Picturing the Cosmos: Hubble Space Telescope Images and the Astronomical Sublime

Acknowledgments

232 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book has been many years in the making, and I am grateful to all those who helped me along the way. It began as my dissertation in the History of Culture program at the University of Chicago, where I was encouraged and influenced by a number of professors, especially W. J. T. Mitchell, Robert S. Nelson, and Adrian Johns. They helped to shape its original form, and I benefited greatly from their insightful guidance both as a graduate student and afterward as the project became a book. They modeled the life of a scholar for me, and I continue to strive to reach the standards they set. The idea to study the aesthetics of astronomical images came from a class taught by Barbara Maria Stafford, and I am grateful to her for starting me on this path. The oral history interviews that form the core of the book were conducted while I was a Guggenheim Predoctoral Fellow at the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum. The curators of the Space History Division offered an incredibly supportive environment for pursuing research, and they have continued to support the project in the years since. I am especially grateful to David DeVorkin for reading multiple drafts of the manuscript and always providing words of encouragement . He and Robert W. Smith kindly invited me to contribute a chapter to Hubble: Imaging Space and Time, giving my research its first large audience. I could not have written this book without the cooperation of the astronomers and staff at the Space Telescope Science Institute who willingly agreed to interviews , patiently answered my questions, and encouraged my interest in the work 233 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS of crafting astronomical images. The members of the Hubble Heritage Project were especially generous, and particular thanks go to Keith Noll, Howard Bond, Jayanne English, Zolt Levay, and Lisa Frattare for digging through old files to find proposals, notes from meetings, and other invaluable resources. I sincerely hope they will find this book a compelling account of their endeavors. I am indebted to many who read and responded to manuscript drafts and proposals. They pushed me to take my ideas further, and I can only hope that I have managed to deliver. Thanks to John Bender, Scott Bukatman, Martin Collins, Lynn Cunningham, Emine Fetvaci, Hannah Higgins, Susan Jarosi, Robert Kendrick , Roger Launius, Michael Marrinan, Jennifer Marshall, Travis Rector, and Fred Turner. Special thanks go to Paul Stern for enthusiastically reading the entire manuscript and helping me to see some of the key themes that thread through the book. I am extremely grateful to the two anonymous readers who reviewed the final manuscript . Their thoughtful engagement with the text and constructive suggestions for improvements made this a far stronger book. The comments of the editorial board at the University of Minnesota Press aided me during the final revisions. I am thrilled that the book is so richly illustrated. Thanks go to Zolt Levay and Lisa Frattare for creating high-resolution versions of several Hubble Heritage images that were not otherwise available. C. R. O’Dell, David Malin, Brad Moore, Don Dixon, and Rick Sternbach provided images as well. And special thanks to Tad Bennicoff at the Smithsonian Institution Archives for digging through files to find the originals of the Lockheed and Martin Marietta images. I am also grateful for a research grant from Ursinus College that helped to cover the cost of permissions. I thank Richard Morrison, executive editor at the University of Minnesota Press, for his enthusiasm for the project, his valuable editorial guidance, and his recognition of the importance of images to the book. Thanks also go to Laura Westlund , Jean Brady, Daniel Ochsner, Anne Wrenn, and many others at the Press. Finally, I thank my family. My siblings, Bob, Bill, and Carolyn, provided welcome distractions when I most needed them, whether a joke, a vacation, or a phone conversation. My husband, Scott Bukatman, has been a steadfast supporter of my endeavors, a loving companion, and my toughest reader. I am lucky both personally and professionally to have him as my partner in life. Finally, I thank my parents, 234 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Bob and Sue Kessler. They fostered my curiosity and encouraged my ambitions. Although they could not have known how it might find expression, they created an environment that made it possible for this project to germinate. Their proclivity to use proper terminology when discussing their shared...