La conquête des planètes
A survey of solar-system planetary exploration at the dawn of the 1970s, written by an astronomer of the Meudon Observatory. The first part recounts the US–Soviet race of robotic probes to Venus and Mars (Mariner, Venera, Zond) and the prospects for crewed interplanetary flight; the second portrays each planet from the Sun to Pluto, blending astronomical data, the history of discovery and anecdote. A popular-science work from the "Science parlante" series.