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Conceiving and marketing NASA’s Great Observatories

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Abstract

In early 1984, the astronomical community’s plans to launch a series of powerful telescopes able to study celestial sources at almost any wavelength were in trouble. The President of the United States had just declared his priority for a Space Station that was bound to be expensive, and Congress could not understand why yet another set of space observatories was needed when others were already being funded. To realize their aims, astronomers would have to advocate their needs much more effectively than in the past.

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Notes

  1. Letter from George Field to The Honorable Jake Garn, March 8, 1984.

  2. Google: 1984 State of the Union Message.

  3. C. J. Pellerin, Jr., “How NASA Builds Teams,” a book in progress, copyright 4-D Systems, 2008, Chapter 16, Page 204.

  4. Letter from Pellerin to Harwit, December 21, 1984.

  5. Minutes of the Astrophysics Program Coordination Group, January 3, 1985, page 1.

  6. Ibid. page 5.

  7. Ibid. page 6.

  8. Minutes of the Astrophysics Council Meeting, February 22, 1985, page 4.

  9. Ibid. pages 2–3.

  10. Letter from Richard L. Daniels to EZ/Director, Astrophysics Division, May 9, 1985.

  11. C. J. Pellerin, Jr., “How NASA Builds Teams,” Ibid. page 206.

  12. The Great Observatories for Space Astrophysics, prepared under the auspices of the NASA Astrophysics Division, Dr. Charles H. Pellerin Jr. by Martin Harwit, Cornell University and Valerie Neal, Essex Corporation in consultation with the Astrophysics Management Operations Working Group; Graphic design and illustration by Brien O’Brien.

  13. Letter from Riccardo Giacconi to The Honorable Ronald Reagan, June 12, 1985.

  14. Minutes of the Meeting of the AMOWG, July 22, 1985, page 3.

  15. Speakers, Congressional Lecture Series, Space Science for the Non-Scientist, announcements of the individual talks are filed under October 30, November 6, 14, and 21, December 2, and December 5, 1985.

  16. Minutes of the Meeting of the Astrophysics Council, March 25 and 26, 1985, page 3.

  17. Space astrophysics in the 1990’s: The Decade of Achievement, Filed under February 12, 1985 because of the designation A. F. P. 2/12/85 at the upper right. The initials probably refer to Adrienne Pedersen of the BDM Corporation which supported the Astrophysics Division at the time.

  18. Minutes of the Meeting of the Astrophysics Council, March 25 and 26, 1985, page 3.

  19. Letter from Martin Harwit to Burton Edelson, April 5, 1985.

  20. Minutes of the Meeting of the AMOWG (Astrophysics Council) September 20, 1985, pages 3–4.

  21. Letter from George Field to Martin Harwit, October 15, 1985.

  22. Minutes of the AMOWG meeting, December 6, 1985, page 1.

  23. Postscript on a typed Note dated December 24, 1985 and headed “For George Field”.

  24. Hand written notes some dated “3/1/85”, some overwritten as “3/1/1986” (but all of them meaning January 3, 1986).

  25. Letter from Martin Harwit to George Field, January 7, 1986.

  26. Handwritten notes dated 3/1/86.

  27. Letter from Harwit to George Field, January 7, 1986.

  28. Notes attached to letter from Harwit to Field, dated January 7, 1986.

  29. Letter from Martin Harwit to William R. Graham, January 20, 1986.

  30. Letter from Martin Harwit to Burton I. Edelson, January 20, 1986.

  31. Letter from Charles J. Pellerin, Jr. to A/Dr. Graham, Jan 22, 1986.

  32. Minutes of the Astrophysics Management Operations Working Group April 17, 1986, page 2.

  33. Minutes of AMOWG meeting held on June 3, 1986, pages 2–3.

  34. Ibid page 4.

  35. Minutes of the August 15, 1986 AMOWG meeting, pages 2–3.

  36. Google: excerpted from the New York Times, Saturday, April 4, 1987, “President Scales Back Plans for Space Station over Cost”.

  37. Minutes of the August 15, 1986 Meeting of the AMOWG, page 6.

  38. Letter from Harvey Tananbaum to Martin Harwit, 22 September 1986.

  39. “New Windows on the Universe: The NASA Great Observatories,” slide set and text prepared by C. Jones, C. Stern and W. Forman, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

  40. Letter from James W. Head III and Martin Harwit to Charles Pellerin and Geoffrey Briggs, July 24, 1987.

  41. Minutes of the August 15, 1986 Meeting of the AMOWG, page 6.

  42. Letters from Martin Harwit to Roger Bonnet, August 22, 1986.

  43. Ibid., November 26, 1986.

  44. Letter from R. M. Bonnet to Martin Harwit, November 11, 1986.

  45. Minutes of the June 23, 1987 AMOWG meeting, page 3.

  46. Letter from George Field to Dr. William Graham, 31 December, 1986.

  47. Minutes of the AMOWG Meeting of February 24, 1987, page 2.

  48. Handwritten letter from Martin to George, dated March 1, 1987, final paragraph.

  49. Letter from Charles J. Pellerin, Jr. to James C. Fletcher, March 14, 1985.

  50. Conversation of Charles J. Pellerin with Martin Harwit, at Pellerin’s home, Boulder, CO, May 26, 2008.

  51. Letter from James C. Fletcher to the Hon. Edward P. Boland, Chair Subcommittee on HUD-Independent Agencies, Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives, October 14, 1987 (NASA Headquarters Archives, AXAF-1 File 5604).

  52. Minutes of the AMOWG Meeting of June 23, 1987, page 4.

  53. “Revealing the Universe, The Making of the Chandra X-ray Observatory, Wallace Tucker and Karen Tucker, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2001, pp 102–104.

Acknowledgements

Work related to this paper was started at Durham University’s Institute of Advanced Study, where I held a Distinguished Fellowship in the fall of 2007. I thank the directors and staff of the IAS for their wonderful hospitality. I would not have been able to write this paper without the dedication with which Ms. Elaine Engst archived my papers at Cornell University, two decades ago. The staffs of Cornell University’s Kroch Library archives and the NASA History Division archives helped me greatly with their guidance. I thank Harvey Tananbaum for his critical reading of an earlier draft of this paper.

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  1. Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

    Martin Harwit

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  1. Martin Harwit
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Correspondence to Martin Harwit.

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Unless otherwise designated, all documents cited below can be found in the Cornell University Kroch Library Archives, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections: (14/7/2402 Martin Harwit papers, boxes 9, 10 and 11).

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Harwit, M. Conceiving and marketing NASA’s Great Observatories. Exp Astron 26, 163–177 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10686-009-9141-1

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