Handprints On Hubble
An Astronaut's Story of Invention
EXCLUSIVE SIGNED COPIES AVAILABLE HERE
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EXCLUSIVE SIGNED COPIES AVAILABLE HERE ***
November, 2019
Hardback Cover
Paperback Cover
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 Kathy Sullivan describes her work on the NASA team that made all of this possible. Sullivan 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 where she was 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 and shows us the view from a spacewalk. 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 primary mirror — leaving literal and metaphorical “handprints on Hubble.”
Handprints on Hubble was published with the support of the MIT Press Fund for Diverse Voices.
“Dr. Sullivan starts out headed for the bottom of the sea. Soon, she flies us 200 miles above the sky, using her head, heart, and hands to solve problem after problem — and help us take in views that are out of this world. She does it all with her veneer of astronaut cool, of course. What an adventure — no wonder she loves it”
“A wonderful tale of the most remarkable scientific instrument of our time, and the people who made it possible. This fascinating story of the Hubble Space Telescope’s visioning, development, and miraculous recovery, written by my longtime friend and two-time shuttle crewmate Dr. Kathy Sullivan, pays tribute to the unsung heroes of Hubble’s initial deployment and subsequent servicing”
“An accessible, engaging read for students of engineering and the history of technology and generalist readers interested in NASA history”