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The Universe in a Mirror: The Saga of the Hubble Space Telescope and the Visionaries Who Built It
The Hubble Space Telescope has produced the most stunning images of the cosmos humanity has ever seen. It has transformed our understanding of the universe around us, revealing new information about its age and evolution, the life cycle of stars, and the very existence of black holes, among other startling discoveries. But it took an amazing amount of work and perseverance to get the first space telescope up and running. The Universe in a Mirror tells the story of this telescope and the visionaries responsible for its extraordinary accomplishments.
Robert Zimmerman takes readers behind the scenes of one of the most ambitious scientific instruments ever sent into space. After World War II, astronomer Lyman Spitzer and a handful of scientists waged a fifty-year struggle to build the first space telescope capable of seeing beyond Earth's atmospheric veil. Zimmerman shows how many of the telescope's advocates sacrificed careers and family to get it launched, and how others devoted their lives to Hubble only to have their hopes and reputations shattered when its mirror was found to be flawed. This is the story of an idea that would not die--and of the dauntless human spirit. Illustrated with striking color images, The Universe in a Mirror describes the heated battles between scientists and bureaucrats, the perseverance of astronauts to repair and maintain the telescope, and much more. Hubble, and the men and women behind it, opened a rare window onto the universe, dazzling humanity with sights never before seen.
This book tells their remarkable story. A new afterword updates the reader on the May 2009 Hubble service mission and looks to the future of astronomy, including the prospect of a new space telescope to replace Hubble.
Robert Zimmerman takes readers behind the scenes of one of the most ambitious scientific instruments ever sent into space. After World War II, astronomer Lyman Spitzer and a handful of scientists waged a fifty-year struggle to build the first space telescope capable of seeing beyond Earth's atmospheric veil. Zimmerman shows how many of the telescope's advocates sacrificed careers and family to get it launched, and how others devoted their lives to Hubble only to have their hopes and reputations shattered when its mirror was found to be flawed. This is the story of an idea that would not die--and of the dauntless human spirit. Illustrated with striking color images, The Universe in a Mirror describes the heated battles between scientists and bureaucrats, the perseverance of astronauts to repair and maintain the telescope, and much more. Hubble, and the men and women behind it, opened a rare window onto the universe, dazzling humanity with sights never before seen.
This book tells their remarkable story. A new afterword updates the reader on the May 2009 Hubble service mission and looks to the future of astronomy, including the prospect of a new space telescope to replace Hubble.
336 pages, Paperback
First published April 21, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
May 2, 2009
There are dazzling pictures in this book and I’m sure that science writing is hard to do. But this book is more about bureaucratic politics than it is about astronomy. And it’s actually not very good as bureaucratic politics. It’s more of the personal stories of people with strong personalities who clashed with each other. And the author is pretty enamored of all of them. And they seem to be his audience. In the end, I had so many unanswered questions and so many pointless details. Very disappointing.
August 25, 2009
A moderately interesting book which suffers from a couple of flaws. His descriptions of underlying phenomena are sometimes lacking. Example: his discussion of atmospheric properties limiting the performance of ground based telescopes doesn't even address turbulence.
He also backed the wrong horse in the award of the Space Telescope Science Institute, interviewing Lyman Spitzer and others from Princeton while the award of course went to Johns Hopkins. Only one individual from Hopkins is quoted, and then indirectly.
Still, a useful history of the time. The title is a little overblown. Not sure how visionary it is to understand that putting telescopes in space would improve their performance.
PS I collaborated with one the main players in this book, Ed Weiler. We published a couple of papers in Ap.J., titled something like "Chromospheric Lyman-Alpha Absorption Along the Line of Sight to HR1099." This is now more than a few years ago....
He also backed the wrong horse in the award of the Space Telescope Science Institute, interviewing Lyman Spitzer and others from Princeton while the award of course went to Johns Hopkins. Only one individual from Hopkins is quoted, and then indirectly.
Still, a useful history of the time. The title is a little overblown. Not sure how visionary it is to understand that putting telescopes in space would improve their performance.
PS I collaborated with one the main players in this book, Ed Weiler. We published a couple of papers in Ap.J., titled something like "Chromospheric Lyman-Alpha Absorption Along the Line of Sight to HR1099." This is now more than a few years ago....
