Book Review - Lunar Prospector: Against All Odds

Lunar Prospector: Against All Odds
By Alan B. Binder, Ph.D.
Reviewed by William I. Lengeman III
First published in Air & Space

There are no shortage of books about space missions, but Lunar Prospector: Against All Odds is rare – perhaps even unique – in that it presents a blow by blow account of a moon mission from conception to fruition, as recounted by the man who spearheaded the project and served as its principal investigator.

Alan Binder already had considerable experience in the space industry - including a 1976 stint as a principal investigator on the Viking Mars Lander mission – when the seed for Lunar Prospector, an unmanned lunar mapping expedition, was planted sometime around Thanksgiving of 1988.

Originally conceived as a privately funded mission, Lunar Prospector was accepted into NASA’s Discovery program – an attempt to do things “faster, better, cheaper” - in 1995. The craft launched in January 1998 and mission ended a little more than a year and a half later.

Binder has strong opinions about the U.S. space industry and he pulls nary a punch as he recounts the numerous frustrations and setbacks that plagued the mission. Though the span of time covered is a little more than 13 years, sometimes it seems that he didn’t omit even the most trivial detail.

In spite of this and the fact that it weighs in at nearly 1,200 pages, with additional appendices and photos archived online, Lunar Prospector is a surprisingly readable book. It probably could have benefited from the hand of a more aggressive editor, but Binder nonetheless has penned a work that – overlooking the occasional dull and/or overly detailed bit – is rather compelling.

Comments

[Alan Binder]

Thanks for the nice review of my book. The reason for the extensive detail and the occasional dull parts is that I wanted the reader to experience exactly what it is like to develop and "fly" a space mission, i.e., the good, the bad and the ugly, since not all of such a venture is fun and games.

Since you liked "lunar Prospector: Against All Odds" and wrote such a nice review, if you are interested in reviewing a parallel science fiction book I wrote, "Moonquake", email (ken@kenpress.com) or phone (520/743-3200) Ken and he will send you a copy.