Home
photo of John Grunsfeld

Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM

Monday, September 13, 2010 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium

John Grunsfeld

"Mountain Climbing and Space Flight"

ABSTRACT -- In May 2009, the STS-125 Crew flew to the Hubble Space Telescope aboard space shuttle Atlantis for a 12-day mission to upgrade and service the observatory. Over the course of five spacewalks the astronauts installed two new science instruments, repaired two failed instruments, and replaced a spacecraft computer, batteries, and gyroscopes. John Grunsfeld served as the lead for these spacewalks and the Hubble activities. Five years earlier this mission was cancelled, attributed to the risk of the mission being too high. At about the same time Grunsfeld led an expedition to climb the highest mountain in North America, Mt. McKinley, also know as Denali, in Alaska. In this talk Grunsfeld will describe both of these expeditions and discuss the risk and decision making that went into the re-manifesting of the Hubble mission and risk and decision making in mountaineering.

SPEAKER -- Dr. John Grunsfeld is an astrophysicist/astronaut who currently serves as the deputy director of the Space Science Telescope Institute in Baltimore and Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University. As an astronaut he has flown on five space shuttle missions, including three missions to service the Hubble Space Telescope. In addition to his exploits in earth orbit Grunsfeld enjoys mountaineering climbing in the great ranges of the world.


Engineering Colloquium home page: https://ecolloq.gsfc.nasa.gov