A lethal radiation dose for a human is about 500 rads. Pioneer 10 flew through 200,000 rads of electron radiation at Jupiter in late 1973 and kept transmitting. This episode tells the 30 year biography of the first spacecraft to reach the outer solar system, from Gary Flandro's planetary grand tour concept and James Van Allen's push for a pathfinder, to the $380 million TRW contract and 25 million man hours that produced a spin stabilized probe with a nine foot dish, four plutonium-238 RTGs on long booms, and 11 scientific instruments.

Launched March 3, 1972 on an Atlas Centaur at over 32,100 miles per hour, Pioneer 10 became the first craft to cross the asteroid belt, proving it was mostly empty space rather than the sci-fi wall of debris. At Jupiter, radiation caused single event upsets that flipped bits in its computer and triggered fals ...