Capture Dynamics and Chaotic Motions in Celestial Mechanics by Edward Belbruno, Princeton University Press, £32.95/$49.95, ISBN 0691094802 Reviewed by Carl Murray
YOU have just launched a multimillion dollar com-munications satellite into space. A malfunction means your expensive cargo will not reach its required orbit. Who are you going to call?
A good choice would be Edward Belbruno, a celestial mechanician who seems to specialise in such lost causes. In 1991 he helped Japan’s ISAS Institute rescue its Hiten lunar spacecraft, and in 1998 he assisted in the recovery of a Hughes satellite that failed to achieve a sufficiently high orbit.…
