Evans, Ben 1976-

PERSONAL:

Born October, 1976, in Solihull, England. Education: Graduated from University of Birmingham.

CAREER:

Writer and secondary school teacher.

WRITINGS:

(With David M. Harland) NASA's Voyager Missions: Exploring the Outer Solar System and Beyond, Springer (New York, NY), 2004.

Space Shuttle Columbia: Her Missions and Crews, Springer (New York, NY), 2005.

Space Shuttle Challenger: Ten Journeys into the Unknown, Springer (New York, NY), 2007.

Contributor to periodicals, including Spaceflight, Countdown, and Astronomy Now.

SIDELIGHTS:

British writer and educator Ben Evans has written several books about America's space program. Though not a trained scientist, he has taken interest in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) program, researching the Voyager missions as well as the space shuttle missions. In his 2004 work, NASA's Voyager Missions: Exploring the Outer Solar System and Beyond, Evans examines that mission whose purpose is to explore deep space. Launched in 1977, the unmanned Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are still making their way into deep space. Their initial mission was to explore both Jupiter and Saturn. Having made discoveries such as the presence of an active volcano on Io, a moon of Jupiter, the mission was extended for both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. The latter explored Uranus and Neptune, and then both have continued on a trajectory that has taken them beyond Pluto; they are still sending data back to Earth. Evans examines the mission from the beginning, with the decision by scientists to attempt to learn more about distant planets and then dealing with the challenges of building spacecraft that could withstand such a mission. The author also looks at an overview of the accomplishments of the mission as well as the plans to explore deeper space. Evans has additionally described space shuttle missions in two further volumes, the 2005 Space Shuttle Columbia: Her Missions and Crews and the 2007 Space Shuttle Challenger: Ten Journeys into the Unknown.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Choice, April, 2004, D.B. Mason, review of NASA's Voyager Missions: Exploring the Outer Solar System and Beyond, p. 1496.

Sky & Telescope, May, 2005, Stuart J. Goldman, review of NASA's Voyager Missions, p. 102.