actually start putting the mission together.
Chapter 6 looks the building of the New Horizons probe. The logistics of preparing for the mission is covered, followed by an overview of the instruments New Horizons would carry to Pluto. But logistical and technological problems and delays would appear and the mission was in danger of coming in over budget and delayed, killing the mission. It would need a project manager to see the danger the mission was in and convince NASA to provide help to overcome the issues.
Chapter 7 looks at the nuclear power supply used by New Horizons and the challenges it brings to the project; in getting the needed plutonium for the power supply and in answering the necessary environmental impact studies required for any nuclear powered mission in an extremely short time. But in the end, it all comes together and the mission is now ready to be launched.
Chapter 8 covers the decision to launch New Horizons. Just when New Horizons was to be certified ready to fly, an external event occurs that would throw the launch in doubt: a test of a rocket fuel tank by the manufacturer of the rocket used to launch New Horizons fails. That starts to create doubts about the rocket used for New Horizons. The final meeting held to decided whether to launch New Horizons or not would come done to whether the head of NASA would agree to the launch or not. In the end, it was decide to go ahead with the launch.
Chapter 9 covers the preparation for the actual launch itself. It not without drama: two aborted attempts made before New Horizons is finally launched on its way to Pluto. Before that, the book describes the various decisions taken by mission control, the deep space tracking network, the weather, etc. before it could be launch. The launch itself was a success.
Chapter 10 describes the shake-down and testing done on New Horizons during the first phase of its journey to Jupiter before going on to Pluto. Huge emphasis is placed on making sure no mistakes in the code sent to New Horizons because any mistake, as shown by the list of previous missions that had failed, would be fatal. Some problems would be encountered but on the whole, they are able to overcome them.
Chapter 11 looks at the planning done for the Pluto flyby itself. This planning was intensive and involved juggling many factors, many conflicting, as demands are made on flyby timing, instruments used, the power involved, etc. Each change in one factor would cause cascading changes in others. But in the end, a flyby plan was decided upon. Now, to execute it.
Chapter 12 looks at concerns over the safety of the New Horizons probe as it approaches Pluto over as yet unknown hazards (like extra moons or rings). Fail-safe options were developed that would return some data before New Horizons' closest approach so that some information would be obtained in the event the probe is destroyed during the encounter. Other options to shield the craft from potential debris (and giving some some science observations) were also developed.
Chapter 13 looks at the plans for New Horizons to observe and fly-by other objects after Pluto. Now, as New Horizons approaches Pluto and is woken from hibernation, the excitement over the fly-by begins to build. New observations using New Horizons' instruments determine that there were no known hazards in its path and it go for approach with full science observations.
Chapter 14 looks at the events leading up to the encounter, when the loading of the observation program to New Horizons causes an error and lost of communication. It is only when the backup system re-establishes contact that the cause of the error is known for certain. Now, with time to the fly-by ticking away, the team has to reboot the computer, and reload the program without causing any other problems and all in a matter of days. In the end, it was done with hours to spare and New Horizons is ready for its flyby.
Chapter 15 looks at the initial images and data returned by New Horizons prior to fly-by and they caused a sensation. The 'heart' of Pluto and other geological features are revealed, showing Pluto to be an amazing world. All of it heightens the excitement as New Horizons breaks contact with Earth to perform its fly-by observations and the Earth holds it breath.
Chapter 16 covers the events when New Horizons contacts Earth again, to the delight of observers, with a full suite of data. As the data is downloaded and revealed, they show Pluto to be a world unlike any other, with features and properties unlike any other world in the Solar System. New Horizons would prove to be a sensational success.
Chapter 17 looks at New Horizons after the Pluto fly-by. It's primary mission accomplished, New Horizons is now prepared for its next encounter with another object on New Year's Day, 2019, and afterwards, performing observations on interstellar space, joining the Voyager probes.
May 26, 2018
Now, let me state up front that these type of books, chronocling scientific research, or events, are hard to write. It's very hard to write a book that can convey a level of excitement and emotion for an event that happened in the past, in which we technically know the outcome, generally filled with more scientific and beaurecratic dealings and most of all, set over a very very long span of time. Chasing New Horizons I think does and doesn't fall into this trap. The fact that it's written by one of the main 'leads' of the project I think helps in that he can bring a more personal emotion and energy to the project, over someone writing it from a 3rd perspective. Trying to capture someone else's excitement over a project is much harder than relating it first hand. I enjoy the fact that Dr. Stern has a very causal way of writing, and even a sense of humor. There's even a few Star Wars references in there. All in all, this isn't going to be a laugh out loud, edge of your seat read, but it does manage to keep one entertained. The problem I think that it faces is that even with a very high level approached to telling us this story (minus all the nitty gritty, in the weeds science and policies etc..) it often boils down to a listing of people's names and their job titles. Because there's technically no narrative, the 'characters' (real life people) are sort of listed and named, and called out, but it's hard to place any importance on them because often they are referenced a few times, but never really explored. But that's no fault of Dr. Stern as he's not writing a biography here...so I think this drawback is something that is inherent in this writing style. It doesn't take away from the book completely, but it's enough that during certain moments, I have to really think back to who this person was, or what "side" they were on. And often I found myself just letting it go, and I think I missed out on somethings due to that. That being said it could have been a lot worse. I know how big companies and agencies can just be chock full of "inside" speak and terms and phrases that with out writing a dictionary for translating would come off as completely uninterpretable to the person not on the inside. Dr. Stern does a good job in dancing around this and giving us the background that we need, albeit in passing. The book itself is laid out very well, and has some nice glossy photo's of the project, the backers, scientists, and the press junket surrounding the project.
