Asif A. Siddiqi - Beyond Earth: A Chronicle of Deep Space Exploration

J anuary 31, 1958 marked a significant beginning for space exploration. More than the historic and successful launch of Explorer 1, the first U.S. satellite, it was the beginning of an unprecedented era of exploration and understanding of our own planet and the distant worlds beyond. The more we uncover about the mysteries and beauty of space, the more we are inspired to go farther. Yet, with all we have learned, we still cannot even imagine what future generations will find.

Spacecraft from NASA and others have shown us the intricacies within clouds and terrain of distant planets that were only a dot in an astronomers telescope a few decades ago. We have seen the birth of stars, black holes, and found exoplanets orbiting stars in systems remarkably similar to ours. Future missions will take us forward in history, as we seek to uncover the very origins of our universe.

We may not know precisely whator whowe will find out there, but we can be sure that space exploration will continue to surprise and inspire us, as it did for those who came before and those who will follow. Along the way there will be missteps, some more devastating than others. That is the price of doing whats never been done beforea price that sometimes is tragically paid at the highest cost by the courageous. But like those early days of the space program, we are as motivated to succeed by the missions that do not make it as those that do. And we learn from them, coming back stronger and smarter.

In this book, the history of NASAs six decades of exploration beyond Earth and its Moon to other planets and their moons is laid out. The story follows spacecraft to the Sun, comets, minor and dwarf planets and, ultimately, beyond our solar system. As we marvel at the ingenuity of the early pioneers of the Space Age, we realize how much they achieved with what, comparatively, was so little. Computers were human, and when the machines did take over calculations, they also took up entire rooms with processing capability less than smartphones in your pockets today.

Yet some of NASAs greatest achievements took place during this period: Mariner IV, which took the first pictures of the surface of Mars in 1965; the global view of Mars from Mariner 9 in 1971; and the Viking landers of the 1970s, which executed the first planetary soft-landings of American spacecraft. The crowning achievements of Americas mid-century robotic space exploration were the Pioneer and Voyager missions which were sent to the far boundaries of our solar system using early 1970s technology. As this is being written, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 continue to send us data from beyond the outer planets from the boundary region of the Suns sphere of influence, the heliosphere. But space does not belong to the United States alone. We have evolved from the earliest days of the Space Race, when being first brought serious geopolitical consequences, to our current era of international partnerships that have taken us farther together than we could have gone alone.

In the modern era of exploration, which itself will look outdated in a generation, we have discovered the extraordinary rings and moons of Saturn with NASAs Cassini spacecraft and the Huygens lander built by the European Space Agency. We marvel at images of the swirling storms on Jupiter sent back to Earth by our Juno mission. And we constantly find new science from the Curiosity rover thats been trekking across the surface of Mars for more than five years.

Our robotic emissaries have made tremendous journeys over the past six decades. They carry the vision and inspiration of humankind beyond our physical ability to make the tripyet. This book celebrates the extraordinary men and women who have looked up and wondered whats out there and then found the answer. In only 60 years, our technology has evolved from a simple, modified Geiger counter launched into Earth orbit to sublime technologies sending full-color, high-resolution images and data from the edge of the universe. The next 60 should be exponentially rewarding.

Dr. Thomas H. Zurbuchen

NASA Associate Administrator at Science Mission Directorate