February 19, 2022
Now that the James Webb Space Telescope is in place, I decided to go back and take a look at the history of its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), deployed more than three decades ago. My research led me to The Universe in a Mirror as the definitive account of Hubble's history.
Zimmerman, a science writer and historian of space exploration, puts the spotlight on heroic scientists and engineers, who worked tirelessly for decades to bring the Hubble Space Telescope project to fruition. Zimmerman mixes clear and readable descriptions of the project's technical challenges with personal stories of the participants into an engaging narrative, which also covers the herculean efforts needed to secure funding, overcome bureaucratic hurdles, and come back from brushes with extinction.
As might be expected of a book that deals with an advanced imaging project, the book contains many eye-catching and fascinating photos, the ones that shaped our understanding of deep-space, thanks to HST. There are also technical diagrams that explain the workings of HST, including the initial problem of a misshapen mirror and the actions taken to correct its optics.
As a technical reader, I would have liked to see a bit more on the technology in terms hardware elements, image resolution, and on-board data processing capabilities, including any coding and redundancy used for fault tolerance. This is a minor gripe, though, as I fully understand the need to strike a balance between describing the technology and human-interest aspects.
The narrative contains a long string of successes, missed opportunities, and ugly compromises. The mirror could have been bigger, producing better images, as it collected more light, and it could have incorporated broader capabilities, but budget fights nixed many such aspirations and almost killed the project on multiple occasions. The end product was, nevertheless, highly popular with the public, who eagerly anticipated the next image from Hubble.
Zimmerman, a science writer and historian of space exploration, puts the spotlight on heroic scientists and engineers, who worked tirelessly for decades to bring the Hubble Space Telescope project to fruition. Zimmerman mixes clear and readable descriptions of the project's technical challenges with personal stories of the participants into an engaging narrative, which also covers the herculean efforts needed to secure funding, overcome bureaucratic hurdles, and come back from brushes with extinction.
As might be expected of a book that deals with an advanced imaging project, the book contains many eye-catching and fascinating photos, the ones that shaped our understanding of deep-space, thanks to HST. There are also technical diagrams that explain the workings of HST, including the initial problem of a misshapen mirror and the actions taken to correct its optics.
As a technical reader, I would have liked to see a bit more on the technology in terms hardware elements, image resolution, and on-board data processing capabilities, including any coding and redundancy used for fault tolerance. This is a minor gripe, though, as I fully understand the need to strike a balance between describing the technology and human-interest aspects.
The narrative contains a long string of successes, missed opportunities, and ugly compromises. The mirror could have been bigger, producing better images, as it collected more light, and it could have incorporated broader capabilities, but budget fights nixed many such aspirations and almost killed the project on multiple occasions. The end product was, nevertheless, highly popular with the public, who eagerly anticipated the next image from Hubble.
December 1, 2021
Though this book gets bogged down in detail, it gives a nice overview of the history of the Hubble Space Telescope as well as the key players involved in its creation. It is an interesting book to read, and I learned a lot from it, but the two main flaws are: 1) uneven description and details, and 2) overly biased reporting.
On details: Multiple pages would be given to one seemingly minor event, and then entire years of history would get glossed over in a sentence or two. Perhaps nothing important happened during those years, but when seemingly trivial matters take up pages, it leaves the reader wondering what else happened that maybe was more significant.
On bias: It is expected that writers of history bring bias to their books, but the best writers work to overcome their bias or at least not make it so obvious. Mr. Zimmerman freely tells us his opinions on who did well and who did poorly, and he openly analyzes people's actions and responses. On the one hand, it is helpful that he is clear and obvious about his bias, but on the other hand, it comes across as unfair.
In spite of this book's weaknesses, The Universe in a Mirror is an interesting, informing, and enjoyable read.
On details: Multiple pages would be given to one seemingly minor event, and then entire years of history would get glossed over in a sentence or two. Perhaps nothing important happened during those years, but when seemingly trivial matters take up pages, it leaves the reader wondering what else happened that maybe was more significant.
On bias: It is expected that writers of history bring bias to their books, but the best writers work to overcome their bias or at least not make it so obvious. Mr. Zimmerman freely tells us his opinions on who did well and who did poorly, and he openly analyzes people's actions and responses. On the one hand, it is helpful that he is clear and obvious about his bias, but on the other hand, it comes across as unfair.