What this book does well, is that it gets you into the mindset and immersion of working for a big project that often feels like it's doomed from the start. Right off the bat from the first introduction chapter, we're given the fact that it's whole life from start to finish has been pretty shaky, so it really did feel like a ride that we're going on with Stern and the entire APL group. Also Stern does and EXCELLENT job in giving us the history of Pluto, and how it came to be, and how it acquired it's name. I loved that it's been sort of looked at as the dark Underworld at first, but now in present day with our meme culture, we've sort of adopted Pluto as a lovable cute ball of ice, (with a heart).
What this book does well, is that it gets you into the mindset and immersion of working for a big project that often feels like it's doomed from the start. Right off the bat from the first introduction chapter, we're given the fact that it's whole life from start to finish has been pretty shaky, so it really did feel like a ride that we're going on with Stern and the entire APL group. Also Stern does and EXCELLENT job in giving us the history of Pluto, and how it came to be, and how it acquired it's name. I loved that it's been sort of looked at as the dark Underworld at first, but now in present day with our meme culture, we've sort of adopted Pluto as a lovable cute ball of ice, (with a heart).
April 6, 2018
In July 2015, the New Horizons space probe reached Pluto after a 10-year voyage and sent back the first clear pictures of our Solar System’s outermost neighbor. This is the inside story of how it happened, written by the scientists involved—but you don’t need to be an astronomer to enjoy this story. This book is exceptionally easy to read and understand, and provides fantastic insight into what it actually took to get this unlikely space mission off the ground. A must-read for fans of space exploration!
January 3, 2019
Some good NASA gossip and recalcitrant pioneer attitudes on display here. Loses a star for no substantial information on the probe itself or Pluto for that matter.
March 4, 2019
I love reading science-by-scientists books, where we learn the questions modern scientists are asking and the day-by-days tasks and troubles they face to find the answers. This book follows the inspirational New Horizons mission to Pluto (and now, in 2019, to the Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule), from the very beginning of planning any mission at all, to securing funding for this mission, to building and launching New Horizons, to its final Pluto flyby. It is a great story.
Compared to other books in this genre, I'm rating this one a bit lower, for two reasons. First, the authorial structure is a bit weird. The book seems to mostly have been written by David Grinspoon, who is a scientist but not directly involved with New Horizons, based on interviews with Alan Stern, the project's PI. It also includes long quotes from Stern. This one level of indirection is suboptimal, and the way they paper it over can be awkward. Secondly, I did find it interesting to learn how a project leader manages to get $700 million from NASA to lead a team of thousands—a long ordeal that includes lots of politics, and it is cool to get a behind-the-scenes perspective on the politics, strategies and bickering (especially between JPL and APL). However, that's not really what I came for. I wanted to learn more of the science, but I guess there's another level of indirection between the PI Stern, who manages everything, and the scientists who are getting their hands dirty studying Pluto. I missed a first-hand perspective on the science.
Still, the book takes off in the second half, where we learn some details of managing a space mission, the considerations that have to be made and the problems that arose. (There could still have been more details.)
I don't think the authors do a great job surfacing the interesting factoids that I wanted. For example, they compare getting New Horizons to Pluto as like hitting a hole-in-one from Los Angeles to Washington, DC—or some similar utterly nonsensical comparison. What does that even mean? It's *impossible* to hit a hole-in-one at that distance. New Horizons made course corrections the whole way, so maybe a better comparison would be to flying a plane from LA to Washington, DC? I have no idea. The authors could have tried to teach us something, for example, how precise did the initial aiming of the rockets have to be, before going beyond the limits of what could be corrected en route? But instead, they made the lazy and meaningless golf ball comparison. This is just one example, but with more work, and more direct involvement from Stern and, especially, other people on the project, readers could have learned so much more.
Quote, from after the Bush administration tried to cancel the Pluto program: "I was so mad I couldn’t see straight, and I smelled something fishy. If Europa went forward, JPL would be guaranteed to get the work, because that mission had simply been assigned to JPL—without competition—and it was also a far bigger monetary prize than winning Pluto would be. Alan speculated that JPL had worked behind the scenes to persuade the Bush administration more or less to trade the Pluto mission for a new start on Europa. He also believed that JPL had another interest in killing Pluto, because if APL actually won, APL’s hand would forever be strengthened as a powerful competitor in all future outer solar system exploration."
Compared to other books in this genre, I'm rating this one a bit lower, for two reasons. First, the authorial structure is a bit weird. The book seems to mostly have been written by David Grinspoon, who is a scientist but not directly involved with New Horizons, based on interviews with Alan Stern, the project's PI. It also includes long quotes from Stern. This one level of indirection is suboptimal, and the way they paper it over can be awkward. Secondly, I did find it interesting to learn how a project leader manages to get $700 million from NASA to lead a team of thousands—a long ordeal that includes lots of politics, and it is cool to get a behind-the-scenes perspective on the politics, strategies and bickering (especially between JPL and APL). However, that's not really what I came for. I wanted to learn more of the science, but I guess there's another level of indirection between the PI Stern, who manages everything, and the scientists who are getting their hands dirty studying Pluto. I missed a first-hand perspective on the science.
Still, the book takes off in the second half, where we learn some details of managing a space mission, the considerations that have to be made and the problems that arose. (There could still have been more details.)
I don't think the authors do a great job surfacing the interesting factoids that I wanted. For example, they compare getting New Horizons to Pluto as like hitting a hole-in-one from Los Angeles to Washington, DC—or some similar utterly nonsensical comparison. What does that even mean? It's *impossible* to hit a hole-in-one at that distance. New Horizons made course corrections the whole way, so maybe a better comparison would be to flying a plane from LA to Washington, DC? I have no idea. The authors could have tried to teach us something, for example, how precise did the initial aiming of the rockets have to be, before going beyond the limits of what could be corrected en route? But instead, they made the lazy and meaningless golf ball comparison. This is just one example, but with more work, and more direct involvement from Stern and, especially, other people on the project, readers could have learned so much more.
