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Mark Wolverton
Joseph Henry Press
Washington, D.C.
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Joseph Henry Press · 500 Fifth Street, NW · Washington, DC 20001
The Joseph Henry Press, an imprint of the National Academies Press, was created
with the goal of making books on science, technology, and health more widely
available to professionals and the public. Joseph Henry was one of the founders of
the National Academy of Sciences and a leader in early American science.
Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this volume
are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National
Academy of Sciences or its affiliated institutions.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wolverton, Mark.
The depths of space : the Pioneer planetary probes / Mark Wolverton.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-309-09050-4 (hardcover)
1. Pioneer Project. 2. Jupiter probes. 3. Jupiter (Planet)--
Exploration. 4. Space flight to Jupiter. I. Title.
QB661.W75 2004
629.43'54--dc22
2004003501
All photos are reprinted courtesy of NASA, except for the photo on page 186, which
is reprinted courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech.
Copyright 2004 by Mark Wolverton. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
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To my mother and father, who made my own journeys possible
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Contents
Foreword ix
By James A. Van Allen
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction--Message in a Bottle 1
1 Embarkation 7
2 Reaching into the Void 19
3 Something Man Has Never Done Before 40
4 The Sole Selection 52
5 Countdown and Controversy 71
6 Spring at the Cape 84
vii
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viii CONTENTS
7 Twelve Generations from Galileo 100
8 Filling in the Gaps 120
9 A Jewel in the Night 138
10 Planet of Clouds 159
11 Whispers Across the Abyss 179
12 Lone Survivor 202
Notes 227
Bibliography 237
Index 241
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Foreword
T his book is a tale of human achievement--indomitable, per-
haps heroic--at the boundary between the possible and the
impossible. It carries the reader along with the gusto and
fascination of a good novel. But it is not fiction. On the contrary, it is
based on the author's exhaustive winnowing of primary documents
and recorded interviews with numerous participants in the legend-
ary sequence of NASAs Pioneer space missions that began in the early
'
1960s. It is an intensely human story centered on the extraordinary
professional qualities of the project's gifted and dedicated space sci-
entists and engineers, particularly its long-term leader, project man-
ager Charles F. Hall. The author gives special emphasis to the far
ranging missions of Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 to the planets Jupiter
and Saturn and the outer reaches of the solar system. Even the par-
ticipants (like me) will find here a fresh perspective on the process of
scientific discovery at the frontiers of human knowledge. As a reader,
one has the hopeful expectation that these little spacecraft will sur-
vive impending perils, but can scarcely wait to find out how.
The science that came out of the Pioneer's missions was both
ix
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x FOREWORD
voluminous and groundbreaking, and resulted in over 500 original
research papers. All of them share the dry (some say stodgy) imper-
sonal style considered proper for professional exposition. But Mark
Wolverton, a seasoned journalist, does not labor under such a con-
straint. He breathes life into the daily interplay of strong-minded in-
dividuals and governmental organizations, the politics and the
judgment calls, the drama and the excitement of doing something for
the first time, the rigors of meeting the inexorable schedule of plan-
etary motion, the bugaboos of cost overruns and unexpected techni-
cal failures of inanimate equipment. It's all there in Wolverton's lively
and perceptive words.
This is a book for anyone who seeks the vicarious experience of
what it takes to pull off a space mission that has no precedent in
human experience. Even though I knew much of the content from
personal experience, I read every word in two 3-hour sessions, with a
break for lunch, and I gained a fresh appreciation of why I have
devoted my professional life to the exploration of outer space.
It's a good read, dramatic and authentic, with an engaging sense
of movement and a merciful lack of tedious detail.
James A. Van Allen
University of Iowa
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Acknowledgments
W hen I began studying the Pioneer project while on a
science history fellowship at NASA Ames Research
Center in the summer of 1999, I had no greater am-
bitions than doing an article or two. Certainly, I harbored no inten-
tion of writing an entire book on the subject. But as I met and talked
at length with many of the people who had worked on Pioneer, two
things became clear: first, there was much more of a story here than
I'd imagined; and second, the achievements of Pioneer and its people
had been all but forgotten, not just by the public but to a great degree
within NASA itself. And the Pioneer veterans were keenly aware of
the way in which the project had become a mere footnote in the his-
tory of space exploration. More than one interview I conducted ended
with my interviewee expressing a wistful hope that "somebody would
do a book about all this someday."
"Someday" came sooner than I expected, and I found myself us-
ing the several articles on Pioneer that I'd published in various maga-
zines as a starting point for this book. Not only had I uncovered too
much information that seemed to be largely ignored, I heard too
xi
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xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
many stories that I thought should be told, beginning with the expe-
riences and reminiscences of those who worked on the project. Those
constitute the heart of this book. Without exception, I found the Pio-
neer veterans to be generous with their time and their memories. My
sincere thanks goes to all whom I had the privilege to meet and inter-
view: Eric Burgess, Ricardo Campo, Jack Dyer, Alfred Eggers, Richard
Fimmel, Tom Gehrels, Bob Jackson, Larry Lasher, Dave Lozier, Frank
B. McDonald, Bruce McKibben, Bernard J. O'Brien, Robert Ryan,
Robert Soberman, Anthony Tuzzolino, and Fred Wirth.
I also relied heavily on primary source material, much of it in the
John Simpson papers in the Special Collections Department of the
University of Chicago's Regenstein Library, where Jay Satterfield and
the rest of the staff cheerfully indulged my endless requests for more
boxes to search through and more copies to take home. Librarian
Dan Pappas provided similar assistance in my perusal of the Ames
History Collection in the center's library archives. Lynn Albaugh and
John Bluck of Ames helped obtain illustrations. TRW press officer
Brooks McKinney provided useful materials and led me to project
personnel from the TRW side of the fence. Don Hunten, Richard
Fimmel, Larry Lasher, Dave Lozier, Norman Ness, and Edward J.
Smith reviewed the manuscript and offered invaluable comments and
corrections. My thanks to all.
I am especially indebted to Pioneer principal investigators James
Van Allen and John Simpson. As the founding father of American
space science, Dr. Van Allen provided his unique perspective on
Pioneer's history, and contributed the foreword.
The late Dr. Simpson was my initial guide to the history of Pio-
neer and was the first person to suggest to me the notion of doing a
book on the subject. In a real sense, he can be considered the godfa-
ther of this book.
Thanks are also due to my agent, Michael Psaltis, for believing in
and championing this project from the beginning; my perspicacious
and patient editor, Jeffrey Robbins; production editor Dick Morris;
and all at Joseph Henry Press.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xiii
Anne Burri Osterman, Glenn E. Bugos, Jeff Harris, Kristina
Finan, Denise Shubin, Leila Monaghan, Judy Weightman, Nancy
Shepherdson, Mechthild Hart, Christie Henry, Jodi Weisberg, and
Cheryl Wilmeth all provided this author with indispensable support
in both tangible and intangible ways. My family is an inexhaustible
source of encouragement and enthusiasm both for my work and in
my life.
Ames historian Glenn Bugos and I conducted what unfortunately
turned out to be Charlie Hall's last interview, only weeks before his
passing in 1999. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have had
the opportunity to meet this extraordinary man, and can only hope
that I've done him and the rest of the Pioneer team justice in these
pages.
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To unpathed waters, undreamed shores.
--William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale, Act iv, Scene 4
Cannot you see how that little argosy will go glittering up into the
sky, twinkling and glittering smaller and smaller, until the blue swal-
lows it up. . . . It is as if a great window opened.
--H.G. Wells, The World Set Free
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