TOPS (Thermoelectric Outer Planets Spacecraft), 241–243
Turtle, Elizabeth “Zibi,” 323
2001: A Space Odyssey (film & book), 27–28, 371, 382–383, 384–385
2010: Odyssey Two (Clarke), 28–29, 371
Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens (Kant), 372
Unmasking Europa (Greenberg), 399n23
Uranus, 21, 108
Vance, Steve, 382
Vanderbilt Planetarium, 4, 6–7
Vane, Gregg, 164–165
Venus, 42–43, 54, 131, 257, 389
Venus Orbiting Imaging Radar (VOIR), 54
Viking Fund, 55, 59–60, 407–408n80
Viking program, 5, 55, 58–59, 63, 178–179, 242
Vision for Space Exploration, 300
VOIR (Venus Orbiting Imaging Radar), 54
von Braun, Wernher
Das Marsprojekt, 55–56
Mars plans by, 56–57, 440n389
National Space Institute founded by, 290, 291
rocket designs by, 30, 312
as rocket scientist, 141
Voyager program
Bagenal and, 101
funding, 61
as large strategic mission successes, 97–98, 243–244
Sagan and, 53
voyages of, 53–54, 108–109
Waite, Hunter, 93
Wallace, David, 319
Webb, James, 342
Weber, Mary Ellen, 296
Weiler, Ed
background, 75–89
Decadal Survey and, 83–85, 252–253, 269
management style of, 197, 269–275
as NASA’s head of science, 75, 80–82, 200–202
on project costs, 163, 190
Wheeler, Tom, 298–299
Wolf, Frank, 357–358
Women in Planetary Science, 227, 335
Wood, J. W., 395–396n14
Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial? (Consolmagno & Mueller), 401–402n32
Young, Mabel, 383
Photo Section
Europa, the icy moon of Jupiter.
NASA / JPL-CALTECH / SETI INSTITUTE
Robert Pappalardo, Louise Prockter, Geoff Collins, Aileen Yingst, and Jiganesh Patel at a Galileo press conference at Brown University.
BROWN UNIVERSITY / SANDIPAN BAGCHI COURTESY OF ROBERT PAPPALARDO
Carl Pilcher, Ronald Greeley, Clark Chapman, Gerhard Neukum, Richard Greenberg, and Richard French study planetary images while planning for the Galileo mission, 1979.
AMERICAN ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY / DAVE MORRISON
The spacecraft Galileo, seen from the window of the space shuttle Atlantis as it begins to deploy for Jupiter.
NASA / JOHNSON SPACE CENTER
Rep. John Culberson at JPL for a Europa mission brainstorming session.
NASA / JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
Susan Niebur seated at her desk at NASA headquarters.
CURT NIEBUR
Launch of the spacecraft Cassini on October 15, 2007.
NASA / JPL / KENNEDY SPACE CENTER
Curt Niebur discusses Europa at a NASA press conference.
NASA / AUBREY GEMIGNANI
Karla Clark talks with NASA administrator Charles Bolden about the Europa mission. Astrobiologist Kevin Hand and study lead Robert Pappalardo look on.
NASA / JPL-CALTECH / THOM WYNNE
Jim Green, director of NASA’s planetary science division, at a Cassini press conference at Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
NASA / JOEL KOWSKY
Alan Stern, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate, discussing the NASA budget in 2007.
NASA / AMES RESEARCH CENTER
Todd May, manager of the Space Launch System rocket, and later the director of Marshall Space Flight Center, takes questions from the audience during a NASA center meeting.
NASA / EMMETT GIVEN
Sunlight glinting off of Titan’s north polar seas.
NASA / JPL-CALTECH / UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA / UNIVERSITY OF IDAHO
Edward Weiler, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate, discussing images from the Hubble Space Telescope at NASA headquarters in 2009.
NASA / BILL INGALLS
NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver shakes hands with President Barack Obama at NASA Kennedy Space Center.
NASA / BILL INGALLS
An early Europa mission schedule, sketched by Curt Niebur on a cocktail napkin during the planning for the Quad Studies.
CURT NIEBUR
An artist’s rendering of Cassini observing a sunset through Titan’s atmosphere.
NASA / JPL-CALTECH
(Above and below) Steven Squyres presents the 2013 planetary science decadal survey at the 42nd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, dooming NASA to another thirty years of Mars flagships.
UNIVERSITIES SPACE RESEARCH ASSOCIATION / LUNAR AND PLANETARY INSTITUTE
Dave Senske and Robert Pappalardo lay out the Jupiter Europa Orbiter science team report in 2010.
L. M. PROCKTER
Tom Gavin and Robert Pappalardo seated in the audience of the Ganymede orbiter presentation to European scientists in Paris, 2011.
L. M. PROCKTER
Rep. John Culberson speaks at a NASA budget hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives.
NASA / AUBREY GEMIGNANI
Princess-Who-Can-Defend-Herself.
CURT NIEBUR
A concept image of the Europa Clipper spacecraft.
NASA / JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
Robert Pappalardo poses in front of the famed photo of William H. Pickering, James A. Van Allen and Wernher von Braun lifting Explorer 1, the first American spacecraft to orbit the Earth.
NASA / DUTCH SLAGER
Louise Prockter receiving the Masursky Award for meritorious service to planetary science, presented by the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences.
HENRY THROOP
A photo of the Europa Project Science Group at their first meeting at Jet Propulsion Laboratory on August 10, 2015.
NASA / JPL-CALTECH / THOM WYNNE
About the Author
DAVID W. BROWN is a freelance writer whose nonfiction appears frequently in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and the New York Times. His work can also be found in Scientific American, Vox, and Smithsonian. He is an Antarctic expeditioner, an endurance runner, a former U.S. Army paratrooper, and a veteran of Afghanistan. He is a graduate of Louisiana State University and holds a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from the University of Arkansas at Monticello. The Mission is his fourth book. Brown lives in New Orleans, Louisiana.
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Copyright
THE MISSION. Copyright © 2021 by David W. Brown. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
Cover design by Owen Corrigan
Cover photograph © SCIEPRO/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Getty Images
PHOTOGRAPH © NASA / JPL-Caltech / SETI Institute (title page)
Digital Edition JANUARY 2021 ISBN: 978-0-06-265587-5
Version 11202020
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-265442-7
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