BOOKSHELF 



The Universe in a 

 Mirror 



The Saga of the Hubble Space 

 Telescope and the Visionaries 

 Who Built It 



by Robert Zimmerman 

 Princeton University Press, 

 2008; $29.95 



long weekends traveling to out-of- 

 the-way corners of the United States 

 in search of the perfect birding ex- 

 perience. Recounting those birding 

 holidays, Dempsey's self-effacing 

 humor turns what might otherwise 

 be humdrum lists of birds missed 

 and birds spotted into tales of both 

 misadventure and epiphany. 



There's a trip to Silsbee, Texas, 

 for instance, where Don's insistence 

 on booking non-generic lodging 

 lands them in a dingy motel room 

 whose smell is "enough to make a 

 horse gag," and whose sheets seem 

 to bear the insignia of the local Ku 

 Klux Klan. To make matters worse, 

 when the bleary-eyed trio makes it 

 out to the nearby Piney Woods and 

 Big Thicket National Preserve early 

 the next morning, they find the place 

 as devoid of birds as the planet Mars. 

 A few days later, things are looking 



much more promising, as the trio 

 snaps telephotos of ringed kingfish- 

 ers along the Rio Grande. Until . . . 

 oops ... a band of marijuana smug- 

 glers in a cigarette boat zooms ashore 

 nearby. The smugglers, you can be 

 sure, don't know or care much about 

 kingfishers, and, to quote one tat- 

 tooed and glassy-eyed member of 

 the group, they "don't like cameras." 

 Needless to say, Dempsey and his 

 friends walk away from that encoun- 

 ter intact, and most of the other peo- 

 ple they meet are far more congenial. 



In truth, not much happens to our 

 stalwarts most of the time, though 

 their obsessive inattention to virtu- 

 ally everything that doesn't have 

 feathers lands them in occasional hot 

 water. But Dempsey's gift for embel- 

 lishment, along with his enthusiastic 

 appreciation of the beauty of the mo- 

 ment, makes for compelling reading. 



Everyone has heard of the Hubble 

 Space Telescope. Scarcely a month 

 goes by without a spectacular new 

 color image in the press of a remote 

 galaxy, a cluster of newborn stars, or 

 a storm on Jupiter, taken by Hubble. 

 The telescope's unique visual acuity, 

 made possible by an orbit high above 

 the Earth's atmosphere, has made it 

 humanity's eye on the universe. 



Of course, there was a time, short- 

 ly after its launch in 1990, when ev- 

 eryone thought of the Hubble Space 

 Telescope as an overpriced failure. 

 After two months of fruitless adjust- 

 ment by ground controllers, Hubble 

 scientists were forced to conclude 

 that the telescope was defective. A 

 slip-up in the exquisite calibration 

 of mirror grinding had produced a 

 main mirror of perfect but improper 

 shape — its curve was slightly flatter 

 than designed, making it impossible 

 to focus the telescope. Editorials la- 

 beled the snafu "the inglorious result 

 of NASA's laxity and ineptitude." 



But unlike most space missions, 

 Hubble was designed to be serviced 

 on the fly by shuttle astronauts. Three 

 and a half years later, the ailing tele- 

 scope got a set of corrective lenses, 

 restoring it, as it were, "to specs," 

 and the dazzling pictures and scien- 

 tific breakthroughs began to flood 

 in. On occasional servicing missions 

 since then, the original instruments, 

 designed in the 1970s, have been re- 

 placed by improved detectors, keep- 

 ing Hubble not only alive, but at the 

 cutting edge of astronomical research. 

 During its fifteen years of operation, 

 astronomers have published more 

 than 6,000 scientific papers using 



Continued on page 60 



Better Sleep 

 Better Health 

 Better Bed 



THE ONLY MATTRESS 

 RECOGNIZED BY NASA 

 AND CERTIFIED BV THE 

 SPACE FOUNDATION ♦ 



The Weightless Comfort of Tempur-Pedic! 



92% of our enthusiastic owners believe their 

 investment in Tempur-Pedic is well worth it! 



While the thick, ornate pads that cover most mattresses 

 are necessary to keep the hard steel springs inside, they 

 create a hammock effect outside — and can actually cause 

 pressure points. Inside our bed. billions of microscopic 

 cells of our TEMPUR material work in perfect harmony 

 to contour precisely to your every curve and angle — 

 helping deliver our promise of Night-time Renewal!" 



Our proprietary TEMPUR pressure-relieving material 

 is a remarkable sleep-science breakthrough that actually 

 reads to body mass and temperature. It automatically 



adjusts to your exact shape and weight. TEMPUR is — 

 Soft where you want it and firm where you need it to be."" 

 Tempur-Pedic gives you better sleep, and helps relieve 

 everyday aches and pains. Plus. ..our no motion 

 transfer between sleep partners delivers deeper sleep 

 with less disturbance. 



Make an investment in your sleep and better health 

 with Tempur-Pedic's superior back support! Call us 

 toll-free, without the slightest obligation for your 

 FREE Information kit with FREE 3 Month In-Home 

 Tryout Certificate! 



FREE DVD / FREE Sample / FREE Tryout Certificate 



tempur 800-371-9478 



welcome to bed" or visit us online at www.TempurPedic.com 



. r /jpyi'j^ ?00? r>y r^rnpur PerjK Tiortti America LCC All Rights Reserved Furniture niinpunpnis nn' induced National owner survey conducted by Blackstone Group Research 



natural history October 2008 



