NASA's Pioneer and Voyager Missions: The History and Legacy of the First Space Probes to Explore the Outer Solar System and Beyond
Written by Charles River Editors
Narrated by Bill Hare
4.5/5
()
About this audiobook
Although Apollo 11’s successful mission to the Moon is seen as the culmination of the Space Race, and the Apollo program remains NASA’s most famous, one of the space agency’s most successful endeavors came a few years later. In fact, the Pioneer program was the most diversified sequence of any of NASA’s programs, and though they’re now remembered for being among the first probes in history to reach the Outer Solar System, the elaborate planning changed goals several times over several years before resulting in historic successes. NASA had wanted to do a Grand Tour of the Solar System toward the end of the 1970s to take advantage of the scheduled alignment of planets, which meant the Pioneer missions were meant to be test runs prior to the main events (Voyager 1 and Voyager 2), and a great many things discovered by Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 were essential to the successful planning of the Voyager probes.
In 1977, the Voyager spacecraft were launched from Earth to explore the outer Solar System, and incredibly, the now-ancient technology from the 1970s is still working, sending daily reports back to the planet that sent the two robotic envoys on their way over 40 years ago. Voyager 1 and 2 have done far more than accomplish their original missions. In fact, they are now exploring interstellar space, far beyond the outer planets in the cold wasteland between the stars. Each spacecraft carries a copy of a golden record which contains an introduction to Earth, should some alien civilization happen to encounter either Voyager 1 or Voyager 2. In the first Star Trek movie, writers imagined just that, creating a story of a Voyager spacecraft being captured and adapted for its own uses.
More audiobooks from Charles River Editors
Gnosticism: The History and Legacy of the Mysterious Ancient Religion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The East India Company: The History of the British Empire's Most Famous Mercantile Company Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rape of Nanking: The History and Legacy of the Notorious Massacre during the Second Sino-Japanese War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ur: The History and Legacy of the Ancient Sumerian Capital Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Project MK-Ultra: The History of the CIA’s Controversial Human Experimentation Program Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nineveh: The History and Legacy of the Ancient Assyrian Capital Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Legends of the West: Deadwood, South Dakota Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Arnold Rothstein and Meyer Lansky: The Lives and Legacies of the Gangsters Who Reformed Organized Crime in America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMysteries of the South: Ghosts, Legends, and Unexplained Phenomena in Dixie Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mossad: The History and Legacy of Israel’s National Intelligence Agency Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5J. Robert Oppenheimer: The Life and Legacy of the Father of the Atomic Bomb Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Life and Trial of Lizzie Borden: The History of 19th Century America's Most Famous Murder Case Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung: The Pioneering Lives and Works of History’s Most Influential Psychologists Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Battle of Hamburger Hill: The History and Legacy of One of the Vietnam War's Most Controversial Battles Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mysterious Midwest: Mysteries, Legends, and Unexplained Phenomena in America's Heartland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Denisovans: The History of the Extinct Archaic Humans Who Spread Across Asia during the Paleolithic Era Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to NASA's Pioneer and Voyager Missions
Related audiobooks
Reaching for the Moon: Short History of the Space Race Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Moon Shot: The Inside Story of America's Apollo Moon Landings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Space 2069: After Apollo: Back to the Moon, to Mars, and Beyond Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5NPR American Chronicles: Exploring Space Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsApollo 13 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Surveyor Program: The History and Legacy of NASA’s First Successful Moon Landing Missions Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Astronaut Maker: How One Mysterious Engineer Ran Human Spaceflight for a Generation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Viking Program: The History and Legacy of NASA's First Missions to Mars Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Voyager Program: The History and Legacy of NASA's First Probes that Traveled to the Outer Solar System Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Disaster Strikes!: The Most Dangerous Space Missions of All Time Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Search for Life on Mars: The Greatest Scientific Detective Story of All Time Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Apollo in the Age of Aquarius Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Discovering Mars: A History of Observation and Exploration of the Red Planet Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMissions to Mars: A New Era of Rover and Spacecraft Discovery on the Red Planet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Across the Airless Wilds: The Lunar Rover and the Triumph of the Final Moon Landings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5No Shadow of a Doubt: The 1919 Eclipse That Confirmed Einstein's Theory of Relativity Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Chasing Heisenberg: The Race for the Atom Bomb Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5American Moonshot Young Readers' Edition: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Rocket Age: The Race to the Moon and What It Took to Get There Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsApollo 11: An AP Special Anniversary Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFive Billion Years of Solitude: The Search for Life Among the Stars Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5North Pole, South Pole: The Epic Quest to Solve the Great Mystery of Earth's Magnetism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Little Book of Exoplanets Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How We'll Live on Mars Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Bomb and America's Missile Age Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe New Guys: The Historic Class of Astronauts That Broke Barriers and Changed the Face of Space Travel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
United States History For You
The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the Witches: The Horror of Salem, Massachusetts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The House of Hidden Meanings: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the Guys Who Killed the Guy Who Killed Lincoln: A Nutty Story About Edwin Booth and Boston Corbett Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ghosts of Honolulu: A Japanese Spy, A Japanese American Spy Hunter, and the Untold Story of Pearl Harbor Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Untold History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Waco: David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and A Legacy of Rage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cuba (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize): An American History Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Wright Brothers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Land of Delusion: Out on the edge with the crackpots and conspiracy-mongers remaking our shared reality Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Up From Slavery Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Valiant Women: The Extraordinary American Servicewomen Who Helped Win World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lies My Teacher Told Me: 2nd Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51776 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government's Search for Alien Life Here—and Out There Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for NASA's Pioneer and Voyager Missions
2 ratings0 reviews