Voyager's Grand Tour: To the Outer Planets and Beyond (Smithsonian History of Aviation and Spaceflight Series)

A rare planetary alignment, a visionary team, and two space probes transform our knowledge of the solar system Every 176 years, Earth and the outer planets gather on one side of the sun, allowing close observation in a single flight, or Grand Tour. To exploit this alignment, the Voyager team developed the so-called gravity assist that essentially sling-shot Voyager I and II from planet to planet. Since their 1977 launch, the probes have discovered strange new worlds and transmitted streams of revolutionary data and eye-popping images that have exploded long-held theories and raised new questions about our solar system.

With unfettered access to NASA archives and imagery, and interviews with Voyager scientists and engineers, Dethloff and Schorn have produced the only comprehensive account of one of man’s foremost scientific and engineering achievements. Readers are invited into Voyager’s inner circle, conceiving, launching, and directing the craft as it discovers rings around Jupiter, geysers on Triton, and intriguing possibilities of extraterrestrial life.

Beyond all expectations Voyager is still transmitting 7 billion miles away as it continues out of our solar system into interstellar space, sparking the imagination of a new generation of space visionaries and enthusiasts.