posted 10-29-2024 10:06 AM               

So who is John Casani that he merits a book on his life and achievements? As described by Jay: "Casani is the most important person in space exploration you never heard of. An originator of what is today called systems engineering. A key personality in our travels to the ends of the solar system. And the reason why messages to alien civilizations are on probes now traveling through interstellar space."

John Casani retired from JPL in 1999, having spent in excess of four decades working in project management and system engineering. Early on, he held projects positions with JPL on the Explorer, Pioneer, Ranger and Mariner space missions, later serving as project manager for the extraordinary Voyager mission to the outer planets, the Galileo mission to Jupiter and Cassani to Saturn. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for the Galileo mission, and the Medal for Outstanding Leadership on the Mariner 10 and Voyager projects. He has also been a recipient of NASA's Exceptional Achievement Medal. Altogether a legend in JPL/NASA and right to the fore in the history of robotic exploration of our solar system.

Brendan I. Koerner, contributing editor at Wired and author of 'The Skies Belong to Us' says of Jay's manuscript: "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."

posted 10-31-2024 05:59 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by ColinBurgess:
"Casani is the most important person in space exploration you never heard of...."

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posted 11-20-2024 06:49 AM            

I am privileged to be able to tell John Casani's story. It wasn't the original plan. But an otherwise routine call with him, to discuss some misc. details, turned into a 4+ hour marathon where he opened up to me on everything from his first marriage to his kids, as well as what really makes him tick. My audio recorder was nearly at the end of its capacity.

I had been interviewing John since 2007 and we had a rapport going, so I think that had a lot to do with it.

After the call ended, I became convinced that an in-depth account of Casani’s backstory, motivations, and philosophies was absolutely missing from the historical record, and this was the way to proceed.

Humorously enough, the person most opposed to this was Casani himself! “Oh, I don’t think you should,” he told me numerous times. “Nobody wants to read a book about me.” But he rolled with it. So did his kids, who supplied me with many stories from their childhood was well as a treasure trove of family photos.

posted 03-19-2025 04:30 PM            

There's no final cover design just yet, because we're still messing around with it.

posted 11-18-2025 09:43 PM               

A magnificent book about a magnificent man, although the great sadness is that he passed away in June this year aged 92. He was fully involved in telling his story and therefore it's a great pity that he would never get to see the published version of Jay's amazing book.

Born to Explore: John Casani's Grand Tour of the Solar System
by Jay Gallentine

Once, there were giants in the heavens: billion-dollar machines of wonder and science that flew to the outermost planets and told us what secrets had been lying in wait. In charge of the people and processes behind these missions was a humble father of five who did the job not for money or prestige but simply because it represented a challenge like no other. That man was John Casani. The full story of his unparalleled life and career is told here for the first time.

Young Casani was obsessed with the mechanical world yet lacked direction in life. After restarting college for an engineering degree, he then whimsically road-tripped to California in the late 1950s and was hired, almost by accident, at Pasadena's secretive Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Beginning as a workaday technician, Casani rose through JPL's ranks to senior management — while battling politics, funding, physics, and occasionally colleagues. With inborn skill and uncommon methods he kept his troops focused on success. Casani ran nine-figure space missions off the index cards in his shirt pocket, once employed a live goat to press people into action, and even sent messages to aliens in space.

"Born to Explore" examines a transitional period of space history, when planetary exploration faced threats from an adversarial space shuttle program that consumed the lion's share of NASA funding. Recounted by Jay Gallentine, Casani's life story unfolds in conjunction with the tribulations of the Galileo mission to Jupiter — a twisting case study of what can go wrong even with the best intentions and the best minds in the world at work.

• Hardcover, 400 pages
  
• University of Nebraska Press (Dec. 1, 2025)
  
• ISBN-10: 1496206657
  
• ISBN-13: 978-1496206657

posted 12-01-2025 04:16 PM               

In November 2026, Voyager 1 will become the first human-made object to travel one light-day from Earth. Signals from NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) will take 24 hours to reach the spacecraft. Famously, both Voyager probes were equipped with a gold-plated copper phonograph record. If any extraterrestrials discover the Voyager Golden Record, they would have access to various spoken greetings, images, natural sounds, and music from our planet. The idea of a cosmic message to extraterrestrials was suggested to legendary scientist Carl Sagan by Voyager’s project manager, John R. Casani. With Born to Explore, Casani’s story is told for the very first time.

Initially, veteran space author Jay Gallentine planned to write a history book about robotic exploration of the outer planets and the Mars rovers. He first met Casani in 2007 and wanted to speak with him again before writing this latest book. In 2021, a planned twenty-minute interview became a fascinating four-hour conversation between the two men. After this productive meeting ended, Gallentine thought it was unusual that no book had ever been written about Casani’s long career at the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL). Thus, John Casani became the central figure in Born to Explore.

The finished product is a meticulously researched and historically accurate book. It will be obvious to readers that Gallentine has the utmost respect for Casani. The story often shifts back and forth between the past and a 2016 dinner with Casani at an Italian restaurant. While enjoying a basket of bread, glasses of red wine, and bread pudding with ice cream, Casani recounts several important events in his life. What a brilliant setting to conduct research for a space history book.

