Alan Stern and David Grinspoon – Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto
An inside history of the New Horizons mission, which sent a satellite past Pluto. Stern is the Principle Investigator (head honcho) for the mission, and Grinspoon assisted with PR as well as some of the mission science. The photographs are beautiful, the science is awe-inspiring, and the amount of work the team put in is admirable.
I was especially struck by the amount of politicking, bureaucratic infighting, turf wars among contractors, and backroom-dealing that went into the mission, delayed it for years, and almost killed it altogether. I found a similar theme in Steve Squyres’ book about the Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers (Squyres was the PI for that mission).
Public choice theorists will find a vindication of Gordon Tullock’s The Organization of Inquiry, which is an economics-based analysis of how scientists behave.
Inertia Wins! 