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BOOKSHELF 



Continued from page 58 

 Hubble. Its youthful myopia has vir- 

 tually been forgotten. 



Space historian Robert Zimmer- 

 man's crisp and balanced account of 

 Hubble (based on many oral inter- 

 views as well as documents) reminds 

 us not only of Hubble's battle with 

 adversity, but also of the many scien- 

 tists and engineers who shepherded 

 the project through good times and 

 bad. Prime among them was Princ- 

 eton professor Lyman Spitzer, who 

 proposed an orbiting telescope in 

 1946, and who promoted the project 

 actively as the U.S. space program 

 ramped up in the post-Sputnik era. 

 When the funding for a Large Space 

 Telescope (as it was originally titled) 

 came through in the early 1970s, 

 Spitzer passed the torch to a young 

 C. Robert O'Dell, who, as chief 

 project scientist, coordinated the first 

 decade of planning and construction. 

 Zimmerman regards O'Dell — who 

 was a young man on the rise when 

 he left academia for NASA — as one 

 of the unsung heroes of the Hubble 

 saga, sacrificing a decade of his own 

 research to the thankless adminis- 

 trative demands of a politically and 

 technically delicate mission. 



And though the Hubble story is 

 ultimately one of great triumph, it 

 is also a story of continuing tribula- 

 tion, through the cancellation of a 

 last scheduled shuttle servicing mis- 

 sion in early 2004 to its reinstate- 

 ment after a maelstrom of public 

 protest nearly three years later. 



Within the next decade, even in 

 the most optimistic scenarios, Hub- 

 ble's mission will end, leaving behind 

 an indelible legacy. Zimmerman's 

 book is a fitting testimonial to a re- 

 markable instrument and the remark- 

 able people who built it, operated it, 

 and saw it through its darkest hours. 



Laurence A. Marschall is ll'.K.T. 

 Sahm Professor of Physics at Gettysburg Col- 

 lege in Pennsylvania, and director oj Project 

 CLEA, which produces widely used simula- 

 tion software for education in astronomy. 



60 NATURAl HISTORY October 2008 



WORD EXCHANGE 



Continued from page 6 

 the peanut feeder. The jays had us 

 fooled for a while, but when we fig- 

 ured out the mimics' game, we could 

 only be amazed at their ingenuity. 

 M. Angela Strain 

 Tampa, Florida 



Untidy Explanation 



In "Skylog" [6/08], Joe Rao gives a 

 misleading explanation for the fact 

 that high tide occurs not only "under" 

 the Moon but also on the opposite side 

 of the Earth. It's not that the "underly- 

 ing ocean basin is being deepened by 

 the Moon's pull," but rather that the 

 Moon is pulling more strongly on the 

 solid earth than on the water on the 

 far side, just as on the near side, the 

 ocean — being closer to the Moon — is 

 pulled away from the earth. 

 C. Goebel 

 Madison, Wisconsin 



Joe Rao replies: Indeed, we had a 

 lively discussion here as to exactly 

 how to explain the so-called tidal 

 bulges. To be really accurate, it is a 

 matter of both gravity and inertia, 

 acting in opposition on the Earth's 

 oceans. On the "near" side of the 

 Earth (the side facing the Moon), 

 the gravitational force of the Moon 

 pulls the ocean's waters toward it, 

 creating one bulge. On the far side of 

 the Earth, inertia (specifically, cen- 

 trifugal force) dominates, creating 

 a second bulge. Why inertia? The 

 Earth and Moon are in fact revolv- 

 ing around each other (the axis of 

 revolution being within the Earth, 

 but not at the Earth's center). If you 

 imagine the two bodies spinning 

 around that axis really fast, mate- 

 rial on their far sides would not only 

 bulge but be thrown off into space. 

 (For a detailed explanation see 

 co-ops.nos.noaa.gov/restles3.html.) 



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