Five billion years ago, a starship passing through our region of space would not have slowed down for a second look. There was nothing to see. No Earth, no sun, no solar system. Nothing but a huge tenuous cloud of gas.
Now, as the result of billions of years of evolution, and centuries of scientific research, we can chart our way through the solar system . . . with Sally Ride as our navigator. Starting from the sun and working outward, Sally Ride and Tam O’Shaughnessy take readers on a tour of the nine planets and explain the formation, current conditions, and possibility of life on each.
Filled with crisp, full-color photographs and lucid prose, this comprehensive volume untangles the complexities of space and allows readers to feel like masters of the universe.
Dr. Sally Kristen Ride (May 26, 1951–July 23, 2012) was an American astronaut and physicist. Born in Los Angeles, she joined NASA in 1978 and became the first American woman in space in 1983. Ride was the third woman in space overall, after USSR cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova (1963) and Svetlana Savitskaya (1982). Ride remains the youngest American astronaut to have traveled to space, having done so at the age of 32. After flying twice on the Orbiter Challenger, she left NASA in 1987.
Ride worked for two years at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Arms Control, then at the University of California, San Diego as a professor of physics, primarily researching nonlinear optics and Thomson scattering. She served on the committees that investigated the Challenger and Columbia Space Shuttle disasters, the only person to participate in both. Ride died of pancreatic cancer on July 23, 2012.
Realization: Space might not be my thing. Sally Ride did a good job of making astronomy understandable, for children & for people like me who aren't science-y. But I ended up being a bit bored by this book. This is a moment where I think it might have been me & not the book. The book is easy to get through & easy to understand. It's a great introduction to our solar system for those who are not scientific, as well as children.