While Casani served as a project manager for the Voyager, Galileo, and Cassini missions, the book is principally about Galileo. Other individuals in the book include James Van Allen, Bruce Murray, Lew Allen, Roger Diehl, Don Gurnett, Mary Reaves, and Hugh von Delden.

But why John Casani? Why not another project manager that guided other JPL missions? What inspired Gallentine to transform this book into a semi-biography of Casani? Readers will learn why his career was so exceptional. According to Casani, the Voyager Golden Record was “the most important accomplishment in his whole entire JPL career.” Additionally, his legacy was living “in a world with no corners.” No problem was too challenging or unsolvable. Casani always led his team to success despite some very tough circumstances. This was especially true during his tenure as Galileo project manager. The spacecraft endured many major design changes and delayed launch windows.

Interestingly, many of Galileo’s headaches were caused by the vehicle that delivered the spacecraft to low earth orbit (LEO): the space shuttle. A recurring theme of Born to Explore is the relationship between robotic and human space exploration. These two distinct camps don’t always agree on everything. Even today, dozens of NASA science missions face potential termination; crewed missions are a much higher priority.

In the book, NASA’s enthusiasm for the new shuttle wasn’t shared by many planetary scientists. As JPL director Bruce Murray explained in 1976, “Budgets are in flux. Less money for planets. Shuttle costs are killing all of us. JPL must diversify.” On another occasion, a NASA public affairs officer said, “It’s much easier to get in the paper talking about the Shuttle than it is about some unmanned spacecraft.” Confidence in the space shuttle was shattered when Challenger exploded. John Casani witnessed the tragedy from KSC’s Operations and Checkout Building. The Galileo mission was redesigned again and launched on shuttle Atlantis in 1989.

For all his success at JPL, Casani never considered himself a good manager. Instead, he thought of himself as a great leader. By his own admission, he was “very undisciplined, unorganized, and not very structured in terms of what a good management practice would anticipate.” Casani also believed that bad communication was “the root cause of all problems.” As a result, he championed an open-door policy. Anyone at JPL could walk into his office and speak to him. Furthermore, Casani largely considered his work complete once a spacecraft left Earth. Unlike other JPL personnel, he never got emotional when a mission ended. To Casani, each spacecraft “was just a machine.”

How he got hired at JPL is a heck of a story. As a young man, John Casani never dreamed of conquering the solar system. He earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania. Following an unfulfilling first job after college, Casani and a friend took a road trip to California. While sitting in the student union at the University of Southern California (USC), the aimless young Casani searched for employment. Despite his lack of a graduate degree, he was granted an interview with the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena. Luckily for him, the original recruiter went on vacation. Instead, Casani was interviewed by another recruiter that shared his fun personality. As Casani later reflected, “I was kinda loose, you know, and I was more oriented to havin’ fun.” The interview went well, and John Casani began his long and storied career at JPL. Starting pay was $395/month. Quite a substantial salary for 1956.

For a book about very expensive and complex interplanetary spacecraft, Born to Explore is sometimes oriented for fun too. One example is a massive New Year’s party that attracted both drunken teenagers and policemen to the Casani residence. Another time, John Casani wore 16th-century attire for Galileo Galilei’s 421st birthday. There even was a cake. Other funny stories won’t be mentioned here. You’ll have to read the book to get them.

Additionally, Gallentine’s writing is often humorous. For instance, Lew Allen should have enjoyed his retirement instead of becoming JPL director in 1982. Gallentine jokes that Allen missed out on films like Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior. When discussing an exchange between physicist Don Gurnett and a newspaper reporter, Gallentine notes an advertisement for “whole chicken fryers on sale that week for 39 cents a pound, FYI.” If you enjoy this style of writing, Born to Explore is for you.

The book also contains an ample supply of photographs. Perhaps the most powerful picture is one from March 1959. A young, bespectacled Casani, flanked by Wernher von Braun and James Van Allen, is holding the Pioneer 4 spacecraft. The college graduate that previously had no direction or ambitions was now standing in between two space legends. The photo also illustrates how robotic spacecraft became larger and more sophisticated over the next few decades. In more ways than one, this picture foreshadowed Casani’s future.

Sadly, John Casani never lived to see the publication of Born to Explore. He died June 19, 2025, at age 92. Thanks to Jay Gallentine and the University of Nebraska Press for another superb entry in the Outward Odyssey series. An outstanding account of an enviable life and NASA career. Truly, an untold story that every space enthusiast must read.

My favorite book this year.

posted 12-04-2025 07:28 AM            

Some of those readers are people I've profiled in the book, who were long-ago promised copies. One person you'll (hopefully) read about, Roger Diehl, single-handedly rescued the Galileo mission by assembling a convoluted yet workable trajectory to Jupiter called the "Venus-Earth-Earth Gravity Assist" or VEEGA.

A lot of written works about Galileo either don't mention Roger at all or toss in his name and leave it at that. Not the case here. In what for me is one of the most exciting sections, we'll go step-by-step with Roger through his work of saving the mission - including the specialized computer program he used, plus the backstory of who created that program in the first place. And why! All in all, there has been some pretty deep digging which I trust y'all will appreciate.

Earlier this week, Roger received his copy and e-mailed to report as much. He told me, "This book is the capstone to my career," which meant a ton.

To answer someone's question, yes I do plan to do some signings, although I haven't done a ton of work toward anything formal just yet.