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My mother read this to me while we were living on a farm in southwestern Wisconsin, where this book is set, which made the stories even more important to me.
A wonderful bedtime story for any child longing to see the natural world at night.
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Kraemer, the former director of NASA's plantary exploration program, has an easy-reading style, but he doesn't skimp on details. The book is well-organized, discussing each probe and its history in turn. He also provides diagrams and charts, including one very striking and effective 'balanced approach' chart that all program managers should study and modify for their own use. The center section of the hardcover version also includes some beautiful color plates of some of the planets and their moons.
This book will give you an appreciation of the extreme technical, social and political difficulties that need to be overcome to study our solar system in depth. If you liked Donna Shirley's "Managing Martians," you'll like this book as well.
The book is divided into chapters covering each planetary or solar probe and also includes an introductory and closing chapter. Each chapter presents the organization of the spacecraft management team, the determination the science objects, hardware development problems, the budget (and sometimes budget problems), the problems encountered from launch to the arrival, and finally a summary of the important discoveries of each planetary encounter. Each chapter also presents a detailed drawing or two of the spacecraft and a few photographs. Detailed findings from each mission are presented, since these would be books in themselves.
One of the most interesting chapters covers the joint German-US solar probe Helios. This was the first major joint space project. This spacecraft orbited the sun at a distance of less than 30 million miles, which closer to the sun than the planet Mercury and returned valuable data on the nature of the sun.
While I found all the chapters in this book very interesting, I think the final chapter of the book was by far and away the best. The author summarizes what he learned over his many years in the upper management of NASA and his dealings with Congress. In this position, he learned two things. 1) Do not let politics dictate technical decisions and, 2) Do not lie to Congress. These are two concepts that our current NASA administrator should embrace. If he did, I believe more of our country's space projects would funded and succeed.
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Bloch is a craftsman of the highest order; it's amazing to see how stories written when he was barely out of his teens still compare favorably to ones written late in his career. He was a massive talent.
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This book is an example of publishing excellence! It is highly informative, wonderfully laid out, and beautifully illustrated. I found the catalogue of seals and sealing, which often included photographs and clear renderings, to be absolutely fascinating, something I have not seen anywhere else. So, if you are interested in ancient Dilmun, or even Mesopotamia, then you must get this book! I give it my highest rating.
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I have started re-reading it about once a year now. [up to this point the only other book i have ever bothered to reread was Catch 22]
This is one of those books that you will end up buying copies of in multiples!.
This is because you will find yourself loaning your copy to a friend and never getting it back again. [i have personally gone through 4 copies this way -- no joke -- not to mention the copies i have given away as gifts]
The back jacket of this book does not do it justice.
It is more about the people that Robert Johnson met while staying in his teepee. They are the most interesting bunch or romantic outcast criminal philosophers who are brought together by living in the wilderness. Some are there to escape the law, some are there to find gold, and others are their to find themselves.
I have never read a book like this before, but it is hard to describe. Not to sound cheesy, but it is entertaining and inspiring.
ENTERTAINING: in its characters and crazy stories. While this is a true memoir, it is so entertaining it could be pure fiction [but it is not]
INSPIRING: in that if you have ever wanted to do something unique you will soon be inspired to do it. And to quote the book "Completion is vital."
If you do not read any other books this year, read this one.
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