Quote, from after the Bush administration tried to cancel the Pluto program: "I was so mad I couldn’t see straight, and I smelled something fishy. If Europa went forward, JPL would be guaranteed to get the work, because that mission had simply been assigned to JPL—without competition—and it was also a far bigger monetary prize than winning Pluto would be. Alan speculated that JPL had worked behind the scenes to persuade the Bush administration more or less to trade the Pluto mission for a new start on Europa. He also believed that JPL had another interest in killing Pluto, because if APL actually won, APL’s hand would forever be strengthened as a powerful competitor in all future outer solar system exploration."
April 29, 2018
As a lifelong space geek, I wanted so badly to absolutely love this book and read about the Pluto mission. However, while the subject was so fantastically interesting, the writing left something to be desired. The first half of the book - before the mission launched into space - reads like just lists of names and job descriptions. And throughout, the switching between third and first person story telling is disjarring, as the layout doesn't always make it clear who talking. It does pick up a lot as the book gets closer to the Pluto flyby and its easy to get caught up in the excitement of mission success - but it wasn't enough to lift the entire book up in rating for me.
Thanks to the publisher for providing an ARC through Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.
Thanks to the publisher for providing an ARC through Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.
July 30, 2021
7/30/21: This book is amazing. The New Horizons mission is amazing. Pluto is amazing! I loved revisiting this memoir. It may be my favorite space book.
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While there were parts that were dry and technical, the whole things was just incredibly awe-inspiring. There's so much information crammed into this book, and that was gathered from this "quick" mission. Pluto is amazing!
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While there were parts that were dry and technical, the whole things was just incredibly awe-inspiring. There's so much information crammed into this book, and that was gathered from this "quick" mission. Pluto is amazing!
September 13, 2019
What a delightful adventure. So many books written about science and technology are dry tomes with little life. The authors of this book made the entire Pluto mission come alive.
What I enjoyed most was the detailed story of the development of the mission, the building of the spacecraft and the design of the mission. From concept to final flyby, the authors take us on an intricate journey through the entire process. The story had nail-biting cliffhangers, jubilant wins and bone-crushing defeats. It’s all in there.
I’ve always wondered how something the size of a small car can cost hundreds of millions of dollars to create. After reading this book, I get it now.
This was one of my favorite books of the year. I feel like I had a front-row seat to the historic discoveries of one of the greatest science adventures of this century.
What I enjoyed most was the detailed story of the development of the mission, the building of the spacecraft and the design of the mission. From concept to final flyby, the authors take us on an intricate journey through the entire process. The story had nail-biting cliffhangers, jubilant wins and bone-crushing defeats. It’s all in there.
I’ve always wondered how something the size of a small car can cost hundreds of millions of dollars to create. After reading this book, I get it now.
This was one of my favorite books of the year. I feel like I had a front-row seat to the historic discoveries of one of the greatest science adventures of this century.
April 24, 2022
This book is about the ‘New Horizons’ mission to Pluto. The book tells the story right from finding Pluto to ‘New Horizons’(1989) flying past on 4th July 2015. This was the first exploration of a ‘planet’ since the Voyager missions were sent to Uranus and Neptune. This was the first time the young generation experienced a planet flyby. The mission was a great public and scientific success, with the mission being streamed across the whole world and scientific discoveries made that have changed our view of Pluto.
I felt the book was paced extremely well, with a consistent level of detail throughout the book. As a full blown space nerd and book lover it is no surprise I have read many space books, but this has to be the best retelling of a mission yet. I often am left wishing the book had even 20 more pages, but here I felt that the page count was just right. We got the amount of detail every space nerds wishes for while not making the book only appeal to a niche market.
I was not aware of ‘New Horizons’ at the time; a factor that didn’t make me feel I enjoyed the book less. In fact, due to this being my first encounter with ‘New Horizions’ and Pluto, I felt like the story was unfolding in my hands.
I also thought it was necessary to point out the undertone of persistence and resilience woven throughout this book. Almost every ‘win’ for the ‘New Horizions’ team resulted in a loss. A particular moment that stood out to me was when the team won the NASA contract , but with a practically impossible set of rules they had to follow. With persistence and resilience the team managed to overcome every single obstacle. If this book has given me one thing, it has to be pure respect for everyone who helped ‘New Horizions’ along the way. The length of time it took to grant ‘New Horizions’ is shocking; but the way it is retold is unrivalled.
It was quite surprising for me how the book touched on Plutos demotion from a planet. I guess I had never questioned about Pluto not being a planet. I grew up with Pluto as a dwarf planet (although I was aware of Pluto as every resource had Pluto listed as a planet). I had always been told “Pluto is too small to be a planet”. So I was shocked when one of the reasons it was a dwarf was ‘so school children don’t have to learn long list of the planets’. After reading this book I am against the current definition of a planet. I was also surprised to discover that the planet definition was made by astronomers not planet scientists. So in short I was quite shocked to hear the IAU’s decision was not logical or scientifically sound.
Overall in my eyes Pluto will now always be a planet. ‘Chasing New Horizions’ beautifully illustrates how Pluto is no longer ‘not yet explored’ and captures the feeling of the mission from start to end. This book is a must read for any one who is even remotely interested in Pluto. I am just so shocked it isn’t more popular. I will now forever cherish Pluto.
I simply cannot fault the book
5/5
I felt the book was paced extremely well, with a consistent level of detail throughout the book. As a full blown space nerd and book lover it is no surprise I have read many space books, but this has to be the best retelling of a mission yet. I often am left wishing the book had even 20 more pages, but here I felt that the page count was just right. We got the amount of detail every space nerds wishes for while not making the book only appeal to a niche market.
I was not aware of ‘New Horizons’ at the time; a factor that didn’t make me feel I enjoyed the book less. In fact, due to this being my first encounter with ‘New Horizions’ and Pluto, I felt like the story was unfolding in my hands.
