Robotic exploration of the solar system / Paolo Ulivi ; with David M. Harland.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Table Of Contents: List of illustrations List of tables Foreword Author's preface Acknowledgments Introduction Mercury: extremes of heat and cold Venus: a swamp or a greenhouse? Mars, life and the `canali' Jupiter: a ball of hydrogen Saturn, its rings and moons Uranus and Neptune: outer giants Pluto: the incredible shrinking planet Asteroids: those fantastic points of light Comets: flying sandbanks or dirty snowballs? Phantoms: Vulcan, trans-Plutonian planets and the like The beginning Space race Humans or robots? The first `artificial planets' The first interplanetary probe The first JPL projects The first Soviet probes The first success Product 2MV The `Zond' probes Farewell to the `little green men' Korolyov's last probes Solar probes Together to Venus A Voyager without sails A repeat mission Mars again Other players Of landers and orbiters A new decade To the surface! Into the storm A first look beyond the asteroids The taste of Venus The curse of the transistor Soviet soil from the Red Planet The planet of contradictions Hot and hotter Snowballs will wait Postcards from Hell Landing in Utopia Pigeons, rovers, sniffers The Venusian fleet The color of Venus `Purple Pigeons' from the cold The grandest tour The journey of three lifetimes Grand Tour reborn The spacecraft that could Launch and teething troubles Jupiter: ring, new moons and volcanoes! The return to Jupiter: life, perhaps? Saturn and mysterious Titan The final one-two punch Dull planet, incredible moon To a blue planet The larger perspective Glossary Appendices Chapter references Further reading Index