Welcome to all of our regulars, for anyone who is a first timer, this is an event series. We bring signs of all disciplines out of the labs and onto the public stages. The tries of new york city and people like you and me and come and be informed, energized and y engaged by scientific ideas and discoveries and interact directly alsoed with some of the scientists. Our regular hangout means they are in brooklyn but north, were back here tonight in manhattan as partners are with miniseries here. We would like to thank all the people at symphony space, the staff particularly kathy, johanna thompson, rebecca white, mary, james lasko and zack and wiki for helping us expand our universe. And yours also. Ty [applause] [cheering and applauding] a very big special thank you, we have the barr to the back and left if you havent visited yet. Theyve concocted our cocktail disorder, however you say it, its called atlantis, fabulous blue growing drink. Ed its named for the Space Shuttle in which our speaker was a crewmember. Its very tasty. We highly recommend it. To expand your universe for the. Also thanks to cspan was covering us here tonight, we went to give a shout out to them. If you like to find out more about secret science club and Upcoming Events in brooklyn or anywhere in the universe, sometimes up there, please visit our charmingly retro website, people secret science club. Com from sign up for mailing list and we love having members. You are a member despite being here. You can sign up and you will know about all of it. Onto the evenings event. Tonight, we are thrilled to present astronaut, scientist and author, catherine sullivan. Nasa astronaut, catherine spent over 500 hours in space. Before that, she trained as a scientist, receiving a phd in angeology and she went from studying the ocean floor onto nasa and became the First American woman to walk in space. Shes a pattern of three Nasa Space Missions and she was on the crew of thehr discovery shuttle thought watched the amazing Hubble Space Telescope which had radically revolutionized our views of the universe. She does not stop when she left the Astronaut Corps. Afterwards, kathryn served as the atmospheric demonstration, overseeing network of satellites shift in airplanes that looked back at earth, monitoring the health of our atmosphere and now, after 2017, she has written a book. Called handprints on hubble, astronaut story of adventure and thats the subject of her talk tonight. The lovely folks at books on call nyc booksellers tonight. Kathryn will be signing copies after her talk and after the q a. We will have, she will come and talk, talk you and i with you, our wonderful audience. Then we will have the book signing. Av please welcome doctor kathryn sullivan. [applause] april 24, 1990 congress where we had been 14 days earlier, suited up, strapped in and ready to go with the countdown clock stopped at d 31 seconds. Again. This time from the Launch ControlCenter Computers all the countdown because an indication that a valve on one of the pipes used to fill the fuel tanks had failed to close. The indicator was correct, that only one valve was left to prevent the fuel in the tank from leaking over instead of into the bay shuttles three main engines. If that happened, we could end up with the Hubble Telescope, a port landing site on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean or splashed into the ocean it would be scrubbed if the indicator was wrong however, think about the tire pressure system on your car. The system was fine and it was no reason to scratch. So which was it . Serious problem or faulty indicator . Go for loss or scrub . This launch team controller responsible for the shuttles three and compression system. Someone i still felt only by his call sign is mps. Time was not on this guys side. The shuttle bus set a strict limit on how much longer we could hold. R just 12 minutes more. The carpet, we listen intently as the Launch Controller worked out the problem. Whats your status . They talked probably to the data on his display. The temperature and pressure readings in the lines surrounding the valve were not consistent with it being open. From physics, they said it was closed, he proposed to send a manual command, hoping it would read correctly. That way. The control Center Computer still had a lock on the countdown clock. What is your car . The lunch director crushed. Im prepared to manually override the software and proceed, he replied. The best soldier and it, he told the others to get ready to reason for content. Heum advised the nasa technical director of the launch team was a call. The call we had been waiting for came a split second later. All controllers, the countdown will resume on my mark. Three, two, one. K mark. The entire episode had taken less than three minutes. Thirtyone seconds later, discoveries roared off the launch pad. The moment in which my Hubble Telescope adventures launched into the phase matters but the early stages of the story go back several years before that. In fact, they start here in 19 1978, february 1978, nasa introduced to the world their newest class of astronauts chosen specifically to fly aboard the Space Shuttle, brain no space truck and research vessel, the group of 35 people quickly became known as the tf energies 35 new guys, but coming from military, he would know theres another phrase with the f doesnt stand for five but for something else. That was a double entendre on the military base. The other interesting thing about our group is, we had strange people amongst us, 25 military test pilot, every other group of nasa astronaut had had. We also had six women, you see physics of us here in three africanamerican men and one asianamerican man. By the end of our first day, right after we had been introduced to the public, it became clear to all of us that the simple way to describe our group was ten interesting people