The Hubble Wars: Astrophysics Meets Astropolitics in the Two-Billion-Dollar Struggle Over the Hubble Space Telescope

by Chaisson

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 Eric 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.

Genres: Science, Astronomy, Space, Nonfiction, Engineering

418 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

Reviews

[Clay Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned a lot about N.A.S.A. both the scientific and political sides of this organization.

[Becca · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was recommended by a class I took recently. It covers the history of the development of Hubble and what lead up to the primary mirror problems. I had no idea how much internal politics were involved here. I should have known, though, any government space program of this magnitude would have those politics. The author does have some bitterness about some of these things. There are lots of analogies to be drawn here on big space engineering products, even decades later.

On a personal note, the first launch attempt for Hubble occurred on my first trip to Space Camp in the 5th grade. The author tells his experience watching the launch. I remember us all outside trying to watch it before it scrubbed. Years later, I was excited to work in Mission Control for the final Hubble repair mission, still mentored by the people who put it up there to begin with. It seemed like a pretty nice bookend for me. There is some quaintness to this book, it was written in 1994, so the author feels he has to explain things to the lay audience, like "e-mail stands for electronic mail and its use is growing in favor amongst the technological elite" which I found very funny.

[Eugene Miya · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very frank book about the problems and delays during the early Hubble telescope program.

It gives a very frank, and sometimes not very flattering view of the cultural and personalities of running a NASA Program. The NASA bureaucracy is still stuck some ways in a Cold War mentality.

Eric Chaisson was the chief scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute which is a contractor to NASA GSFC.

Hubble had some early software problems which delayed launch, and then the mirror aberration was found, and some damming stuff having to do with a lack of testing at the Lockheed facilities which were developed the for KH-type of optical military satellites were not used. So some of the hearings to investigate why this happened got covered.

A consistent comment was made following scientists (mostly astronomers) dressed down 1 engineer after another, to cause 1 engineer (following his testimony, watching another engineer get grilled): "You guys could use a child psychologist". And That's the way a lot of NASA is.

I purchased the hardbound version when the book came out.

Fortunately, fixes got installed. And maintenance worked out well.

While a frequent visitor to GSFC, some colleagues constituted the loyal opposition to some of the manager there. They meant well, they just ended up on the wrong sides of history.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book had lots of information about the launch and subsequent usage of HST. It was written by someone from the Science Institute. The book was a mix between science and technology and politics. Good information, though the author comes across as biased. A worthy read none-the-less.

[Shawn Dvorak · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book gives a very good insider's view of the early on-orbit days of the Hubble Space Telescope. Chaisson worked in the Space Telescope Science Institute and therefore was deeply involved with the day-to-day crises and triumphs that occurred as the Hubble was slowly, painfully commissioned for work. His descriptions of the strangling bureaucracy within NASA and the CYA attitude of the contractors that built the instrument are disheartening - we've fallen a long way from the envelope-pushing days of Apollo.

There were, amazingly, a few glaring factual errors about astronomy in this book but these were mostly likely introduced during typesetting rather than part of the original text as written by Chaisson, an astronomer by trade. This book was published in 1998 and much of the astronomy is dated, in large part due to the knowledge we've gained from the Hubble. The book ends with a short chapter on the first repair mission that installed corrective optics to address the worst of the many problems in the scope, and therefore none of the successes from obtained after this and other repair and update missions are mentioned.

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best case studies of how NOT to do good systems engineering! Chaisson has an astronomer's disdain for the engineers building and trying operate Hubble in its early days, and shares his experiences trying to get them to listen to other engineers who had built spy satellites of similar dimensions on their lessons learned (the shipping container for HST's main mirror was from a previously built spacecraft if you get the idea...).

Chaisson also is critical of his fellow astronomers: the infighting and backbiting over who would get the credit for discoveries made by the telescope, and the crazy politics of big science. In the end as we now know, HST has left a tremendous scientific legacy of discovery (and the wonder of its beautiful images), but when Chaisson wrote this book it was doubtful the telescope would even work, much less live up to the hype NASA had continually marketed to keep the program sold.

[K De · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eric Chaisson gives a insider's view of the clash between engineers, scientists, and NASA management in the first years of the Space Telescope's shakedown and certification. It is certainly interesting in the way NASA had continuing problems after the shuttle disasters. There was the interplay of how NASA's Space Telescope mirrored, in some ways, the NRO had developed the engineering know how of their Keyhole recon satellites.

This book is recommended for everyone who is a concerned citizen in how science, technology and truthful reporting are interlinked in modern society.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed it very much