The Geostationary Applications Satellite Book

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.