Handprints on Hubble by Kathryn D Sullivan

Handprints on Hubble by Kathryn D Sullivan

The first American woman to walk in space recounts her experience as part of the team that launched, rescued, repaired, and maintained the Hubble Space Telescope

The Hubble Space Telescope has revolutionized our understanding of the universe. It has, among many other achievements, revealed thousands of galaxies in what seemed to be empty patches of sky; transformed our knowledge of black holes; found dwarf planets with moons orbiting other stars; and measured precisely how fast the universe is expanding. In Handprints on Hubble, retired astronaut Kathryn Sullivan describes her work on the NASA team that made all this possible. Sullivan, the first American woman to walk in space, recounts how she and other astronauts, engineers, and scientists launched, rescued, repaired, and maintained Hubble, the most productive observatory ever built.

Along the way, Sullivan chronicles her early life as a "Sputnik Baby," her path to NASA through oceanography, and her initiation into the space program as one of "thirty-five new guys." (She was also one of the first six women to join NASA's storied astronaut corps.) She describes in vivid detail what liftoff feels like inside a spacecraft (it's like "being in an earthquake and a fighter jet at the same time"), shows us the view from a spacewalk, and recounts the temporary grounding of the shuttle program after the Challenger disaster.

Sullivan explains that "maintainability" was designed into Hubble, and she describes the work of inventing the tools and processes that made on-orbit maintenance possible. Because in-flight repair and upgrade was part of the plan, NASA was able to fix a serious defect in Hubble's mirrors-leaving literal and metaphorical "handprints on Hubble."

Handprints on Hubble was published with the support of the MIT Press Fund for Diverse Voices.

Sullivan, Kathryn D.: - Kathryn D. Sullivan is a NASA astronaut (retired), former Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and an inductee in the Astronaut Hall of Fame.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780262539647
ISBN 10	0262539640
Title	Handprints on Hubble
Author	Kathryn D Sullivan
Series	Lemelson Center Studies In Invention And Innovation Ser
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	MIT Press Ltd
Year published	2020-12-01
Number of pages	304
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.