Technology and Culture

McCray, Patrick (W. Patrick)
What Makes a Failure? Designing a New National Telescope, 1975-1984
Technology and Culture - Volume 42, Number 2, April 2001, pp. 265-291

The Johns Hopkins University Press

Patrick (W. Patrick) McCray - What Makes a Failure? Designing a New National Telescope, 1975-1984 - Technology and Culture 42:2 Technology and Culture 42.2 (2001) 265-291 What Makes a Failure?Designing a New National Telescope, 1975-1984 W. Patrick McCray [Figures] For an expert community, choosing the design of a new technology is not as simple as running a cost-benefit analysis on the available options. During the decision-making process, members of the communities involved learn what is feasible, educate each other, and articulate their priorities as they move toward a solution. Historians, sociologists, anthropologists, and policy makers have begun to produce a body of literature that investigates the process and motives at work when a scientific or technological community wrestles with an important project's early stages. During the 1970s and 1980s, American astronomers, engineers, and science administrators formed such a decision-making community as they debated the design and use of larger telescopes, including a new national telescope. They balanced science goals against technological possibilities and they weighed the intellectual well-being of the entire astronomy community against the desires of individuals and institutions. In the end, they made perhaps the toughest choice of all: not to build. Did that decision signal failure? A closer look suggests otherwise, that the ultimate success or failure of a big technological project must be...