and 25 standard white guys. [laughter] the white guys were out of the building and off to the gym or the beach or whatever they wanted to do, about half an hour after the introduction ceremony ended and the six of us and for other strange people were besieged and barraged with interviews all the way through east coast news hour and beyond. It was a kind of life that none of us had ever expected, two of us in this picture here on the middle left and the far right, we had only kind of just turned 26 chemical history out of graduate school, we just finished our phds, interview was our first ever nearest Job Interview and astronaut was our first ever fulltime job. If they think about it, its beyond crazy. [cheering and applauding] so what happens when you are a baby astronaut . What happens when youre a baby astronaut, electrical and start learning more things. We spent about a year going through highly compressed graduate school astronaut, think of any aspect science or engineering,ss physiology, space physics, system design, anything that might faintly touch on spaceflight, we got a crash course in from the nations best experts about equivalent to the first year of graduate school work. When i was done, we were entitled to with the insignia of the Astronaut Corps, he hadnt flown cap but still, and we started getting plugged into supporters roles should be helping others come in to being helping the preparations, the planning or operation of Shuttle Missions that would happen before our turn in line came along. Be a little bit like siding your career at a company in the mailroom and learning by rotating around from one part of the company to another from learning all the bits and pieces of how the enterprise works. We did that for a number of years before we started getting slotted in. For me, my first Flight Opportunity came about october 1984. My colleague and classmate earned the distinction of being the First American woman to fly in space the year before. Late 83, they announced a new patient with a fancy acronym, i wont bother you with, it meant cooler science thing, thats all you need to know. And i think that she would make her second spaceflight, Kathy Sullivan would be aboard her first spaceflight in a spacewalk. I got to tell you, there is a delightful wave of excitement and congratulations that swept across the space center. Holly came up to us and said this is soquel, you will be the first woman to ever fly twice. To me, youll be the first woman to ever do a spacewalk. So we looked at each other inside these people have not been paying attention to history. Our flight was announced late 83 for october 84 lunch date and we had been paying attention to the soviet Space Program, we knew 10 pounds was plenty of time the soviet program to put on another mission and let her do a spacewalk. If you ask Kathy Sullivan, they owe us the second flight and her spacewalk. So what you think is happening here . This is on the launchpad october 5, 1984, we are getting ready to board the Space Shuttle challenger are fancier Science Missions that i told you about and guess whats happening here. Let me tell you whats really happening here. The seating arrangement in the cabin dictated that sally and i would board the shuttle last. We waited our turn in the Small Chamber just outside the hatch known as the white room. Ra were keenly aware of the cameras above our heads meant our every move was being monitored by the Launch Control center and perhaps podcast on National Television as well. For a few minutes of idle chitchat, we decided we probably ought to be do something more important than just waiting around. [laughter] watches are always synchronized before big missions in the movies. [laughter] we decided to pretend they were synchronized. [laughter] halfway, there were no microphones in the rooms, hear us saying what youre think the news anchors are saying about us right now . I dont know, do you think we stretched it out enough . Im delighted to say when we landed, this photo featured prominently in all of the articles and they synchronized, stupid astronaut joke number one. Thats a great eightday mission, we stuck outside on the second to last. Day for several hours on the shuttles payroll to do a simple engineer demonstration to prove specialized tools would allow nasa to refuel satellites on orbit. It still to this day, has never been done. Extension for valuable satellites in orbit. It landed in this like skits for next thing that happens when you fly in space, you go through several weeks of being the center off the universe. Your primee through, next in line, everything need is at your disposal soon as you need it. If i summer and youve got it. You need to see the doctor, got it. You need another are in the simulator . Got it. Cut in line in front of everybody else forever resources needed to get you ready for flight. Then you have a magical crazy indescribable eightday experience that the thing you dont know is a moment your Space Shuttle clears the lunch power on your way out into over leaving the earth, the first four seconds of your mission, theres this other one in houston that stands up and says flight crew, we are not first in the line. You land your nobody. Not the back of lung. Of people waiting to get back in the cycle and fly again. Its really disappointing and lonely wandering around with a deer in headlights look trying to remind yourself did stuff, you can see yourself in the photograph. Youre trying to remember you did it. I wasfmb fortunate that it did t last too long for me after my first flight. By early next year, my boss helped me into his office and said i was going to fly a mission coming up soon with this here. The Hubble Space Telescope. What he said to me . , you know the big large space telescope that manifests, ive seen that. Its supposed to be maintainable spaceflight astronaut. It last 15 years. But that wasnt