Whilst
having a little time-out from
working my way through the
'Astronomy for GCSE' book I came
across a copy of Space 2069 by David
Whitehouse, all about 'After Apollo:
back to the Moon, to Mars, and
beyond'.
It was a nice (and relatively quick)
read. I found particular interest in
reading about the various probes we
have launched into space. While the
vastness of space itself can
certainly be mind-boggling, the
number of probes we have launched
(and the billions spent) is also,
and while this book documents many
of the missions and presents them as
the author's easy-to-follow
narrative, it's not an encyclopedia.
For that, there is perhaps [this
page on Wikipedia] which
provides various lists along with
small thumbnail images which can be
clicked on for more information.
I
would like to bring together here a
combination of the two; a collection
of probes of interest (to me at
least) in a visually-interesting
manner (larger pictures); a number
of probes I recalled from my
childhood when I heard about such
missions, and beyond, from the Mars
rovers of the 1990s/2000s to the
comet-visiting Rosetta probe and
Philae lander. |