Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771
ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM
Monday, December 7, 2009 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium
Robert Zimmerman
"A History of Manned Servicing Missions"
ABSTRACT -- The history of human servicing in space is long and complex. Sometimes the repairs were carefully worked out far in advance, then executed with astonishing precision and success. More often, the equipment failures arrived unexpectedly, requiring fixes that had to be improvised quickly and off the cuff. In either case, the ability of humans to improvise and adapt was essential to the success of each repair.
Not only will Mr. Zimmerman review various servicing achievements of the American space program -- from its early triumph on Skylab to its designed repairs on both Solar Max and the Hubble Space Telescope -- he will also describe the far less well known repair efforts of the Russians, both on their early Salyut space stations and on Mir.
In every case, a basic pattern essential to the future of all space exploration is evident: Things break. Make sure you build them so they are easily fixed.
SPEAKER -- Robert Zimmerman is an award-winning science journalist and historian who has written four books and more than a hundred articles on science, engineering, and the history of space exploration and technology. His newest book, The Universe In A Mirror: The Saga Of The Hubble Space Telescope And The Visionaries Who Built It (Princeton University Press), tells the story of the people who conceived, built, and saved the Hubble Space Telescope. His previous book, Leaving Earth: Space Stations, Rival Superpowers, And The Quest For Interplanetary Travel (Joseph Henry Press), was awarded the American Astronautical Society's Eugene M. Emme Astronautical Literature Award in 2003 as the best space history for the general public. His other books include Genesis, The Story Of Apollo 8 (Four Walls Eight Windows), which describes the family and political tale behind the first manned mission to another world, and The Chronological Encyclopedia Of Discoveries In Space (Oryx Press), a detailed reference book describing what was accomplished on every single space mission, from October 1957 with Sputnik through December 1999.
His magazine and newspaper articles have appeared in Astronomy, Air & Space, Sky & Telescope, Natural History, The Wall Street Journal , USA Today, Wired, Invention & Technology, and a host of other publications. In 2000 he was co-winner of the David N. Schramm Award, given by the High Energy Astrophysics Division of the American Astronomical Society for Science Journalism, for his essay in The Sciences, "There She Blows," on the 35-year-old astronomical mystery of gamma ray bursts.
In addition to his writing, Mr. Zimmerman is also a cave explorer and cartographer, and has participated in numerous projects exploring and mapping previously unknown caves across the eastern United States. It is this activity that has allowed him to actually "go where no one has gone before," thus providing him a better understanding of the perspective of engineers and scientists as they struggle to push the limits of human knowledge.