An award-winning Cornell astronomer traces the story of the men and women behind the Voyager spacecraft mission to share insight into their motivations, describe the human artifacts the first spacecraft contains and discuss the mission's potential. By the author of Postcards From Mars.

Examines humankind's changing awareness of its place in the universe and the rich potential of human ventures into the world beyond Earth

"What if you could become God, with the ability to build a whole new universe in the lab? As startling as it sounds, modern physics suggests that within the next two decades, scientists may be able to perform this seemingly divine feat--to concoct an entirely new baby universe, complete with its own physical laws, star systems, galaxies, and even intelligent life. To create your own cosmos, you would need a particle accelerator, such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva or one of the proposed next-generation colliders, a lot of physics know-how, and a bit of luck. A Big Bang in a Little Room will take the reader on a journey through the history of cosmology and unravel--particle-by-particle, theory-by-theory, and experiment-by-experiment--the ideas behind this provocative claim made by some of the most-respected physicists alive today. Beyond simply explaining the science, A Big Bang in a Little Room will also tell the story of the people who have been plugging away for more than thirty years to make this seemingly impossible dream a reality, pushing the boundaries of our understanding of the cosmos and our place in it as humans. A Big Bang in a Little Room will examine their extravagant plans, which include current and future space missions, accelerator runs, and table-top lab experiments to search for evidence supporting their ideas In the process, the book will ask deep philosophical questions about what it means for us, as humans, to begin to contemplate creating a new universe. Remarkable inits originality and ambition, A Big Bang in a Little Room is the ideal read for anyone seeking to understand the making of our universe--as well as the others just waiting to be created"--

A renowned particle physicist draws on original research into dark matter to illuminate the surprising connections between deep space and life on Earth.

The story of the men and women who drove the Voyager spacecraft mission— told by a scientist who was there from the beginning. The Voyager spacecraft are our farthest-flung emissaries—11.3 billion miles away from the crew who built and still operate them, decades since their launch. Voyager 1 left the solar system in 2012; its sister craft, Voyager 2, will do so in 2015. The fantastic journey began in 1977, before the first episode ofCosmos aired. The mission was planned as a grand tour beyond the moon; beyond Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn; and maybe even into interstellar space. The fact that it actually happened makes this humanity’s greatest space mission. In The Interstellar Age, award-winning planetary scientist Jim Bell reveals what drove and continues to drive the members of this extraordinary team, including Ed Stone,Voyager’s chief scientist and the one-time head of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab; Charley Kohlhase, an orbital dynamics engineer who helped to design many of the critical slingshot maneuvers around planets that enabled theVoyagers to travel so far; and the geologist whose Earth-bound experience would prove of little help in interpreting the strange new landscapes revealed in theVoyagers’ astoundingly clear images of moons and planets. Speeding through space at a mind-bending eleven miles a second, Voyager 1 is now beyond our solar system's planets. It carries with it artifacts of human civilization. By the time Voyager passes its first star in about 40,000 years, the gold record on the spacecraft, containing various music and images including Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode,

A collection of photographs and essays celebrate the people and places involved in American space exploration, including the astronauts, technicians, administrators, engineers, and ground crews at three NASA flight centers.

The moments of grandeur and weakness, the aspirations, and the problems of America's test pilots and first astronauts are revealed in an exploration of the dimensions of their inner lives in space and on the earth. Reprint. 25,000 first printing.

From the author of Dreams of Iron and Steel comes a fascinating account of the competition between the Americans and Soviets for control of outer space, focusing on two brilliant and ambitious scientists--Wernher von Braun and Sergei Korolev--who fueled it. Reprint.

The astrophysicist director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York, as well as the host of the re-launched series Cosmos discusses the future of space travel and the importance of its exploration for the United States' economy, security and morale. 30,000 first printing.

Recounts the story of the fifty-year-search by top scientists for the "missing" planet Vulcan and Albert Einstein's remarkable proof of the Theory of Relativity, a theory that ended the search for the hypothetical planet.