posted 11-23-2007 04:10 AM               

To put it simply, the Hubble Space Telescope is the telescope that would not die. Repeatedly in its history there have been efforts to stop its construction or end its use. All eventually failed.

On a fundamental human level, Hubble epitomized the inevitable and irresistible lure of the unknown. Everyone involved in the telescope's creation knew that a telescope above the atmosphere was going to see things that had never been seen before. No one could resist that promise.

The Universe in a Mirror tells the background story of the men and women who conceived, built, and saved the Hubble Space Telescope. Their effort, which often involved significant personal sacrifice, not only gave us all a spectacular glimpse into the unknown, it forever changed our perception of the universe.

• Hardcover: 384 pages
  
• Publisher: Princeton University Press (May 5, 2008)
  
• ISBN-10: 0691132976
  
• ISBN-13: 978-0691132976

posted 08-05-2008 01:01 AM               

Behind every pretty picture of the universe there is a lot of dirty work that had to be done to capture it.

When I was covering the space program in the 1980s, at some point during every space mission a NASA public affairs officer would corral a few science reporters and ask what to do when the space telescope was finally launched.

The space agency wanted to make sure its long-awaited and astronomically expensive telescope -- soon to be launched into orbit above the turbulent fog of the atmosphere -- made an appropriately cosmic splash. The advice from those of us in the press peanut gallery was always the same and simple: pictures -- cosmic postcards like the live pictures of other planets being transmitted from the Viking and Voyager spacecraft -- early and often. Little did I know how mortified the astronomers were by these suggestions. Having spent a decade or more of their lives building the telescopes and their instruments, they were terrified that somebody, some outsider, would take a ruler to one of those pictures and scoop them on some discovery -- something that had actually happened to one of the Voyager scientists.

posted 08-05-2008 04:03 AM               

Then, you have similarities with both Challenger and Columbia (yeah, there's a problem but let's look the other way) which is quite scary (the flawed mirror)- makes you wonder if similar attitudes have been definitively eliminated within NASA and its contractors....

Otherwise an enjoyable read (ok, the author somewhat lost me with all the different persons involved but I'm not good with names so that's probably my fault!). The only annoying detail about the book is that too many sentences start with "For example...". But I'm picky.