From Jars to the Stars: How Ball came to build a comet-hunting machine

by Todd Neff

From Jars to the Stars puts Deep Impact into the greater context of humanity's continuing search for its origins via the senses of scientific spacecraft. It explores the improbable beginnings of Ball Aerospace and the evolution of the American space agency that paid for it, breaking new space-historical ground with the story of a group of University of Colorado students who built a "sun seeker" for the noses of sounding rockets studying the home star. The device set precedent for nearly all modern spacecraft.

The book also tells the story of how Ed Ball, scion of the Ball Brothers Company of Muncie, Indiana, ended up buying a space business in Boulder, Colorado through a combination of serendipity and strategic instinct. From Jars to the Stars explores both the personalities and the technologies behind Ball's first spacecraft, the Orbiting Solar Observatory launched in 1962. The story of the space pioneers behind the first Ball orbiter sets the stage for Deep Impact, showing readers how much - and how little - changed across four decades of American space exploration.

327 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

I'm a writer based in Denver, Colorado. My latest book, A Beard Cut Short, is a biography with a good deal of investigative reporting about John Rubadeau, my former University of Michigan writing professor.

My prior book, The Laser That's Changing the World, tells the story of the inventors and innovators who saw, and ultimately realized, the potential of lidar to help solve a dizzying array of problems - perhaps most prominently, vehicle autonomy.

My first book, From Jars to the Stars, shows how Ball Aerospace came to be and then managed to blast a sizable crater in the comet 9P/Tempel 1. It won the Colorado Book Award for History.

I covered science and the environment for the Daily Camera in Boulder, Colorado, and have taught narrative nonfiction at the University of Colorado. I have been a Ted Scripps Fellowship in Environmental Journalism at CU.

I graduated from the University of Michigan and with master's degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. For more, stop by toddneff.com.

Reviews

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me three years and three months to finish reading this book. Much like the founders of Ball Aerospace and those that created Deep Impact dreams do come true. Finishing this book was mine. There is so much quotable information that gives insight to the evolution of a company branching out.

The best part is the writing style. Todd did a great job with making you feel the intensity of a front row seat to one of the game changing projects for NASA and scientists around the globe. Project Deep Impact was no small feat. Nor was augmenting a glass and canning company to include aerospace. If you lived in the trenches of creation, threatened with cancellation and came out the other side proud of not giving up, then you understand the tightly woven culture. You feel this all through the Deep Impact journey.

To paraphrase from the book: "Ball Aerospace, descended from a jar maker and a university research project, is now a player beyond the orbit confining it for more than 40 years. What a journey to go from Jars to the Stars! It could not have been done without Ed Ball at the forefront. Ball still remains a thriving force in the space discovery arena."

Worth the read for those that remember the Deep Impact mission and anyone interested in an underdog story.