The Man Behind the Hubble

Back in 1977, when Bob Alexander was just a young engineer, he was chosen to work on a challenging new project: the Hubble space telescope. During his ten years on the project, Bob—now a Museum volunteer—advanced to the level of supervisor and recalls that with all the experienced engineers working alongside him, designing the Hubble was a pretty smooth operation. This week, we’ve tapped Akshay Murthy, a student at Tesla STEM High School in Bellevue, to do the interview because of his passion for aerospace (thanks Akshay!). Akshay asks Bob about his thought process in designing high-tech instruments like the near-field camera 3, the cosmic origin spectrograph, and the multi-object spectrometer, and Bob gives his insights about what he calls “the finest scientific instrument ever built.” Next time you’re at the Museum, come see the Hubble telescope replica hanging above our Space Gallery. Host: Sean Mobley Guest Host: Akshay Murthy Producer: Keny Dutton Webmaster: Layne Benofsky Content Marketing Manager: Irene Jagla