Ambassadors from Earth: Pioneering Explorations with Unmanned Spacecraft

by Jay Gallentine

Rewind to the 1950s and ponder: was America’s first satellite really built by a college student? How did a small band of underappreciated Russian engineers get pictures of the moon’s far side—using stolen American film?

As the 1960s progressed, consider: how the heck did people learn to steer a spacecraft using nothing but gravity? And just how were humans able to goose a spaceship through a thirty-year journey to the literal edge of our solar system? 

Ambassadors from Earth relates the story of the first unmanned space probes and planetary explorers—from the Sputnik and Explorer satellites launched in the late 1950s to the thrilling interstellar Voyager missions of the '70s—that yielded some of the most celebrated successes and spectacular failures of the space age. Keep in mind that our first mad scrambles to reach orbit, the moon, and the planets were littered with enough histrionics and cliffhanging turmoil to rival the most far-out sci-fi film. Utilizing original interviews with key players, bolstered by never-before-seen photographs, journal excerpts, and primary source documents, Jay Gallentine delivers a quirky and unforgettable look at the lives and legacy of the Americans and Soviets who conceived, built, and guided those unmanned missions to the planets and beyond. Of special note is his in-depth interview with James Van Allen, the discoverer of the rings of planetary radiation that now bear his name. 
Ambassadors from Earth is an engaging bumper-car ride through a fog of head-banging uncertainty, bleeding-edge technology, personality clashes, organizational frustrations, brutal schedules, and the occasional bright spot. Confessed one participant, “We were making it up as we went along.”

Genres: Space, History, Science, Audiobook, Nonfiction

522 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2009

About the author

Historian Jay Gallentine has a reputation for stripping away technobabble to focus on the human stories of space exploration. His casual and irreverent writing style renders a topic accessible and enjoyable, while retaining accuracy worthy of a reference tome.

Jay’s first book, "Ambassadors from Earth," detailing the turbulent early days of solar system exploration, received the 2009 Eugene M. Emme Award for Astronautical Literature.

Jay's second book is "Infinity Beckoned." In the same lighthearted and non-technical fashion, readers will learn brand-new stories about such topics as looking for life on Mars with the 1976 Viking landers, and the top-secret town in Crimea used to control Soviet moon rovers.

Jay's third book, "Born to Explore," examines the life of JPL's John Casani in context with the problem-plagued Galileo mission to Jupiter.

Reviews

[Grumpus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not for everyone, but if you have an interest in the space programs of the US and USSR/Russia, this is essentially a biography of them. I found it interesting, not exciting.

I'm glad I listened but wouldn't recommend unless you have a high interest.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an amazing read. The Voyager missions are gone into in great detail, and it follows the passage of time.

[kris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ambassadors from Earth covers (approximately) the earliest attempts to stick stuff other than explosives to rockets in the late 1950s through the final photograph of Triton received from the Voyager 2 probe in 1989. Included is the early space race, with focus on Sergei Pavlovich "SP" Korolev, head designer of the USSR's space program, intercut with America's Explorer and failed Ranger probes. And rounding out the beast is the The Grand Tour: a cosmic alignment of planets that would allow a singular probe to make it from Jupiter to Saturn to Uranus to Neptune using gravity assists to ping-pong its way out to the far edges of the solar system.

1. This was interesting but flawed. Gallentine is very interested in the people behind the science but doesn't do a great job in presenting their narratives in a way that balance the facts of what happened (or did not happen) against the humanity of it all. For example, more time is spent on the machinations around Korolev than on the specifics of his actual launches and achievements—they're often sidelined in favor of interpersonal drama and politics. Same so with the American Ranger debacle: more attention is spent on the dramatic foreshadowing of Burke's firing than on the mechanics and lessons learned from the missions themselves.

It's really frustrating to have to have to reference additional materials in order to maintain an understanding of the world these individuals were operating in.

