xi
missed. The motor had rusted up because water got inside because of the 100%
humidity in the evening in Texas and the cooling from the boiling liquid helium.
That never would have been discovered in Berkeley.
I set to work writing my thesis. A little before that I had gotten a job offer
from NASA in New York City, so I had to hurry and get finished before the
golden coach turned into a pumpkin. The thesis was about the working experiment at White Mountain, and the design of the failed balloon payload. It was
enough to let me finish school and take a job. My plan was to become a radio
astronomer, and to give up on this cosmic background radiation work – it’s
much too hard for a young person. Meanwhile David and Paul and the rest of the
team rebuilt the apparatus and fixed the problems and got it ready to fly again.
That time it worked.
Little did I know that NASA was preparing to ask for new satellite mission
proposals. A few months after I took my new job, the announcement came out,
and my new boss, Patrick Thaddeus, asked for ideas. I said, my thesis project
failed but we should try it in outer space. He recognized that this maybe could
work, so we called our colleagues and agreed to write a proposal. I did a lot of
typing and copying and editing and we sent it in. I didn’t think we had a
chance.
But we did. After exploring some other possibilities with us, NASA decided in
1976 to form a new scientific team and to assign an engineering team to develop
the idea at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD. I was now 30
years old and suddenly the head scientist for an outrageously creative and difficult concept. Fortunately, I was now embedded in a team of senior people who
knew what to do and how to think, and we made it work. I’ll skip over a few
details to say the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) was launched successfully on November 18, 1989 and it worked immediately. Within weeks we
announced our first measurements (made with the upgraded version of the balloon payload) to the American Astronomical Society and received a standing
ovation. Two years later we made our second announcement and got first page
news coverage around the world. After that, more people went into the subject,
an industry grew about measuring the cosmic background, and in 2006 I got a
call from Stockholm.
What did I learn from ballooning? First, it’s a great start for a career. Balloon
payloads are small enough that a student can learn everything about one, and
know something of many engineering disciplines: optics, electronics, mechanical,
thermal, cryogenics, telemetry, computers; the works: teamwork, working full
blast for a deadline. Second, it’s humbling. Knowing that all your work can fail
because of a lack of testing really changes people. And third, it’s empowering. If
we can build a little thing and open up a new domain of science, then let’s keep on
going! Who knows how far we can go?
Foreword
missed. The motor had rusted up because water got inside because of the 100%
humidity in the evening in Texas and the cooling from the boiling liquid helium.
That never would have been discovered in Berkeley.
I set to work writing my thesis. A little before that I had gotten a job offer
from NASA in New York City, so I had to hurry and get finished before the
golden coach turned into a pumpkin. The thesis was about the working experiment at White Mountain, and the design of the failed balloon payload. It was
enough to let me finish school and take a job. My plan was to become a radio
astronomer, and to give up on this cosmic background radiation work – it’s
much too hard for a young person. Meanwhile David and Paul and the rest of the
team rebuilt the apparatus and fixed the problems and got it ready to fly again.
That time it worked.
Little did I know that NASA was preparing to ask for new satellite mission
proposals. A few months after I took my new job, the announcement came out,
and my new boss, Patrick Thaddeus, asked for ideas. I said, my thesis project
failed but we should try it in outer space. He recognized that this maybe could
work, so we called our colleagues and agreed to write a proposal. I did a lot of
typing and copying and editing and we sent it in. I didn’t think we had a
chance.
But we did. After exploring some other possibilities with us, NASA decided in
1976 to form a new scientific team and to assign an engineering team to develop
the idea at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD. I was now 30
years old and suddenly the head scientist for an outrageously creative and difficult concept. Fortunately, I was now embedded in a team of senior people who
knew what to do and how to think, and we made it work. I’ll skip over a few
details to say the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) was launched successfully on November 18, 1989 and it worked immediately. Within weeks we
announced our first measurements (made with the upgraded version of the balloon payload) to the American Astronomical Society and received a standing
ovation. Two years later we made our second announcement and got first page
news coverage around the world. After that, more people went into the subject,
an industry grew about measuring the cosmic background, and in 2006 I got a
call from Stockholm.
What did I learn from ballooning? First, it’s a great start for a career. Balloon
payloads are small enough that a student can learn everything about one, and
know something of many engineering disciplines: optics, electronics, mechanical,
thermal, cryogenics, telemetry, computers; the works: teamwork, working full
blast for a deadline. Second, it’s humbling. Knowing that all your work can fail
because of a lack of testing really changes people. And third, it’s empowering. If
we can build a little thing and open up a new domain of science, then let’s keep on
going! Who knows how far we can go?
Foreword