In spite of this book's weaknesses, The Universe in a Mirror is an interesting, informing, and enjoyable read.
March 4, 2025
As someone who was deeply moved by the Hubble Deep Field and Ultra Deep Field images, I couldn’t resist reading this book on the history of the Hubble Space Telescope. Zimmerman does a fine job at laying out just how challenging it is to get a 27,000 lb telescope to orbit 340 miles above the Earth, and how the people who made it possible sacrificed decades of their lives in service of that achievement. If you have any interest in the history of cosmology or astronomy I highly recommend reading this book.
February 29, 2024
Great story. We seldom know the background. We see the wonders, applaud the achievements, but we don't hear much about the politics (who will run the projects), funding (who pays), or the vision (what capabilities). It takes engineering, it takes science, it takes public support. Yet, despite pulling it all together - something goes wrong.
March 2, 2020
It was a great read to learn about what it took to get Hubble into space, from the scientists who fought for it, built it and kept it alive. Loved this book.
June 19, 2015
It is amazing to read how numerous people spent their whole career on the project. It just shows how a project this big is not a work of just on person but thousands of people who spend their whole career on making it possible. So many people without whom the project wouldn't be possible, but finally most of them don't even get to reap the benefit.
It tells the story of the Hubble Space Telescope, from the inception of the idea in the 1940s till its latest observation. At each and every stage, it faced numerous challenges. Again and again the project came to a cancellation. Even after its launch, the mirror turned out to be imperfect but a combined effort of the people got us the spectacular observations we see now.
It tells the story of the Hubble Space Telescope, from the inception of the idea in the 1940s till its latest observation. At each and every stage, it faced numerous challenges. Again and again the project came to a cancellation. Even after its launch, the mirror turned out to be imperfect but a combined effort of the people got us the spectacular observations we see now.
December 8, 2015
This book is really a great account of the history of the idea of hubble telescope & the visionaries behind making it happen. It is also an account of the brief history of NASA and how things came to be. The author has really done this topic complete justice. It is easy enough to understand without being too technical , at the same time has enough technical details to intrigue an engineer like me!
I also recently visited the Smithsonian Air and space museum right after reading this book. They have the instruments that they brought down from the Hubble space telescope in their last servicing mission and it was just a delight to see them , esp after reading this book.
Must read for everyone!
I also recently visited the Smithsonian Air and space museum right after reading this book. They have the instruments that they brought down from the Hubble space telescope in their last servicing mission and it was just a delight to see them , esp after reading this book.
Must read for everyone!
June 10, 2012
The building of the Hubble telescope was a long and complicated process, lasting 44 years from the first serious proposal of such a telescope to Hubble’s launch in 1990. The fight for Hubble didn’t end there either, as regular maintenance missions were necessary to keep the telescope operational. The Universe in a Mirror describes the many people who devoted their lives to the project, as well as a sampling of the neat discoveries the Hubble enabled.
November 27, 2009
Totally awesome. Anyone interested in astronomy will enjoy this book. What I particularly liked was that it doesn't get into physics like many astronomy books do. Instead, it takes more of a biographical approach, detailing the involvement of the many scientists, astronauts and NASA personnel who thought up, built, and put the Hubble telescope into orbit. An amazing story about an idea that, when finally realized, literally changed the science of astronomy and the way we perceive the universe.
September 3, 2013
I liked this book for what is was: a comprehensive recounting of how the Hubble Space Telescope got where it is and how it got there. However this book did not do anything profound. There were no dramatics in the problems the team ran into. If you are not interested in dramatics and just in facts, then you may enjoy this book very much. But for me, even in my non-fiction, I like to feel that the hurdle the characters face are a bit more palpable than this book makes them feel.
February 12, 2014
Not a book to read if you don't have a lot of time to spend with it. Things are really hard to follow if you have to put it down for some time, but overall a very interesting look into what it takes to create Hubble and all the problems that go along with it.
November 6, 2019
I wanted to like this book... and overall it was not bad, i just wish it would have been more descriptive, more technical on how it was built, launched and then repaired. Very little in depth description of the actual design and how it works, and some of the ingenious fixes they had to make.
November 18, 2016
Good thorough history of Hubble and the people who built it at this point it's a bit dated so you may find it useful to look up the more recent history of hubble if you are interested in reading more after you finish
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