any of the equipment, the tools and equipment that it will take to do that. So you get in the middle of all that now is make sure by the time you take it into orbit, we have all the stuff we need to fulfillo that promise of maintaining in space at 500 miles an hour for 15 years. So for time i was assigned to that, this is all i had ever seen, is an artist concept of around 1982 or three vintage telescope have not yet even been named, coastal called just the space telescope. See the shuttle with it off, that was all we knew about it for a while. I was also working on a president ial commission, assessing the future of the United StatesSpace Program. To sort of capture the vision the past and prospect of the future and that report, our boss, tom payne went back to an illustration had made many years earlier, this illustration appeared in a magazine in 1952 and i encountered it middle 1985 at the age of 33. I looked at it and i read the paragraph into the article from this is described as a space station, People Living there, tourists visiting there, scientists working there, its a jumping off. For destinations beyond this the craft that takes people back and forth to the station, it specialized in tailored for just that 200 miles back and forth. Its the hardest step off our planet, cap first 200mile step. This is a purpose built vehicle that will just do that and do it repeatedly. Its described as a telescope is put into orbit above the atmosphere, starts never bothered by clouds or by turbulence. That guy there is obviously an astronaut fixing it, upgrading it. He sketch this out and made this illustration in the year ion was born. In my early 30s, i looked at this picture and it turned out to be right had a different shape of link but there is one it is a shuttle it does what his vision was when it was created. Putting this into orbit, it doesnt look like that. The details came out different. The idea is, the visual thought back to the mid 40s and 1950s to a time when engineers almost didnt yet have the skills to do it has become a reality and im going to take it to orbit in a year or two. The space station also not ending up looking like clark and the space station, looks like a tinker tour or curtis but that was on the drawing boards in the engineering room returning from sketch into reality and the four room house larger than a football field space station over our heads right now. It had People Living on it continually since almost 20 years. I was stunned by this picture and how rapidly, how long it takes to make the engineering matchup with division. Also how to vivid and powerful the vision was the year i was born when i have no inkling, nor did my parents of where my life would go. Since hubble started and came from and as i did the research for this book, the timelines between my life and hubbles started to jump out at me. It almost became like we were born at essentially the same time. By five years, my older brother and the different doctors in high school and college or grad school first time was mind when hubble began to win a Political Support and Financial Support that it took the next week and began to become reality. 1978, when nasa went toan the ce and set you on the road to space, that was the Year Congress finally supported a budget that hubble was built and put hubble on the road to space as well. Not many months after being assigned to that mission and sink the illustration, i found myself in california meeting the real telescope, there is on the left. Its being taken up to package up and ship down to florida for its lunch. These are human beings down he here, these Little Things you can see, the size of school bus roughly, about 15 feet diameter. Something that fits very snugly into the Space Shuttle. If you want to hubble it was bolted and you try to put your fist between the telescope and the side of the shuttle from theres not a whole lot more room, thats how tightly squeezed it was. One of thehe remark all things o me about hubble as i dug into the history, he hinted at in the sketch on the right, exploded diagram that shows you all of the equipment, all the little doors are open that gives you access to the scientific instruments, big boxes on the bottom and the operating electronics that say here in the middle, all the stuff that makes hubble work, it wraps around in front the data that processes the observations from the science instruments, care must and spectrometers. The architecture public was given back in the late 60s an early 70s in the infancy of the space age, hubbles engineers had the foresight drawn largely from the experience onn cars, think about how to make architecture that would let astronaut work on it at 17500 miles an hour. Does that mean . Imagine putting on to snowmobile suit, putting a bucket on your head, hefty gloves intermittent and change plugs in your car. If you put a twist on, it will flow away from you. Its an incredibly different working environment to do things like picking up flying screws so you have to think about how do i make a ranch that someone with big klutzy hands can hold onto. This is not found on home depot. A few things i found that you can modify, you can get a ratchet wrench on aisle four and have a handle that a space suit left can hold in a big mushroom at the pivot. So you dont have to make a fine gift, you cant close your hand this type. A lot of other stuff doesnt exist in the universe and needed to be invented. The choreography getting all this repair work done also had to be invented. That worked out largely underwater, he teeth two different water tanksr here and stimulation sessions, this water tank is not deep enough to let the telescope stand altogether so we would break the model and have the back and over here as if it was mounted in the shuttle and the front and off to the side. Thats me on the last month thats me again movingon aroundn mockup. West m