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Astronaut shares Hubble telescope knowledge at `U'

"Is there an astronaut in the crowd?"

Fred Becchetti posed this peculiar question to the 200 people waiting in a Dennison Building lecture room yesterday.

But the expected lecturer, NASA astronaut Kathryn Thornton, did not reply on cue. Her flight from Houston was late, so she arrived at the University an hour late.

Thornton has been on four NASA missions. The most recent was the 11-day Hubble Space Telescope service mission in December 1993. The Endeavour space shuttle was used in the mission.

To start off the colloqium, assistant astronomy Prof. Patrick Seitzer spoke on the Hubble Space Telescope and the reputation it has earned since being deployed six years ago. Despite the negative media attention the Hubble telescope has received, it is far from a failure, Seitzer said.

"The Hubble Space Telescope is the most successful astronomical instrument in existence right now," he said. "The Golden Era of Hubble Discovery will occur in the next five to six years."

There are two more service missions scheduled this decade for the Hubble telescope: one in 1997 and one in 1999.

Seitzer said that while working for NASA on the Hubble project, there was a time when it seemed the costly satellite would never launch. "We used to have annual one-year-to-launch parties," he joked.

Seitzer pinpointed the telescope's problem. "The Hubble Space Telescope's mirror is too flat at the end ... this was the biggest blunder in the history of optics," he said. The error was discovered in 1990.

In the December 1993 Endeavour mission, Thornton performed a space walk with other astronauts. "When I look at the Earth, I see a very powerful living thing," she said.

Included in the footage of the mission shown to the audience were spectacular views of geographical boundaries from the shuttle. She said astronauts could view clearly a portion of the Middle East. "You can see the part that is Israel and you can see the part that is Egypt. We do see political boundaries from time to time," she said.

Thornton spoke of her unique experiences and unusual sightings. "Every time you look out at night, you see lightning somewhere," she said.

The audience ranged from young Girl Scouts to University scholars. When Thornton was asked by an elementary school visitor what her favorite thing about space was, she replied, "Floating."

Being millions of miles from earth does have its disadvantages. "Every day in space is a bad hair day," Thornton said, as shuttle footage showed her dealing with the effects of gravity.

Thornton would like to see the space program expand in the future to include a space station, which people would be able to inhabit for extended periods of time. She also had other hopes for space exploration. "I'd like to see a return to the moon or Mars," she said. "I think we'll do that."