The ubiquity of New Horizons and Pluto on the web, and the number of people sharing in New Horizons events around the globe, gave this flyby an entirely new kind of feel. The world had changed since Voyager, with so many new forms of communication and participation. Thanks to that, the New Horizons mission felt in many ways like the first truly twenty-first-century planetary encounter. Consider: with Voyager, to participate fully you had to be in just the right place—specifically, at JPL—at just the right time—on flyby day. For New Horizons you didn’t need to be there; the flyby was everywhere simultaneously. The events at APL, the imagery from Pluto—everything that reached Earth—went onto the internet “for all mankind,” as it were.
I also thought it was necessary to point out the undertone of persistence and resilience woven throughout this book. Almost every ‘win’ for the ‘New Horizions’ team resulted in a loss. A particular moment that stood out to me was when the team won the NASA contract , but with a practically impossible set of rules they had to follow. With persistence and resilience the team managed to overcome every single obstacle. If this book has given me one thing, it has to be pure respect for everyone who helped ‘New Horizions’ along the way. The length of time it took to grant ‘New Horizions’ is shocking; but the way it is retold is unrivalled.
It was quite surprising for me how the book touched on Plutos demotion from a planet. I guess I had never questioned about Pluto not being a planet. I grew up with Pluto as a dwarf planet (although I was aware of Pluto as every resource had Pluto listed as a planet). I had always been told “Pluto is too small to be a planet”. So I was shocked when one of the reasons it was a dwarf was ‘so school children don’t have to learn long list of the planets’. After reading this book I am against the current definition of a planet. I was also surprised to discover that the planet definition was made by astronomers not planet scientists. So in short I was quite shocked to hear the IAU’s decision was not logical or scientifically sound.
When word of the astronomers’ vote in Prague reached the New Horizons team, reactions ranged from indifferent (“Who cares what astronomers think? They’re not the experts in this.”), to bemused, to annoyed, to seriously p-d off. As Fran Bagenal succinctly put it, “Dwarf people are people. Dwarf planets are planets. End of argument.
Overall in my eyes Pluto will now always be a planet. ‘Chasing New Horizions’ beautifully illustrates how Pluto is no longer ‘not yet explored’ and captures the feeling of the mission from start to end. This book is a must read for any one who is even remotely interested in Pluto. I am just so shocked it isn’t more popular. I will now forever cherish Pluto.
I simply cannot fault the book
5/5
September 13, 2021
This book gives a behind-the-scenes look at the New Horizons interplanetary space probe: what it took to get it funded, the work necessary to get the public excited about Pluto and the mission, some of the decision-making processes along the way, and more.
I didn't write it down, but I believe the primary narrator for this was David Grinspoon - Alan Stern also narrated a bit, but only small sections. (Or I mixed up the names and it's actually the reverse.) Although the narration wasn't terrible, and definitely communicated how exciting and nerve-wracking this mission was, I found myself wishing that it had been narrated by someone else. It took me longer than it should have to get through this book, two checkout periods, and my slight dislike of the narration was part of the reason why. Grinspoon's voice didn't quite work for me.
Overall, this was a nice overview of the New Horizons mission for someone like myself (enough of an interest in space to have listened to at least one other nonfiction book on the topic, but otherwise not very knowledgeable). I could feel the tension whenever the team ran into problems, and one of my favorite parts was the nerve-wracking bit just before the close flyby at Pluto. I also liked the book's science communication aspects - in order for the project to happen in the first place, a lot of people had to be convinced that it was worth doing, and part of that relied on selling the public on Pluto and its importance. And, same as in Rob Manning and William L. Simon's Mars Rover Curiosity: An Inside Account from Curiosity's Chief Engineer, a large chunk of the book was devoted to efforts to get the mission funded. I wasn't as interested in this, but it was clearly a source of stress and concern for the team.
The narrative could get a bit melodramatic at times, and the authors were fond of Star Wars references. Also, yeesh, there were a lot of bickering scientists. JPL vs. APL and efforts to get approval and funding, and the whole "Pluto isn't a planet" thing brushed off as just one scientist disliking another one enough to want to undo his legacy. Still, this was a decent book, and I definitely learned a few things.
(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)
I didn't write it down, but I believe the primary narrator for this was David Grinspoon - Alan Stern also narrated a bit, but only small sections. (Or I mixed up the names and it's actually the reverse.) Although the narration wasn't terrible, and definitely communicated how exciting and nerve-wracking this mission was, I found myself wishing that it had been narrated by someone else. It took me longer than it should have to get through this book, two checkout periods, and my slight dislike of the narration was part of the reason why. Grinspoon's voice didn't quite work for me.
Overall, this was a nice overview of the New Horizons mission for someone like myself (enough of an interest in space to have listened to at least one other nonfiction book on the topic, but otherwise not very knowledgeable). I could feel the tension whenever the team ran into problems, and one of my favorite parts was the nerve-wracking bit just before the close flyby at Pluto. I also liked the book's science communication aspects - in order for the project to happen in the first place, a lot of people had to be convinced that it was worth doing, and part of that relied on selling the public on Pluto and its importance. And, same as in Rob Manning and William L. Simon's Mars Rover Curiosity: An Inside Account from Curiosity's Chief Engineer, a large chunk of the book was devoted to efforts to get the mission funded. I wasn't as interested in this, but it was clearly a source of stress and concern for the team.
The narrative could get a bit melodramatic at times, and the authors were fond of Star Wars references. Also, yeesh, there were a lot of bickering scientists. JPL vs. APL and efforts to get approval and funding, and the whole "Pluto isn't a planet" thing brushed off as just one scientist disliking another one enough to want to undo his legacy. Still, this was a decent book, and I definitely learned a few things.
(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)
January 23, 2022
Great space science tale about the first mission to Pluto!
