The author, who has degrees in physics from Durham University in the UK, has, until his retirement from NASA in 2011, participated in the exploration of the planets since the 1960s (part of a 'brain drain' that led a number of Brits to join the US space program) - first as a member of the technical staff of a Bell Laboratories company (Bellcomm) tasked to support NASA and, later, as a member of Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. There he was a science...