‘From Jars to the Stars,’ with help from CU
CU Rocket Project students Merle Reisbeck, left, and Russell Nidey look on as a colleague works on a biaxial pointing control. Photo courtesy CU/LASP.
Rocket-pointing control was Western Hemisphere’s first major home-grown space technology; author talks about how that CU innovation spawned an aerospace titan
How did a company best known for its glass jars hit a comet 83 million miles away? The answer involves technical expertise, heroic dedication, an industrial giant’s push to modernize, Hitler’s V-2 rocket, speakers destined for a Hall & Oates summer concert tour, and the search for life’s origins.
That’s how the publisher describes the book, “From Jars to the Stars: How Ball Came to Build a Comet-Hunting Machine,” by award-winning science journalist Todd Neff, who presents an inside look at the backgrounds and motivations of the men and women who actually create the spacecraft on which the American space program rides.
A timeless story of science, engineering, politics and business strategy intertwining to bring success in the brutal business of space, “From Jars to the Stars” is a lively account of one of humankind’s great modern achievements. It is a story about people, foremost those on the Deep Impact mission, which smashed a spacecraft into the comet Tempel 1.
“From Jars to the Stars” explores the improbable beginnings of Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., which built the comet hunter, and the evolution of the American space agency that funded it.
The book begins with the story of a group of University