2. My frustrations with #1 also include a side-effect of Gallentine's attachment to individuals, which is that he drops entire threads of stuff when the people he's focused on drop out of the story. The most blatant example of this surrounds Korolev's death: after he passed unexpectedly in 1966, there is no further attention paid to the USSR's probes or missions. It's just ... lazy, and incomplete, and annoying.

3. I also don't understand why some unmanned missions are mostly ignored or sidelined? What about Galileo? Why is only one of the FIVE Lunar Orbiters mentioned in any detail? Why do the fabulously flawed Ranger probes get chapters of attention, but the Pioneer missions are mostly skipped over?

Oh, I know: the ~drama. Sigh.

4. Another review mentioned Gallentine's odd adjectives and I concur: there are some weird ones in here.

5. Ultimately, interesting as a tangent about a specific subset of a very interesting topic. Not one I'd recommend as a starter text for people looking for an introduction about unmanned spacecraft missions, but rather as an additional icing flower for the polished cake of knowledge.

(I don't have odd adjectives: just odd metaphors, it's true.)

[Skywatcher · Rating 3 out of 5]

An excellent and fascinating subject - plenty of interesting detail on Korolev, Van Allen, the JPL team, etc., and the earliest unmanned space probe programs.
Main flaws are the relentless folksy style, and odd adjective usages.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

A magnificent book about the history of unmanned space probes, focusing heavily on early Soviet launches of Sputnik and Luna, followed by a lengthy history of the Voyager flights. With much in between and using interviews extensively, this is an eye-opening book. I was always fascinated by the Voyager, Cassini, and Galileo probes, but this book added to my understanding of the complexities, the trials, the tribulations, and ultimate successes.

[Andrew Liptak · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting material, but unreadable. The author here manages a very casual style of writing that was just too distracting to read and out of place for the series thus far.

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've read and reviewed a lot of these volumes from the Outward Odyssey over the last few years, and they're consistently of top quality, excellent histories of different aspects of space exploration backed by penetrating and often untold stories of the men and women involved, on the American and Soviet side, which is refreshing.
However in this volume the focus on personnel does not work in the book's favor, since the actual science achieved by programs like Luna, Mariner, Venera, Pioneer and, yes, goddammit, Voyager is endlessly fascinating, far more fascinating than much of the stories of the folks involved in the program, unfortunately. And yes, their stories are important, too, but if you'd rather read about what Voyagers did in the outer solar system and their discoveries instead of intra-office bitching over math problems, you'll want to look elsewhere.
As always the Soviet focus really shines here since that's a part of space exploration you really get a feel for. There's whole swathes of sections on S.P. Korolev and all the initial Russian leaps after Sputnik. Once the Voyager program kicks in, the Soviet focus fades away, and completely ignores achievements like Venera 13 landing on Venus and sending back the first photos from the surface of another world.
On the American side, a neat introductory part about James Van Allen and his work swiftly devolves into name after name of official and scientist doing thing after thing in place after place. As I already mentioned, Voyager gets zero focus on results and, shockingly Viking is barely mentioned at all. You get the drift...well written from one perspective, that weighs down the entire work to the neglect of the fascinating bits.

[Grant · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gallentine captures the human stories behind the technology that gave us knowledge of our solar system. Chronologically, the story covers Sputnik to Voyager with Cassini and Galileo as a sort of afterword. The style is engaging and readable. Gallentine makes excellent use of interviews and recollections to bring the voices of the participants into the story. (One might wish for more on the Soviet side, but the sources are the sources.) He is particularly strong on the disputed "invention" of gravity propulsion for deep space probes.

[R.J. Southworth · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent reference on the often overlooked unmanned American and Soviet space programs, and the people involved. The author uses a surprisingly casual and expressive style rather than a straightforward narrative, which I liked for the most part, even if he gets a little too into the metaphors occasionally.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written (and read? I listened to the audiobook) to be a little too sensational for me. Also rather hard to follow the people and events.