Having just recently read The Mission by David W. Brown about the NASA's upcoming Europa Clipper mission, it's impossible to review Chasing New Horizons without a comparison.
- Stern and Grinspoon write in a much flatter, less flashy, and less engaging style than Brown. The writing was still good, but it wasn't great.
- Chasing New Horizons gets big points for being written after the success of the mission to Pluto, whereas Brown's book about Europa Clipper ends after that mission gets concrete approval - no exciting scientific results to share.
- Stern's passion for Pluto and first-hand knowledge and excitement comes across big-time, particularly after the discoveries in the Pluto system.
- Brown's book was a much more in-depth and exciting look at the behind-the-scenes approvals and politics of getting a mission approved (if you're into that sort of thing). Stern and Grinspoon write off some of that political drama in just a sentence or two, saying (in effect) "we called our patron senator, they did some things, and our problem went away!".
Brown's The Mission was the superior book from a writing and narrative perspective, but Stern's love for the Pluto system was contagious and I have a new appreciation for this planet! And I use "planet" deliberately - Stern outlines his objections with the IAU's 2006 re-definition of the term "planet" (summarized on Wikipedia), basically asking why all of these astronomers in the IAU didn't ask planetary scientists for their input on the term.
Having just recently read The Mission by David W. Brown about the NASA's upcoming Europa Clipper mission, it's impossible to review Chasing New Horizons without a comparison.
- Stern and Grinspoon write in a much flatter, less flashy, and less engaging style than Brown. The writing was still good, but it wasn't great.
- Chasing New Horizons gets big points for being written after the success of the mission to Pluto, whereas Brown's book about Europa Clipper ends after that mission gets concrete approval - no exciting scientific results to share.
- Stern's passion for Pluto and first-hand knowledge and excitement comes across big-time, particularly after the discoveries in the Pluto system.
- Brown's book was a much more in-depth and exciting look at the behind-the-scenes approvals and politics of getting a mission approved (if you're into that sort of thing). Stern and Grinspoon write off some of that political drama in just a sentence or two, saying (in effect) "we called our patron senator, they did some things, and our problem went away!".
Brown's The Mission was the superior book from a writing and narrative perspective, but Stern's love for the Pluto system was contagious and I have a new appreciation for this planet! And I use "planet" deliberately - Stern outlines his objections with the IAU's 2006 re-definition of the term "planet" (summarized on Wikipedia), basically asking why all of these astronomers in the IAU didn't ask planetary scientists for their input on the term.
June 20, 2022
This accessible book explains, in easy terms for this non-engineer, non-physics reader, the motivation for the exploration to Pluto and how the project (eventually) got off the ground (literally), the journey of New Horizons (still going: "May 26, 2022: "NASA’s New Horizons mission’s second extended mission... will make distant observations of Uranus and Neptune[,] map the very faint 'cosmic background' in visible and ultraviolet (UV) light [and use] its instruments to understand the motions of charged particles as they interact with the solar wind, and to understand our heliosphere's large-scale structure."") and what its purpose was.
Not an easy road to travel from idea to execution, and a lot to tell without getting into too much detail. Well-told and consistently interesting.
Not an easy road to travel from idea to execution, and a lot to tell without getting into too much detail. Well-told and consistently interesting.
October 18, 2019
Todos aqueles que presenciaram o dia 14 de Julho de 2015, presenciaram "História".
Encerrou-se o capítulo da exploração do nosso sistema solar de uma maneira prodigiosa. De uma conjugação de rigorosos cálculos matemáticos, domínio das mais elementares forças físicas, engenharia e ambição humana, nasceu uma missão fantástica, cujo desfecho tardou.
Este livro aborda detalhadamente o que motivou esta ambiciosa missão, a história de Plutão (que muitos, tristemente, viram ser retirado da categoria de planeta), o espanto que motivou a sua descoberta, e, sobretudo, a certeza de que o sucesso desta missão diz muito sobre a infinita capacidade do ser humano se superar.
Para quem gosta de astronomia e sobretudo de conhecer a história por detrás de cada "membro" do sistema solar, este é o livro ideal. Conjuga interessantes dados científicos e história, com o emotivo testemunho dos mentores deste projecto.
Magnífico. Uma conquista tão importante, que superou a distância e escuridão do "deus dos mortos".
Merecia as estrelas da via láctea (no mínimo) este livro. Vale a pena ler. (Tão épico que já merecia este relato homérico .)
Encerrou-se o capítulo da exploração do nosso sistema solar de uma maneira prodigiosa. De uma conjugação de rigorosos cálculos matemáticos, domínio das mais elementares forças físicas, engenharia e ambição humana, nasceu uma missão fantástica, cujo desfecho tardou.
Este livro aborda detalhadamente o que motivou esta ambiciosa missão, a história de Plutão (que muitos, tristemente, viram ser retirado da categoria de planeta), o espanto que motivou a sua descoberta, e, sobretudo, a certeza de que o sucesso desta missão diz muito sobre a infinita capacidade do ser humano se superar.
Para quem gosta de astronomia e sobretudo de conhecer a história por detrás de cada "membro" do sistema solar, este é o livro ideal. Conjuga interessantes dados científicos e história, com o emotivo testemunho dos mentores deste projecto.
Magnífico. Uma conquista tão importante, que superou a distância e escuridão do "deus dos mortos".
Merecia as estrelas da via láctea (no mínimo) este livro. Vale a pena ler. (Tão épico que já merecia este relato homérico .)
June 22, 2018
One the hottest debates in the space nerd community over the last couple years surrounds the little planet Pluto. Out at the far reaches of our solar system Pluto has only been known to our science since the 1930's when Clyde Tombaugh using math and an analog telescope proved that there was another object out beyond Neptune. Eventually this planet was given the name Pluto, and in recent years it was demoted from Planet to Dwarf Planet. Look I am not a planetary scientist but being small in my opinion should not count against Pluto. Dwarf people are still people. Dwarf planets are planets.
