This is no ordinary space book.
Within the pages of this eclectic pop-history, scientist and educator
Sten Odenwald at NASA examines 100 objects that forever altered what we
know and how we think about the cosmos. From Sputnik to Skylab and
Galileo's telescope to the Curiosity rover, some objects are iconic
and some obscure--but all are utterly important.
- The Nebra sky disk (1600 BCE) features the first realistic
depiction of the Sun, Moon, and stars.
- The Lunar Laser Ranging RetroReflector finally showed us how far
we are from the Moon in 1969.
- In 1986, it was the humble, rubber O-ring that doomed the space
shuttle Challenger.
- The Event Horizon Telescope gave us our first glimpse of a black
hole in 2019.
These 100 objects, as Odenwald puts it, showcase "the workhorse tools
and game-changing technologies that have altered the course of space
history . . . the tools and devices that, taken together, represent the
major scientific discoveries--and celebrate the human ingenuity--of
space technology, showing the ways physics and engineering have brought
about our greatest leaps in understanding the way our universe works. .
. . They make it clear that we have made giant strides in our quest to
search ever more deeply into the farthest reaches of the universe--and
behind each new discovery is an object that expands our appreciation of
space as well as the boundless imagination and resourcefulness we carry
within us."
