Space, which is often shrouded by myths, mysteries and fiction, has always fascinated me since my childhood. Not to mention, of course, this fascination led me to some book buying spree and reading them like there is no tomorrow. “Chasing New Horizons” is one such book that I would like to talk about today.

This book, based on a true story, was published only a year ago or so, but I didn’t know about it until after a few months when one of my librarian friends told me about it. However, it is worth mentioning there even though, I didn’t get the chance to read this amazing book until recently, I was very much aware of the news when the “New Horizon Spacecraft” flew past “Pluto” planet in the year of 2015.


Anyway, Chasing New Horizons tells the story of that space mission - like how it was designed, funded, built, launched, and operated – where its narrative is as recalled by Alan Stern, the mission’s principal investigator, and written up by the Astrobiologist and science communicator David Grinspoon. Together, these two prolific scientists and narrators have tried to deliver a meticulously detailed, riveting chronicle of America’s history-making mission to Pluto, escorting readers through the immense hurdles and hard work involved in the landmark mission. Of course, even though, it is a very powerful and epic description of a space journey that captured the hopes and dreams of a team of enterprising scientists and engineers and incorporated fascinating details from the spacecraft’s construction, the story has very little or no significance today, primarily because “Pluto” is no longer considered as a regular planet like the others.

Anyway, after reading this book, I felt that it takes a lot more than just a good idea and talented scientists to fly a successful space mission. Besides, I also felt that there weren’t that many people in this world who could narrate such an intrepid planetary exploration in such easy terms and language without the use of technical “jargoning”.  Finally, I was really glad to have learned about so many other unknown things about a fascinating interstellar trip or journey.