title: Mission Jupiter: The Spectacular Journey of the Galileo Spacecraft
author:  Daniel Fischer 
description: As the award-winning editor of a German astronomy journal, Fischer (Hubble Revisited: New Images from the Discovery Machine; etc.) possesses the expertise needed for an overview of NASA's Galileo mission to Jupiter and its moons, though because the mission is still underway, it is too soon yet for a definitive summing up. NASA has reserved its rights to the story, with publication expected sometime in 2003. In the meantime, Fischer's readable account is one of the few book-length treatments available. To date, most of the published material on Galileo has appeared in professional and popular science journals, one recent exception being David Harland's Jupiter Odyssey, which, like Fischer's book, is published under an imprint of Springer-Verlag. Fischer, who has covered Jupiter exploration extensively in his magazine, writes for a popular audience, handily guiding the reader through the first Pioneer and Voyager probes of the 1970s, the five-year exploration of the Jovian system and the Jupiter flyby of the Cassini space probe, headed to Saturn for explorations beginning in 2004. Throughout, he provides handy summary boxes of findings and scores of illustrations including more than 40 breathtaking full-color images of Jupiter, the volcanic landscape of the moon Io and, of course, the spectacular ice crusts of Europa. As an editor working in Germany (and in German), Fischer is reporting as an outsider to the American space program, which puts him at a disadvantage. But until Galileo's mission is completed and the histories and memoirs begin pouring out of NASA, this book will serve as a much-needed addition to the popular literature.
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  **The Runaway Robot -- Lester del Rey -- (1965)**
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 1\. Message from Earth
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  It was an exciting day. A rocket was due from Earth, and I guess nothing more
  exciting than that ever happens on Ganymede. Well, maybe when a manned
  spaceship comes in, it is more exciting, but a rocket is pretty important too.
  
  
  
  
  
  The unmanned rockets brought supplies and messages from Earth and took back
  our herbs and fungi. These were very valuable because Ganymede is the only
  place in the System where they will grow. Therefore it is a vital satellite --
  not just another moon wheeling around Jupiter.
  
  
  
  
  
  Actually you might say it is more important than Jupiter itself, because
  Jupiter does not produce anything of value to anyone. It hasn't even got a
  surface you can stand on.
  
  
  
  
  
  Anyhow, the rocket was coming in, and Paul and I hiked over to the spaceport
  to see it.
  
  
  
  
  
  The spaceport was about five miles from the residential domes, and Paul a