Handprints on Hubble: An Astronaut's Story of Invention (Lemelson Center Studies in Invention and Innovation series) Paperback – 1 December 2020

Kathryn Sullivan is best known as the first American woman to walk in space. Thirty-five years after that feat, this veteran of three shuttle missions has served up an unexpected and fascinating memoir that centers on another highlight of her astronaut career, this one involving the Hubble Space Telescope.Not long after she returned home from her historic spacewalk in 1984, Sullivan was named to the crew that would deploy HST into space for a mission that NASA hoped would last at least 15 years. To last that long, Hubble would require periodic servicing calls from shuttle astronauts.While Sullivan and fellow astronaut Bruce McCandless trained for an emergency spacewalk to make sure that Hubble would be deployed properly, they found that HST was not well prepared to be serviced in space. Moreover the tools and other equipment that astronauts would need to repair and service Hubble were far from ready.The launch of HST was delayed until 1990, in part because of the loss of the shuttle Challenger, and so McCandless, Sullivan and a group of experts inside NASA had more time to prepare Hubble and the shuttles for Hubble servicing missions. Ironically, when they and HST were finally launched, the two astronauts were suited up when a solar panel refused to unfurl, but they never made the spacewalk they they had trained for because controllers managed to get the panel to open up.Once Sullivan and her crewmates returned home, scientists discovered to their dismay that the mirror at the heart of the space telescope had been ground to the wrong shape. The work that McCandless and Sullivan paid off in a big way when another crew repaired HST in 1993 using tools and repair methods developed by the author and her friends. Thanks to that mission and four more servicing missions, Hubble is still sending back dazzling images and groundbreaking data after nearly 30 years in orbit.While Sullivan does talk about her early life and all three of her space flights, Handprints on Hubble focuses on the hard work astronauts do on the ground to make their work in space look easy. It is a valuable and unique addition to the literature of space travel.

Astronaut Kathryn Sullivan gives us a book that is equal parts memoir of her thrilling career at NASA and tribute to those who invented the tools and techniques needed to deploy and service the world’s premier orbital observatory, the Hubble Space Telescope. When the radical decision occurred to make this complex technology capable of being repaired and updated in space for prolonged use, astronauts and engineers had only vague ideas—and not much relevant experience—as guidance. Sullivan focuses on five years of creative energy during which she, fellow astronauts, and scores of engineers and technicians working closely together anticipated, invented, adapted, tested, proved, and provided almost everything essential for the telescope’s care from its launch in 1990 through five servicing missions and its still ongoing use. She puts the human factor – and several of its ingenious personalities—into a fascinating technical story and spotlights some of the many “hidden figures” who turn what is exceptionally difficult into what is successful. We learn that innovation isn’t the only challenge; making things maintainable is also daunting, especially over decades while technology marches on. Sullivan reveals her great generosity of spirit by entwining their stories with her own, showing us how the legendary Hubble Space Telescope is a testament to the metaphorical handprints of all those who made it possible and made it last. Her book is engaging and intelligible, and like the best reads, it puts you into the midst of high-stakes action. Valerie Neal, author of Spaceflight in the Shuttle Era and Beyond

I first learned of Kathy Sullivan’s remarkable space career when she delivered a series of guest lectures on a cruise across the Pacific. Hers was a story charmingly and wittily told. So when her book was published I marked it as a ‘must read’. Sadly the charm and wit had been stripped away, leaving a book long on minute detail but short on the wonder of achievement. A bit like reading a car owner’s manual.

I acquired this book because Dr. Sullivan was going to be giving a talk locally at an institution with which I'm associated, and I didn't want to go to her talk without having read the book. I'm glad I did both things: the structure of Handprints on Hubble is elegantly organized around the dual tracks of Sullivan's career before and during her time at NASA, and the development, rescue and ultimate improvement of the Hubble Space Telescope. What sets this book apart from others of its genre -- broadly, books by astronauts about their experiences, though it certainly also exceeds that category -- is the really engrossing amount of technical detail the author includes. The development of tools specific to Hubble, but which became standard issue for the ISS, is fascinating; and, as Dr. Sullivan noted in her talk, the array of teams and personnel involved in engineering, training and managing the flights seldom get a proper look-in to accounts of spaceflight. She does a first rate job of make sure those people are included -- not randomly, but because they were integral to the Hubble missions in every phase. For the record, I'll mention that, if you get a sense of Dr. Sullivan as a good raconteur with a dry sense of humour, you're spot on. Her presentation viva voce is very like her written style -- clear, forthright, funny and always to the point. Look, if you're interested in both the human and technological aspects of spaceflight and all the things it entails both on the ground and...well, out of the air, then this is a book for you. If you don't find technical details engrossing, you will find other things in the book to enjoy but I suspect your pleasures will not be as comprehensive as this reader's.

Half astronaut memoir, half Hubble Telescope biography, this book details the exacting measures that put the Hubble into orbit. Sullivan was on the space shuttle crew that deployed it in 1990, but she spent the previous 5 years determining how to maintain it in space. NASA realized they couldn’t bring it back to Earth every 5 years and that maintenance would have to be done 330 miles above the planet. Therefore, it had to be serviceable by astronauts wearing bulky EVA suits and that all systems requiring maintenance would have to be accessible. She worked tirelessly to make sure the tools they would use functioned, hardware could be reached, and Hubble could be repaired or upgraded.Because of all the engineering components and challenges, this was certainly the most technical astronaut memoir I’ve read. There’s a lot of detail about tool design and development and testing the functionality of these in the neutral buoyancy SIM tank. There’s also a lot of bureaucracy to keep up with: “The people side of the equation was just as complex as the technical side: shuttle flight controllers at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Hubble flight controllers at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, and engineers from both Lockheed and the Marshall Space Flight Center all had to learn to understand each other and develop the skills needed to work together at 17,500 miles per hour.”A bonus is that the book includes plenty of illustrations on the glossy pages throughout. There were a few editorial missteps, but otherwise it was a fascinating look at one of mankind’s greatest achievements from the perspective of an individual who was directly involved.