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EDITORIAL INFORMATION

To See the Unseen: A History of Planetary Radar Astronomy is an indispensable study of a little-known but important field in space science. The past 50 years have brought forward a unique capability to conduct research and expand scientific knowledge of the Solar System through the use of radar to conduct planetary astronomy. This technology involves the aiming of a carefully controlled radio signal at a planet (or some other Solar System target, such a planetary satellite, asteroid, or a ring system), detecting its echo, and analyzing the information that the echo carries.

Andrew J. Butrica has written a comprehensive and illuminating history that is quite rigurous and systematic in its methodology. To See the Unseen explores the development of the radar astronomy specialty within the context of the larger community of scientists. More than just a discussion of the development of this field, however, Butrica uses planetary radar astronomy as a vehicle for understanding larger issues relative to the planning and execution of "big science" by the Federal government. His application of the "social construction of science" and Kuhnian paradigms to planetary radar astronomy is a most welcome and sophisticated means of making sense of the field's historical development.

(Extracted from the press release.)

GENERAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

-Contents.

-Acknowledgments.

-Introduction.

-1- A Meteoritic Start.

-2- Fickle Venus.

-3- Sturm und Drang.

-4- Little Science/Big Science.

-5- Normal Science.

-6- Pioneering on Venus and Mars.

-7- Magellan.

-8- The Outer Limits.

-9- One Step Beyond.

-Conclusion W(h)ither Planetary Radar Astronomy?

-Planetary Radar Astronomy Publications.

-A Note on Sources.

-Interviews.

-Technical Essay: Planetary Radar Astronomy.

-Abbreviations.

-Index.

-About the Author.

-The NASA History Series.

OUR REVIEW

Butrica's work could not have been more timely. The radar is becoming a formidable scientific tool that not all the people understand and know. And we are not only referring to the research done from Earth, but also to that of the radars transported by some space probes, such as Magellan, whose performance has uncovered details formerly ignored from the surface of Venus, a planet which has a particularly dense atmosphere.

But the history of the utilization of the techniques of radar for planetary explorations amounts to far back in time. Butrica examines this history step by step and tells us the difficulties found in the way as well as the great technological leaps that this field has suffered. This work, within the framework of the always precise series published by the NASA History Office, covers an unforgivable gap in the knowledge of the activities in this sector in which the agency has participated since many years ago. Well written, its prose is narrative rather than technical, therefore this book is accessible to any interested reader.

Completely updated (even the latest and most spectacular observations of some asteroids that have come quite near the Earth are mentioned), To See the Unseen is a deserved acknowledgment of a technology initiated half a century ago that has revolutioned multifarious aspects in the scientific and military areas, including that of planetary astronomy.