As an enormous Superman fan, I’ve lengthy wished to personal Motion Comics No. 419, the difficulty printed in 1972 with an iconic cowl displaying the Man of Metal hurtling into the sky, seeming to fly proper off the web page. That’s why, earlier this yr, I used to be delighted to lastly observe down a duplicate within the secondhand part of my native comedian store.
However I shortly found that this comedian has one other declare to fame. Inside its pages, Superman grew to become concerned in some of the important chapters within the historical past of area science.
On the primary web page, reporter Clark Kent, Superman’s alter ego, covers the launch of a brand new NASA satellite tv for pc whereas onboard an area shuttle. “I’m in orbit with NASA’s Giant Area Telescope, the LST. Right here, effectively above the haze of our environment, astronomers will get a crystal-clear view of the celebrities and planets,” Kent says within the comedian.
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Proper there on the web page was a useless ringer for the real-life Hubble Area Telescope. I used to be baffled: How did the cartoon model of an area telescope that launched in 1990 get into a comic book printed in 1972?
On the primary web page of Motion Comics No. 419, Superman visits the Giant Area Telescope.
There was a clue within the story’s credit. Pete Simmons, then director of area astronomy at Grumman Aerospace Company (now Northrop Grumman), is credited with “technical help.” This was sufficient info for a Google search, which turned up a documentary clip from 1997.
What I discovered amazed me. The Giant Area Telescope was Hubble. Whereas the venture was named after astronomer Edwin Hubble in 1983, NASA had been creating plans for what it referred to as a Giant Area Telescope because the late Sixties. The company had efficiently launched its first profitable area telescope, the Orbiting Astronomical Observatory 2 (OAO-2), in 1968, and by 1971 it had begun to conduct feasibility research for a bigger instrument to look deeper into the cosmos.
However such an costly venture can be a troublesome promote in Congress. Simmons, who had beforehand labored on the OAO-2, took on the problem of demonstrating to the general public—and to Congress—that the LST was a worthy scientific funding. In the future Simmons was on a airplane to New York Metropolis when he seen a toddler within the seat subsequent to him studying a Superman comedian, he recalled in an episode of the documentary sequence Individuals Close to Right here, produced by Mountain Lake PBS.
“I assumed, ‘Gee, these are fairly widespread,’” he stated within the documentary. He invited workers of DC Comics to the Grumman labs and confirmed them fashions of the LST, which satisfied them that they need to function the telescope in a Superman story. The consequence was Motion Comics No. 419. The comedian bought effectively, as Superman comics normally did, giving Simmons tangible proof of the American public’s curiosity within the LST that he might share with Congress.
“I went all the way down to Washington, [D.C.]…, and we gave each member of Congress a duplicate of this Superman comedian,” he recalled. “I bear in mind asking as many as I might discover…, ‘If I can get the Giant Area Telescope talked about in Superman comics, would you suppose it’s widespread sufficient…?’ Then I’d give them a duplicate of this difficulty.”
I wanted to know extra. My two nice pursuits—comedian books and area science—have been colliding. Might we actually have Superman to thank for all of the vital discoveries and gorgeous pictures made by the Hubble Area Telescope?
Sadly, Simmons died in 2018. So I contacted Charles Robert O’Dell, an observational astronomer and lead scientist on the Giant Area Telescope venture from 1972 to 1983.
O’Dell informed me that within the early days of the venture, the destiny of the LST was not solely within the fingers of Congress. Proponents additionally needed to persuade their fellow astronomers, a lot of whom would have most well-liked the cash be spent on Earth-based telescopes, that the LST was a worthy funding.
“We organized what we referred to as ‘canine and pony exhibits’ of NASA engineers and managers,” he says. “[We] went to [Harvard University, the University of Chicago and the California Institute of Technology] and spoke at these locations, proselytizing the LST. And this did sway individuals.”
However within the eyes of astronomers, Motion Comics No. 419 wasn’t precisely a promoting level for the LST. “The truth is, it was a turnoff,” O’Dell says. “Bear in mind how conservative astronomy was as a physique at the moment…. And so, seeing a comic book—it was simply an alien idea.”
To persuade Congress, O’Dell believes that the comedian would solely actually have been helpful within the fingers of a pure salesperson like Simmons. “[Simmons] would go in with this huge salesman’s enthusiasm for the venture and pull that comedian out…. He might pull one thing like that off,” O’Dell says.
O’Dell can’t verify how a lot affect the comedian had on Congress. And the telescope nonetheless had a troublesome battle for funding forward. In 1974 and 1976 astronomers undertook campaigns to foyer help for the venture in Congress. They despatched letters and telegrams and even made private visits to Capitol Hill.
In 1977 the legislature lastly authorized funding of the LST. 13 years later, underneath a brand new title, the Hubble Area Telescope was launched. It has been working for greater than three many years, and it was the primary observatory to detect parts from the early universe, picture the floor of a star apart from the solar and make sure the presence of supermassive black holes. And it owes its existence, I discovered, extra to the onerous work and keenness of individuals like O’Dell and Simmons than to any fictional superhero.
However someway I believe Superman would like it that method.
