Synopses & Reviews
The Hubble Space Telescope is the largest, most complex, and most powerful observatory ever deployed in space, designed to allow astronomers to look far back into our own cosmic past with unprecedented clarity. Yet from its launch in 1990, when it was discovered that a flawed mirror was causing severe "myopia" and sending fuzzy images back to Earth, the HST has been at the center of a controversy over who was at fault for the flaw and how it should be fixed. Now Chaisson, a former senior scientist on the HST project, tells the inside story of the much heralded mission to fix the telescope. Drawing on his journals, Chaisson recreates the day-to-day struggles of scientists, politicians, and publicists to fix the telescope and control the political spin. Illustrated with "before and after" full-color pictures from the telescope and updated with a new preface,
The Hubble Wars tells an engaging tale of scientific comedy and error.
In this new edition, coming at the half-way point in the HST's planned mission of fifteen years, Chaisson has brought the Hubble story up-to-date by sorting out the spectacular from the mundane contributions the HST has made to our knowledge of the Solar System, the Milky Way Galaxy, and the distant galaxies of deep space.
Review
[A]n absorbing personal history of the Hubble project...The Hubble WarsThe Double Helix. Chet Raymo
Review
There are many interesting nuggets in the book and much of it is good reading. New York Times Book Review
Review
This book recounts the inside story of how the mission to fix the telescope was undertaken, recreating the day-to-day problems of scientists and others involved as they determined how to fix the telescope as well as controlling the political aspects with 'damage-limitation' actions. This second edition, which comes at the halfway point in the HST's planned mission of 15 years, now brings the Hubble story up to date by sorting out the spectacular from the mundane contributions it has made to our knowledge of the Solar System, the Milky way and the distant galaxies over that period. Bob Dryden - Astronomy Now
Synopsis
1995 Science Writing Award, Science Writing Category, American Institute of Physics
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [369]-370) and index.
About the Author
Eric J. Chaisson is Research Professor of Physics and Astronomy and Director of the H. Dudley Center for Innovative Science Education at Tufts University. He is the author of Cosmic Dawn, nominated for the National Book Award for distinguished science writing.
Wright Center for Science Education, Tufts University
Table of Contents
Preface, 1998
Preface to the Original Edition
Prologue: Launch of Space Telescope
Deployment and Early Operations
Jitters, in Space and on the Ground
Hubble's First Light
Babel Revisited
Rocky Road to the Imaging Campaign
Inaugural Science Observations
More Early Science Results
Epilogue: Miracle on Orbit
Afterword: The "Fix"
For Further Reading
Index