posted 01-18-2015 09:44 PM               

And Colin: thanks for the mention! Indeed, the book has officially entered "production", meaning that it's no longer a question of "acquisition" but one of publishing. So the title will definitely come out.

I will be trying to set up at least one event in the L.A. area where both Bobak and I can be on hand. And there will definitely be a release party in the Minneapolis area.

I'll be in touch!

posted 02-19-2015 08:27 PM               

"Infinity Beckoned: Adventuring Through the Inner Solar System, 1969-1989"

posted 04-14-2015 05:00 PM               

Infinity Beckoned illuminates a critical period of space history when humans dared an expansive leap into the inner solar system. With an irreverent and engaging style, Jay Gallentine conveys the trials and triumphs of the people on the ground who conceived and engineered the missions that put robotic spacecraft on the heavenly bodies nearest our own. These dedicated space pioneers include such individuals as Soviet Russia’s director of planetary missions, who hated his job but kept at it for fifteen years, enduring a paranoid bureaucracy where even the copy machines were strictly regulated.

Based on numerous interviews, Gallentine delivers a rich variety of stories involving the men and women, American and Russian, responsible for such groundbreaking endeavors as the Mars Viking missions of the 1970s and the Soviet Venera flights to Venus in the 1980s. From the dreamers responsible for the Venus landing who discovered that dropping down through heavy clouds of sulfuric acid and 900-degree heat was best accomplished by surfing to the five-man teams puppeteering the Soviet moon rovers from a top-secret, off-the-map town without a name, the people who come to life in these pages persevered in often trying, thankless circumstances. Their legacy is our better understanding of our own planet and our place in the cosmos.

• Hardcover: 504 pages
  
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press (January 1, 2016)
  
• ISBN-10: 0803234465
  
• ISBN-13: 978-0803234468

posted 12-05-2015 09:52 AM               

I love your style and eye for detail and narrative — but also, your ability to bring great, important stories out of the shadows and into the light. Congratulations!

posted 12-13-2015 11:35 AM               

There are two book release parties coming up which everyone is invited to.

The first will be on Saturday, Jan. 30, 2016 from 3-6pm at Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena, CA. Foreword writer Bobak Ferdowsi will be in attendance, and I'm trying to round up as many personalities from the book as I can.

The second party is on Saturday, Feb. 27, 2016 from 1-4pm at the Barnes & Noble Galleria store in Edina, MN. Bobak will NOT be at this one. Neither will any of the book personalities.

posted 01-20-2016 04:11 PM               

Thank you so much for your interest in my research.

posted 02-11-2016 07:43 PM               

I can also say with confidence that there are fascinating photos in this book that you haven't seen elsewhere.

posted 04-30-2016 05:50 AM            

First, the research that has gone into this book is obviously extremely detailed, especially on the Soviet stories. This book is a worthy follow-on to Ambassadors. Thankfully, somebody has captured these stories while the main players are still alive.

A couple of tips for those planning on reading the book: you need to concentrate and devote your full attention to the story lines when reading this book. Do not make the mistake I did of picking it up, reading a few pages and putting it down again. It becomes very hard to follow if you do that, not helped by the sometimes colloquial, conversation writing style. That writing style worked very well in Ambassadors; less so with Infinity because of the added complexity of some of the subject matter. So this book needs to be read in large slabs.

A major theme running through the book is the life science experiment program onboard Viking. This is obviously an extremely technical subject matter, and the results of the experiments were inconclusive and subject to interpretation by different program scientists who had experiments onboard. By including Viking in the book, Jay had no choice but to tackle the monumental task of simplifying this very complex subject. Although (by and large) this has been done well, I still found it hard to follow especially when split across a number of non-sequential chapters. So pay particular attention this when reading this part of the book; you may find yourself flipping back to earlier pages to recall details that become relevant in later chapters.

Another major story is the Lunakhod program. This is covered really really well, not only by describing the highly-secret Soviet system behind which the program operated, but also the trials and tribulations of the "sitting cosmonauts" who drove the Lunakhods remotely and on a time delay. This is one of the best aspects of the book, in my view. Also, the Venera program is detailed very well; less so the the Vega program in my opinion.