Books by Rod Pyle

Interplanetary Robots

True Stories of Space Exploration

2019 Tigard 629.4354

• https://www.pylebooks.com/

• Editor-in-chief Ad Astra Magazine

Mostly about probes from JPL, with a focus on the Curiosity lander, and press coverage from JPL.

• p32 Early plans, Air Force detonate a-bomb above Moon.
• p48 CIA examines Luna 3 probe duplicate overnight during tur of the US

• p51-56 Ranger, p56-59 1966-7 Lunar orbiters 1-5, 99% map of moon, 1500 tape reels at National Archives enhanced digital images

• p61-63 Lunar Flashlight look for water

• p65-77 1965 July 15 - Mariner 4 Mars flyby

• p83-88 Surveyor 6 on Moon

• p89-92 1970 Lunokhod 1 and 1973 Lunokhod 2

• p105-118 mismanaged Voyager Mars, grew huge, cancelled
• p119-142 Viking

• p143-145 MOXIE Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment on 2020 rover, electrolyze CO2 to CO and O2, 10 to 22 grams per hour, 300W

• p147-167, Mariner 2, Venera 7-14, hypothetical Apollo-derived flyby, hypothetical AREE lander

• p171-171 1966 JPL Gary Flandro grand tour

• p183-220 Voyagers 1 and 2 Project Manager John Casani, JPL Chief Engineer

• p221-223 Project Longshot hypothetical fission/fusion to orbit Alpha Centauri B after 100 years
• p225-233 Soviet Mars 2 orbiter, lander failures, hypothetical Mars 5M sample-return lander

• p235-237 Chapter 28 - Flux pinning rendezvous for Mars samples ... seems silly

• p239-241 Centaur Hydrogen-cryofueled upper stage in Shuttle bay, John Young called it the "Death Star"
• p242 Solid Inertial Upper Stage IUS.
• p242-245 Re-plannings of Galileo and two cross country trips wore out lubricant on retaining pins, antenna deployment failed
• p252-265 Low gain antenna and reprogramming, imaged Gaspra asteroid, Shoemaker-Levy 9, Jupiter Red Spot, Europa

• p267 Inflatable Antennas JPL, hypothetical

• p276 Cassini rto Saturn

• p291-293 Huygens drop probe to Titan, p299-302 X37-B to Titan?

• p303-313 Mars 2020

• p317 ESA ExoMars

• p321 Double Asteroid Redirection Test DART

Space 2.0

True Stories of Space Exploration

2019 Beaverton 629.4 PYL

Beautifully illustrated, flashy writing, sometimes at the expense of accuracy, some POMA numbers.

• p83 Caption Fail: "The Van Allen belts are Earth's first line of defense against space radiation. They extend out to about 36,000 miles (no, the magnetic field weakened by particle flux is the defense)

• p90 Radiation shielding: electric field negative charge ... no, that accelerates protons which are more penetrating. Magnetic field, plasma? Neither can possibly be dense enough to shield a small habitat
• p97 Virgin Galactic rocketplane Unity, carrier plane Eve
• p97 Yuri Night started by Loretta and George Whitesides in 2000. "... 35 events in 57 countries..." no, 567 events in 75 countries.
• p118 2014 lawsuit for access to National Security Launches, Musk contended ULA $500M, ULA claimed $200M, AF says $423M by 2021 if monopoly had continued
• p128 Falcon 9 costs $60M now, eventually single-digit millions, fuel is $200,000
• p129 BFR called "Super Heavy" in late 2018, 2x Saturn V thrust, BFS is now Starship, equivalent volume to Airbus A380

• p129 Starship for Yusaku Maezawa plus crew and 8 artists

• p130 1600 to 4425 broadband satellites, 200 mile altitude

• p131 OneWeb 650 satellites

• p145 ULA ACES Advanced Cryogenic Evolved Stage leave in orbit, refuel for other missions

• p154 Sea launch 32 launches (Zenit-3SL) NanoRacks . Chad Anderson / Space Angels, Steve Jurvetson

• p186 Federation Soyuz replacement

• p186 Roscosmos budget $20B per decade. one tenth of NASA

• p198 National Space Council... Scott Pace American exceptualism, anti-China

• p219 2015 Commerical Space Launch Competitiveness Act, establishes space mining rights
• p227 Impact of 1.3 billion tonne half-mile-wide asteroid, 140 foot tsunami, "All Pacific islands and many miles of coastal regions scoured clean" ... uh, most Pacific islands are mountains much taller than 140 feet

  • 1989 : http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1989PASP..101..500V

  • 2013 : https://www.astronomynotes.com/solfluf/s5.htm

• p228 DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) impact 530 foot Didymoon orbiting 65803 Didymos at 13,500 mph, shift orbit 1%, launch June 2021

• p230 Russian ICBM targeting Apophis in 2036

• p239 Mars 2020 rover MOXIE oxygen extraction

• p242 Gateway space station in lunar orbit

• p243 Mars lava tube??? Marius Hills cave NASA paper