David Leckrone, Ph.D. ’69

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From the Partnership for Public Service, published courtesy of the Washington Post, www.washingtonpost.com

NASA scientist David Leckrone Ph.D. ’69 has been dubbed the "Superman of Hubble science," and for good reason. For the past 16 years, he has been the Hubble Space Telescope's lead scientist, and has been in on virtually every major decision made throughout the project's long and often-troubled history.

He has been the chief advocate of the project's scientific objectives, and he has helped decide which instruments needed to be added or repaired, including the recent major overhaul of the telescope by the crew of the shuttle Atlantis.

"David is the Superman of Hubble science, said Laurie Leshin, the deputy director of science and technology at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "He is the Hubble scientist. There is no other."

Preston Burch, the head of the Hubble project, said Leckrone's role as senior project scientist for the past 16 years has been "ensuring that, from a science perspective, Hubble is doing the right things."

"David is a tiger, and I can't think of a better person who could have served this position," said Burch. "His contributions have been indispensible to the project."

This past week, the Atlantis completed a repair mission that will give the telescope new life for an additional five to 10 years. The astronauts installed a new wide-field camera for deep-space observations, a super-sensitive spectrograph to detect faint light from distant developing galaxies, new gyroscopes and batteries, insulation and a guidance sensor for pointing accuracy.

"This is an extraordinary moment in the history of science" and "it's an extraordinary moment of space flight," said Leckrone. "We have increased Hubble's capability literally by orders of magnitude."

The NASA scientist hopes that in the next few years the Hubble will provide a "family photo album of galaxies, from their infancy to old age" and help us understand how the Milky Way was formed. Leckrone added that "half of the Hubble's most important discoveries have been completely unexpected," so there's no telling what else we might learn.

This next era, he said, represents "the second Hubble revolution." But there is no doubt about the record of accomplishment so far.

The Hubble has allowed us to measure the rate at which this universe is expanding, helping to estimate the age of the universe, and it has discovered galaxies billions of miles away, effectively allowing us to travel back in time. It also has established that black holes are the nuclei of nearby galaxies. Matt Mountain of the Space Telescope Science Institute estimates there are 12 independent discoveries made every week based on the findings of Hubble.

Leckrone is highly critical of post-shuttle era plans for abandoning accumulated knowlwdge and technology in space.

"It just makes me want to cry to think that this is the end of it," Leckrone said at a news conference last week. "There is no person out there, there is no leadership out there, there is no vision out there to pick up the baton that we're about to hand off and carry it forward."

Leckrone, who plans to retire later this year, stressed his case Friday for NASA to keep servicing scientific instruments in space.

"I feel like NASA's doing what it's done before -- it comes up with a great capability and, for political or budgetary reasons or whatever, it abandons it," Leckrone told The Washington Post.

Leckrone began his career at NASA in 1969 and seven years later was assigned to work on the Hubble when it was in its initial design phase. Ever since, he has worked day in and day out to make sure this eye into the cosmos fulfilled the vision of those who said it would be the most important telescope since Galileo's.

"I've been a space cadet my whole life," said Leckrone. "Even before there was a space program, I wanted to work on it."

The Hubble was not always synonymous with success. In fact, it was long seen as an embarrassment.

Originally scheduled to fly in 1983, the Hubble didn't actually launch until 1990. When it did, a big problem quickly became apparent it couldn't see.

In early 1992, Leckrone took over as the Hubble's lead scientist, and it became his responsibility to help lead the Hubble to scientific success. He defined and prioritized the requirements and objectives for the Hubble's first servicing mission and oversaw the development of the instruments that contained the telescope's corrective optics.

The 1993 servicing mission was an overwhelming success and represents one of NASA's greatest legacies to science, for which Leckrone's colleagues give him significant credit.

"To give up on the dream of the Hubble at that time would have been unconscionable," said Leckrone. "I was lucky and honored to have the scientific responsibility for this project at the right place at the right time."

Following the first servicing mission, Leckrone continued to provide scientific leadership in the definition, development and execution of the three subsequent and equally successful servicing missions in 1997, 1999, 2002, and again for this month's successful effort.

Leckrone is now set to retire, noting that this last mission filled him with a mixture of "angst" and "absolute elation." Reflecting on his service, he is quick to downplay the accomplishments of his 40-year government career, saying that he "stands on the shoulders of giants."

This article was jointly prepared by the Partnership for Public Service, a group seeking to enhance the performance of the federal government, and washingtonpost.com.

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