Everything you ever wanted to know about how humans have explored our solar system is here, in eight chapters. Visit the days before telescopes and wind your way to the future — what scientists have planned beyond 2010. The chapters are broken down by decade, with the first chapter covering “Pre-history to 1900”.

The familiar early explorers are all here, along with some other lesser-known astronomers. And while some stories seem old hat — the Apollo Moon missions, Mars rovers — there are some recently uncovered stories about the Russian space program.

Space is not one of my favourite subjects, but as I was reading the book I found myself becoming more and more interested. That’s a great thing for a book to accomplish.

My favourite part of the book was the section that describes NASA’s future plans, for example, JIMO (Jupiter’s Icy Moons Orbiter). JIMO will study Jupiter’s three largest moons — Ganymede, Callipso, and Europa — and try to find out whether any of these moons have life. Did you know that as far as we know, Jupiter’s moons have the best chance of life in the solar system? I also liked the photos of Titan’s surface (the first I had ever seen), and the photos of Ganymede, Callipso, and Europa.

I had fun reading the book because it combined history and science in a well-paced, interesting way. The experiments were fun and were a good mix of easy and difficult. I didn’t feel I learned anything from them, more that they helped make the point of the book clearer.

I think the book should have more information about these future missions. A catchier introduction and a stronger conclusion would help, too.

If I could describe the book in one word it would be intriguing. This is a good book for kids who like history and space. I give the book an 8.5 out of 10.

(Originally published in the Nov/Dec 2006 issue of YES Mag.)