We as a species had not been to Pluto, if you are not as into these things you might wondering why neither Voyager went to Pluto despite going deeper into interstellar space. Voyager 2 was supposed to but the mission was altered to do a pass of Saturn's moon Titan, they just couldn't pass up the amazing science at the mission planner's finger tips. Pluto again got the diss.
In fairness we as a species had not explored Pluto so we didn't know much about it. That was until 2015 and the New Horizons spacecraft. Once human beings sent a space craft called New Horizons we learned a lot so of course it was a no-brainer that we did it right? This book is not just the story of the journey to the planet but the one taken on earth to make it happen.
I know this is not the typical book I review, I mostly review horror novels and science fiction. I was sold to check out this book by the authors when they appeared on one of my favorite podcasts "The Weekly Space Hang-out."
We learned so much about Pluto and the excitement level from space fans and the general public I assumed it was smooth sailing from earth to the millions of miles away in the deep solar system. This book is a fun read because it not only tells you the story of the planet but the mission and the human beings at the center of it.
I am not sure people understand the joy and excitement that mission planners feel at moments like the "Fly-by" or the Phone-home when a hibernating space craft wakes up after months alone in the void, but that is much of what makes this book special. Of course on the surface those things are cool but when you know the struggles it took to launch it makes it all the more intense.
I don't think most outsiders understand the tension involved in launching the spacecraft for example. You have a limited window when the planets line up. You have to hurdle your space craft at the exact right time 30,000 miles an hour into space. Get it wrong and it is for nothing. You also spent millions and millions of dollars to build 1 functioning machine. Spent years building, testing and loading software. No re-do's and not to mention you are putting it on a rocket. This book got the drama of that moment, the dueling proposals and planning right.
Even though I knew they made it to Pluto I shared in the ups and downs as a reader rooting for them. Once the spacecraft got into space the story of the science was compelling. We learned that Pluto has 5 moons, got video of the amazing dance the planet does with it's moon that is almost the same size. Who knew we had a binary planet in our own Solar system? (check out the video below) The topography on Pluto was so much more interesting than we expected. in the end the mission was beyond NASA and the planners wildest expectations and it is still going with another Kieper Belt object getting a fly-by this upcoming New Year's day.
In the end I suggest this book to people interested in space or science. New Horizons is a spacecraft built by human hands that has gone to the farthest depths of our Solar System. This is an amazing achievement and no matter how craft we send out into the solar system we should not lose sight of that. We need to celebrate the success of the mission but also the heart of human determination at the core of it.
We as a species had not been to Pluto, if you are not as into these things you might wondering why neither Voyager went to Pluto despite going deeper into interstellar space. Voyager 2 was supposed to but the mission was altered to do a pass of Saturn's moon Titan, they just couldn't pass up the amazing science at the mission planner's finger tips. Pluto again got the diss.
In fairness we as a species had not explored Pluto so we didn't know much about it. That was until 2015 and the New Horizons spacecraft. Once human beings sent a space craft called New Horizons we learned a lot so of course it was a no-brainer that we did it right? This book is not just the story of the journey to the planet but the one taken on earth to make it happen.
I know this is not the typical book I review, I mostly review horror novels and science fiction. I was sold to check out this book by the authors when they appeared on one of my favorite podcasts "The Weekly Space Hang-out."
We learned so much about Pluto and the excitement level from space fans and the general public I assumed it was smooth sailing from earth to the millions of miles away in the deep solar system. This book is a fun read because it not only tells you the story of the planet but the mission and the human beings at the center of it.
I am not sure people understand the joy and excitement that mission planners feel at moments like the "Fly-by" or the Phone-home when a hibernating space craft wakes up after months alone in the void, but that is much of what makes this book special. Of course on the surface those things are cool but when you know the struggles it took to launch it makes it all the more intense.
I don't think most outsiders understand the tension involved in launching the spacecraft for example. You have a limited window when the planets line up. You have to hurdle your space craft at the exact right time 30,000 miles an hour into space. Get it wrong and it is for nothing. You also spent millions and millions of dollars to build 1 functioning machine. Spent years building, testing and loading software. No re-do's and not to mention you are putting it on a rocket. This book got the drama of that moment, the dueling proposals and planning right.
Even though I knew they made it to Pluto I shared in the ups and downs as a reader rooting for them. Once the spacecraft got into space the story of the science was compelling. We learned that Pluto has 5 moons, got video of the amazing dance the planet does with it's moon that is almost the same size. Who knew we had a binary planet in our own Solar system? (check out the video below) The topography on Pluto was so much more interesting than we expected. in the end the mission was beyond NASA and the planners wildest expectations and it is still going with another Kieper Belt object getting a fly-by this upcoming New Year's day.
In the end I suggest this book to people interested in space or science. New Horizons is a spacecraft built by human hands that has gone to the farthest depths of our Solar System. This is an amazing achievement and no matter how craft we send out into the solar system we should not lose sight of that. We need to celebrate the success of the mission but also the heart of human determination at the core of it.
January 2, 2019
Narrative about the challenges and great success of the first mission to Pluto. I learned a lot and enjoyed hearing the whole story. In an amazing coincidence, I finished reading it right as the spacecraft passed its next target, Ultima Thule, on New Year's Eve! (I promise I did not plan that)
I'm definitely rounding up here, I would have liked more detail in many areas and was a little disappointed in certain parts, but in general it was good. It must be very hard to write these kinds of stories, and especially to make them really engaging and interesting, and this one didn't quite meet that bar. But it was written by the project leader, so it gets away with it.
I'm definitely rounding up here, I would have liked more detail in many areas and was a little disappointed in certain parts, but in general it was good. It must be very hard to write these kinds of stories, and especially to make them really engaging and interesting, and this one didn't quite meet that bar. But it was written by the project leader, so it gets away with it.
