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Out Of Print... This book discusses Ibe future role of unmanned interplanetary probes. With the last of the Apollo missions to the Moon in December 1972, manned spaceflight activities will be curtailed for a time while the space shuttle is being developed. In its place there will be increasing emphasis on the continued exploration of the Solar System by unmanned space probes similar to the 'Marine' reconnaissance of Mars and Venus, and the Pioneer probe now on its way to Jupiter. Because every planet presents a fresh set of problems, various types of space probe will be necessary. Some will be purely photoreconnaissance orbiters. Others will soft-land sophisticated capsules that will search for evidence of life on the surface by remote control. The author discusses ways of exploring hot planets, like Venus and Mercury, how fast-moving comets or slow but possibly dangerous asteroids are intercepted. He also describes how to control a television-guided mobile probe, special balloon probes and radar satellites, how to explore the rings of Saturn, and describes a new way of maintaining continuous radio-communication between Earth and a planetary surface anywhere in the Solar System. This book also describes the latest techniques for sending fast probes to the Outer Planets and a kami-kaze probe ID take close-up pictures of the Sun. James Strong works in the Guided Weapons Division for Hawker Siddeley Dynamics and has a special interest in spaceflight. A Founder member of the British Interplanetary Society, he has contributed many articles and papers on aviation and spaceflight, while his 'Flight to the Stars' (1965) became a popular book on the subject.