Reviewed by Peter Spasov

AUTHOR: Kathryn D. Sullivan FORMAT: Hardcover, Softcover, Ebook, Audiobook

PAGES: 304 PUBLISHER: The MIT Press

ISBN: 9870262043182 DATE: 2019 RETAIL PRICE: $26.95/$17.95/$23.98

Handprints on Hubble is part of the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center series on innovation and invention.

At first glance, the concept of maintainability hardly seems glamorous, but think of disassembling an automobile engine merely to replace an inexpensive part. Former astronaut Kathryn Sullivan, the first American woman to walk in space, highlights how designing for maintenance enabled a space telescope to revolutionize our understanding of the universe.

Overall, the book contains glamour, space thrills, and the highstakes drama of corporate prestige. The author takes the reader into her world, where we learn the language used by astronauts, such as “stuck in transit,” meaning to drone on indefinitely. The reader experiences how the Hubble Space Telescope and Sullivan’s astronaut career developed in near parallel.