January 1, 2022
This is a book about the seemingly endless pitfalls and obstacles that come about when planning, building, and executing a fly-by mission into the outer reaches of our solar system. This is really a story about human beings and the politics of NASA missions. There was a great deal of name dropping and bureaucratic troubles. You can tell that Alan Stern had a good relationship with the co-author, as there was a great deal of back-patting and fawning over Mr. Stern's efforts. While not incorrect, they were distracting. I wish there was more discussion on planetary geology. They left this to a three page appendix, and I wish they had elaborated much more. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in NASA missions and how they come to pass despite significant obstacles, but not to someone who wants to learn about Pluto.
August 16, 2023
This was an incredibly inspiring and interesting look into what it takes for a project like this to come together.
September 25, 2021
I found this to be a fantastic, riveting, page-turner of a book and I think even a casual fan of science would enjoy this. The book was co-authored by David Grinspoon and Alan Stern. David Grinspoon is a space exploration advisor at NASA and Alan Stern is a planetary scientist among other things, and was the head of the New Horizons mission. Grinspoon does most of the writing and notes in the preface that this is largely the story as seen through Stern's eyes supplemented by the voices of a number of other key players. I heard Grinspoon talk about this book with Neil DeGrasse Tyson on Neil's podcast. The paper book I own has two inserts full of images from the beginning of the mission to the actual photos taken by New Horizons as it flew by Pluto.
Chasing New Horizons is the decades long story of the first mission to Pluto which culminated with a flyby of the dwarf planet, its moons, and other Kuiper Belt objects in July 2015. I remember seeing the photos beamed back to Earth from the farthest reaches of the solar system - they were incredibly detailed and we learned that Pluto and Charon (actually a binary system) had very diverse landscapes, were still geologically active, and were the home to organic molecules. Pluto even has a significant atmosphere. Who knew that these two objects at the edge of our solar system would be so interesting to study?
About half of the book is dedicated to Stern's sixteen year struggle starting in 1989 to get a Pluto exploratory mission approved, funded, and spacecraft built. His teams endured set back after set back as funds were cut, the project was scrapped more than once, new Presidents came in with budget changes, and new technologies came along. The second half of the book focuses more on the mission itself as we follow the spacecraft from its delivery to Cape Canaveral and launch to Pluto. At the time of its launch it was the fastest spacecraft ever, recently beaten out by the Parker Solar Probe, taking only nine hours to get to the Moon compared to three days for Apollo! New Horizons leadership also honored Pluto's discover, the late Clyde Tombaugh, and his family in a really neat which I had no idea of and you'll discover in the book.
The mission to Pluto and the flyby were the most interesting parts of the book to me. There were some scary situations that popped up and a critical issue late in the mission which forced many on the team to literally move in to their headquarters and work around the clock. It was a nine year trip to Pluto so a lot could go wrong. In the end, New Horizons turned out to be an unmitigated success. What an amazing technological achievement to launch a spacecraft from Earth and hitting its mark perfectly after 9.5 years - the spacecraft is now almost five billion miles from us.
Chasing New Horizons is the decades long story of the first mission to Pluto which culminated with a flyby of the dwarf planet, its moons, and other Kuiper Belt objects in July 2015. I remember seeing the photos beamed back to Earth from the farthest reaches of the solar system - they were incredibly detailed and we learned that Pluto and Charon (actually a binary system) had very diverse landscapes, were still geologically active, and were the home to organic molecules. Pluto even has a significant atmosphere. Who knew that these two objects at the edge of our solar system would be so interesting to study?
About half of the book is dedicated to Stern's sixteen year struggle starting in 1989 to get a Pluto exploratory mission approved, funded, and spacecraft built. His teams endured set back after set back as funds were cut, the project was scrapped more than once, new Presidents came in with budget changes, and new technologies came along. The second half of the book focuses more on the mission itself as we follow the spacecraft from its delivery to Cape Canaveral and launch to Pluto. At the time of its launch it was the fastest spacecraft ever, recently beaten out by the Parker Solar Probe, taking only nine hours to get to the Moon compared to three days for Apollo! New Horizons leadership also honored Pluto's discover, the late Clyde Tombaugh, and his family in a really neat which I had no idea of and you'll discover in the book.
The mission to Pluto and the flyby were the most interesting parts of the book to me. There were some scary situations that popped up and a critical issue late in the mission which forced many on the team to literally move in to their headquarters and work around the clock. It was a nine year trip to Pluto so a lot could go wrong. In the end, New Horizons turned out to be an unmitigated success. What an amazing technological achievement to launch a spacecraft from Earth and hitting its mark perfectly after 9.5 years - the spacecraft is now almost five billion miles from us.
December 30, 2020
I really enjoyed this book. I want to start off with that, because the next thing to say is that this isn't a book about Pluto, despite the cover. Pluto is the goal, but not the subject. Instead, this book is about the painstaking, nerve-wracking, soul-crushing work it takes to get a successful space mission off the ground. I've been reading and watching documentaries lately about the various exploratory probes sent to all corners of the solar system. None have been quite so nail-biting as the story of New Horizons.
New Horizons had everything going against it - dismissal by the scientific community, political roadblocks, countless changes in NASA and presidential administrations, and goalposts that kept getting moved around ad nauseum. Decades of proposals, thumbs-up and thumbs-down on go-aheads for the mission, backroom backstabbing by JPL itself (who come across as the bad guys for part of the book), and then - and then - mission control loses contact with the probe three days before the flyby, all because of a "blue screen of death" that occurs 4.5 light-hours away.
All ends well, of course, as you can see from the pretty pictures. Even though the analysis of the science done at Pluto is barely glanced over the book, it is still well worth the read just to see "how the sausage is made" and how dedicated some folks have to be to expand our knowledge of the solar system we call home. New Horizons' payoff of discoveries is the icing on the cake.
