If you've got even moderate interest in the history of humanity's space exploration, get ready for a fantastic flight. Jay Gallentine, a film and video professional in Minneapolis, Minnesota, has produced what might just be the definitive history, "Ambassadors From Earth: Pioneering Explorations with Unmanned Spacecraft." From the earliest days, both in the USSR and the US, Gallentine traces the history of space exploration in great detail, scientist by scientist, development by development, scientific decision by political decision. And of course, failure after failure after smashing success.

When you read that description, you may think such a book would be kind of dull history, simply recounting events, dates, and names. But you couldn’t be more mistaken. Yes, Gallentine researched all those things to within an inch of their lives, interviewing countless participants, reading reports and mountains of documents, collecting photographs (some never seen before), and so on. So all the important details are here. But with his casual, conversational style and keen storytelling ability, he brings everything to life as an absolutely riveting tale.

Starting with James Van Allen’s discovery of the earth's radiation belts, then backtracking to the first development of rockets by Germany, the Soviet Union, and the United States during World War Two, the tale initially breaks into two main branches, following teams of scientists in the USSR and the US as they race to find ways of getting a satellite into space, followed by a living being. Much of the American history is well-known if you look in the right places, but Gallentine presents information from the Soviet side that nobody on this side of the Iron Curtain has known before. The book would be worth reading for that alone.

Yet even on "this side," the public never knew the hair-tearing frustrations so many scientists lived with as they wrestled to get rockets off the ground, then were requited to deal with budgets, radiation, fuel loads, and how to fit cameras and experimental equipment into the smallest space possible that would still let them work optimally. Nor did most of us know how about the behind-the-scenes political work, either struggling to get politicians on their side or, sometimes worse, having them on their side and then having to live up to impossible demands and deadlines. (Khrushchev wants a six-month already-impossible satellite schedule moved up three months to coincide with a significant Soviet anniversary? No problem!)

Occasionally Gallentine’s style gets just a bit too "gosh darnit" for comfort. But those brief moments are quickly forgotten as he sweeps into the next big development, and then the casual style puts you right in the moment. As an example, take this description of the discussions about whether a ship like Voyager could even get through the asteroid belt:

"Only three years beforehand some of the greatest minds in planetary science had locked themselves in rooms and sweatily banged their fists on the table and decidedly proclaimed that it couldn’t be done. PhD’s hung in the room like cigarette smoke. With neckties loosened and veins popping, the researchers tore into their paperwork and flip charts and frenetically squabbled. Papers flew. Nobody stopped talking. They drank gallons of coffee, hurled brimstone and lightning bolts, and preached sermons of destruction."

Gallentine brings the main characters in the space race vividly to life, putting you on the edge of your seat as the story progresses, even though you already know how it turned out. And as he reaches the crescendo of the story, the brilliant performance of the two Voyager spacecraft in exploring the outer planets, you can hardly breathe as you wait with the scientists in heart-stopping suspense to see whether the cameras and instruments that worked so well at Jupiter would perform more wonders as they approached Saturn...then Uranus...then Neptune...

If you love the idea of space exploration, and have any interest in how the human race started with missiles and ended up going to the Moon and extending its consciousness into the farthest reaches of the solar system, you will want to read this book. ( )