Chasing New Horizons

Starred review from April 2, 2018
Stern, the leader of the NASA mission to send the first probe to Pluto, and astrobiologist Grinspoon (Earth in Human Hands), who played a small part in the project, manage to make its many technical and bureaucratic roadblocks into a thrilling narrative, despite readers’ awareness of their ultimate success. The science involved in sending the spacecraft, New Horizons, over three billion miles from earth is certainly impressive, representing over two decades of work by a legion of devoted scientists. Their diligence and creativity paid off spectacularly when, in 2015, New Horizons flew by Pluto at 32,000 miles per hour and transmitted spectacular images back to Earth, reawakening a dormant public fascination with space exploration and dramatically increasing scientific knowledge. Stern’s hands-on and passionate involvement with the project from its inception enables him to make potentially dull material—seeking committee approvals, battling for funding, and managing relationships with superiors—as interesting as the science, and he provides a valuable perspective on the practical aspects of getting a venture like this off the ground. This is a future classic of popular science, full of twists and turns and unexpected heroes (a teenager’s passion for Pluto helped influence NASA administrators at a crucial moment), with a dramatic and profound payoff.

May 1, 2018

Like NASA's Pioneer and Voyager missions before, the New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt made the dream of exploring the outer reaches of the solar system a reality. Stern (planetary scientist; Pluto and Charon: Ice Worlds on the Ragged Edge of the Solar System), along with Grinspoon (astrophysicist; Earth in Human Hands: Shaping Our Planet's Future), recounts the story of the quest to study Pluto, from the planet's discovery in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh to the visit in 2015 by NASA spacecraft New Horizons. Stern, who aspired to be a space scientist as a child, led the struggle to bring Pluto to the forefront of space exploration. Working with the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and NASA, Stern and his team braved funding cuts, political fights, and bureaucratic red tape to plan, design, build, and fly the Pluto-bound spaceship. Interspersed among the scientific and engineering details of the mission are moving stories, such as Pluto discoverer Tombaugh's widow giving Stern some of the astronomer's ashes to put aboard the spacecraft. Stern also shares the emotional impact the endeavor had on himself and his colleagues. VERDICT Armchair space explorers and budding scientists will relish this inspiring aerospace adventure.--Donna Marie Smith, Palm Beach Cty. Lib. Syst., FL

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

An exploration of the fascinating science and complex bureaucracy behind the first journey to Pluto.Stern, the principal investigator and project leader of NASA's New Horizons program, and astrobiologist Grinspoon (Earth in Human Hands: Shaping Our Planet's Future, 2016, etc.) deliver a meticulously detailed, riveting chronicle of America's history-making mission to Pluto, escorting readers through the immense hurdles and hard work involved in the landmark mission. The authors first trace the history of solar system explorations like those conducted by Voyager 2 in the 1980s and contrast those ventures to the Pluto project and the myriad challenges scientists faced when embarking on that inaugural mission to enter its atmosphere. Though backed by legions of "Plutophiles" and motivated by the discovery of the Kuiper Belt ring where Pluto is located, the project became shrouded in doubt, pessimism, and red tape, all leading up to the mission's epic launch. In 2015, despite software timing glitches, the fly-by happened at 31,000 miles per hour. The New Horizons probe approached Pluto and snapped photographs and collected data, breaking new ground in American aerospace ventures while reinvigorating widespread public fascination with interstellar travel. The book is helmed by two dynamic narrators who had compared notes via an extended series of weekly telephone conversations; their expertise and undeniable passion for aeronautics remain contagious throughout all of the episodes of frustration and triumphant exhilaration. The authors skillfully capture the hopes and dreams of a team of enterprising scientists and engineers and incorporate fascinating details from the spacecraft's construction and its intricate calculations as well as all of the political melodrama of advisory committees and staunch supporters surrounding the journey. Stern and Grinspoon's record of this epic project is thoroughly captivating; as a bonus for die-hard space buffs, the authors include an appendix that lists the top 10 scientific discoveries from the New Horizons Pluto mission.Suffused with serpentine theatrics and scientific wonder, this is a consistently compelling, top-notch documentation of intrepid planetary exploration.

COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. (Online Review)