Author Derek Sears presents his biography, Gerard P. Kuiper and the Rise of Modern Planetary Science, and describes the life of a man who lived through some of the most dramatic events of the twentieth century and ended up creating a new field of scientific research, planetary science.

As NASA and other space agencies explore the solar system, they take with them many of the ideas and concepts first described by Gerard P. Kuiper, who founded the UA Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in 1960.