New Horizons had everything going against it - dismissal by the scientific community, political roadblocks, countless changes in NASA and presidential administrations, and goalposts that kept getting moved around ad nauseum. Decades of proposals, thumbs-up and thumbs-down on go-aheads for the mission, backroom backstabbing by JPL itself (who come across as the bad guys for part of the book), and then - and then - mission control loses contact with the probe three days before the flyby, all because of a "blue screen of death" that occurs 4.5 light-hours away.
All ends well, of course, as you can see from the pretty pictures. Even though the analysis of the science done at Pluto is barely glanced over the book, it is still well worth the read just to see "how the sausage is made" and how dedicated some folks have to be to expand our knowledge of the solar system we call home. New Horizons' payoff of discoveries is the icing on the cake.
May 14, 2022
I absolutely loved this book. Although I love nonfiction about astrophysics or space exploration, at the beginning, I wasn't too excited to read (actually, listen to this book, since I borrowed the audiobook from my library). I thought that a 9 hour audiobook about a mission to Pluto would be a bit tedious and full of boring technical jargon. Boy, was I ever wrong!
This was a brilliantly written story about the greatest space exploration project ever. It was fascinating, entertaining and mind-blowing. The book written from Alan Stern's (a principle director of the Pluto project) perspective and it made me feel like I was part of the New Horizons team. My favourite part of the book was the first half where the author talks about the bureaucratic nightmare the project had to live through before the spacecraft was launched in 2006. It was so interesting to learn how NASA approves projects and see all the behind the scene cut throat politics. So get your popcorn ready!
This was a brilliantly written story about the greatest space exploration project ever. It was fascinating, entertaining and mind-blowing. The book written from Alan Stern's (a principle director of the Pluto project) perspective and it made me feel like I was part of the New Horizons team. My favourite part of the book was the first half where the author talks about the bureaucratic nightmare the project had to live through before the spacecraft was launched in 2006. It was so interesting to learn how NASA approves projects and see all the behind the scene cut throat politics. So get your popcorn ready!
June 30, 2018
It's an amazing story that was quite gripping at times, and I recommend the book. The audiobook narrator (one of the authors) is horrendous and they should have gotten a pro reader. It works best if you can play it at 1.25X speed. Alan, the mission PI, is a little too egotistical, sentimental, and superstitious, but maybe that's the kind of guy who pushes a mission forward until completion for 26 years.
September 23, 2018
New Horizons is a space probe launched by NASA in 2006. Its mission was to perform a fly-by of Pluto nine years later, with the primary objective of:
• Characterizing the geology and morphology of Pluto and its moon Charon
• Mapping the chemical compositions of Pluto and Charon surfaces
• Characterizing the atmosphere of Pluto
The mission was roughly modeled on the Voyager program and billed as an exploration of the final planet of our solar system (an irony given that Pluto was later downgraded to ‘dwarf planet’ status while the spacecraft was in transit … but more on this later). By any measure, the mission was an unqualified success and brought back such stunning images as the one above. New Horizons will continue to function until at least 2021 and will study other Kuiper belt objects, including a close fly-by of one called (486958) 2014 MU69 (PT1) scheduled for 1/1/2019.
As to the book, if your goal was to learn more about Pluto and other Kuiper belt objects, then it's rather a waste of time. If, on the other hand, your goal is to learn more about the vagaries of NASA funding, the lives of engineering nerds, the effect that presidential administrations have on funding and mission prioritization, the intersection of space science and public relations, and the minute day-to-day activities involved with designing, planning, testing and re-testing a robotic mission to space … then this is the book for you (in which case you were probably one of the roughly 2,500 people involved in the New Horizons project since no-one in their right mind finds the lives of engineers particularly interesting … and I say that with confidence as, you guessed it, an engineer).
In case you were wondering about the book’s dual authorship, Alan Stern led the New Horizons mission, while David Grinspoon (an astrobiologist who works with NASA) wrote the book based, in large part, on Stern’s account.
Grinspoon does a serviceable job with the text, and tries to generate a sense of drama and tension as various problems arose with the spacecraft. But, I felt this largely fell flat due to his dry and not particularly inspiring prose. I also thought his choosing to focus on the aggrandizement of Stern (and his team) was an odd literary decision given that, as a publically financed science project, the focus should have been on the science. The sugary self-congratulatory tone that permeates the book didn’t exactly set my teeth on edge, but may have been enough to exacerbate tooth decay.
Finally, both Grinspoon and Stern not only disagree with Pluto’s reclassification as a dwarf planet by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in 2006, but as a willful form of protest (or something), persistently refer to it as a 'planet' throughout the text. This is another example of the hubris that permeates the book. Because Stern believes that Pluto is all about himself, he clearly sees the IAU decision as a personal insult that somehow diminishes the achievement of New Horizons. To add to the absurdity, Stern goes so far as to believe that every spherical moon in our solar system should also be considered a planet, which gives you a sense of both his ego and the lengths to which he’s willing to go to save his precious Pluto from demotion.
To be brief, I’ll just say this … scientists classify things in certain ways, not because bright lines always exist between objects or ideas, but to highlight similarities and differences and to foster cogent ways of thinking so that they can be better understood. Pluto has little in common with the inner rocky planets or outer gas giants. But it has much in common with other trans-Neptunian objects (of which there are more than 2,300, Pluto being only the 2nd largest) and Kuiper belt objects (of which there are more than 100,000). From the standpoint of classification, Pluto has much more in common with these latter objects than with the other 8 planets (however, because Stern and others got their panties in such a twist, the IAU came up with the term ‘dwarf planet’ as a mild concession to their tender feelings). If you want a better understanding of this subject I recommend Mike Brown’s book How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming.
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