The Analysis of Extraterrestrial Materials [Book Review]

Abstract

As implied by its title, this book primarily concerns the actual analysis of extraterrestrial materials (including atmospheres and solar wind) rather than the results of such analyses. Five chapters deal with analysis of these materials in terrestrial laboratories, and six chapters describe remote analysis on spacecraft missions. Most chapters can be easily dated — they were written shortly after the mission, have undergone only sporadic updating, and are largely illustrated by copies of vu-graphs presented at National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) briefings. This historical approach is quite successful in describing the original lunar receiving laboratory and instruments from specific missions. These chapters bring together good and readable descriptions of instruments from the Surveyor, Apollo, Viking, Pioneer, Venus, and especially the Soviet Lunakhod and Venera missions. The author participated in a number of the investigations involving gamma ray or X ray fluorescence spectrometry, and these sections are especially good. However, the chapters on meteorites, lunar samples, cosmochronology, and reflectance spectroscopy are too dated and should have been completely rewritten to properly convey current research and understanding.