Born to Explore

Jay Gallentine is an award-winning space historian from Minnesota. He is the author of Ambassadors from Earth: Pioneering Explorations with Unmanned Spacecraft (Nebraska, 2014), winner of the Eugene M. Emme Award for astronautical literature, and Infinity Beckoned: Adventuring Through the Inner Solar System, 1969–1989 (Nebraska, 2015), which examines the first intensive reconnaissance of the inner solar system.

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgements  1. The Falsest of All2. Intermarriage3. No Plan, No Mentor, No Guidance4. The Kind of Person We Need5. The Chair Dares6. Misdirection at the Brigadoon7. Short-Sighted and Penny-Foolish8. Spin-Up, Dual-Spin, De-Spun9. What the Pork Chops Said10. Dawn Chorus11. A World With No Corners12. Very Rad Hard13. Mind the Gap14. I Have a Goat15. S-TOUR16. Ten Years, Three Months, and Two Days17. Throwing Shade18. Not-So-Tasty Rib Tips19. Ground Truth20. The Least Unacceptable Solution21. Saving the Appearances22. Wiggly-Line Science23. Separation Anxiety24. A Man for Others25. All Things Go26. An Endless Pursuit of Wonder27. Grab On  Sources

“A journey into the life of a man who made the impossible possible. Tasked with exploring the depths of the solar system with little precedent or guidance, NASA’s John Casani faced overwhelming technical, financial, and scientific challenges – yet his relentless drive led to some of the most historic missions ever undertaken. We’re where we are today because Casani worked in a ‘room without corners,’ and I hope readers will come to appreciate him in the same way I now do.”—Beth Mund, executive director of Stories of Space and host of the podcast Casual Space “It was a joy discovering this book. It’s an incredible read. . . . I loved learning the pieces of the story I didn’t know.”—David Hitt, coauthor of Bold They Rise: The Space Shuttle Early Years, 1972–1986 “There’s an excellent chance that John Casani is your favorite engineer’s favorite engineer, and the delightfully engaging Born to Explore makes clear why he merits so much adulation: Without his genius for solving the American space program’s thorniest problems, we’d know far less about our fascinating little corner of the Milky Way. Jay Gallentine does a brilliant job of exploring how Casani’s innate curiosity and agile mind drove him.”—Brendan I. Koerner, contributing editor at Wired and author of The Skies Belong to Us “Entrust yourself to the guiding hand of Jay Gallentine, who with Born to Explore charts another parabolic trajectory into the dark reaches of space, investigating the all-too-earthly reasoning behind the daring and dubious decisions to orbit celestial bodies and plumb galactic realms beyond.”—Don Wildman, host of Travel Channel’s Mysteries at the Museum and host of the podcast American History Hit