Tag Archives: STS-125

New 'This Week in Space' – March 12, 2010

The latest edition of “This Week in Space” is now available. Check us out! [youtubevid id="hqycNoARYv4"] Hello and welcome – President Obama will finally say something about his plan for NASA – but there are still mixed messages coming out … Continue reading →

Tagged Air and Space Museum, Film, International Space Station, Leonardo DiCaprio, Lori Garver, Low Earth orbit, Lyman Spitzer, NASA, Space, Space Shuttle program, SpaceX, STS-125

Hubble Hugger-In-Chief

If you are anything like me, you were on the edge of your chair last summer, watching the crew of the shuttle Atlantis grind out five marathon spacewalks for a final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. The Atlantis … Continue reading →

Tagged Baltimore, Hubble Space Telescope, John Grunsfeld, John M. Grunsfeld, Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, NASA, Space Telescope Science Institute, STS-125

Hubble Hugger-In-Chief

I just finished a great Skype interview with Mr. Hubble Space Telescope himself, astronaut (ahem! now former astronaut) John Grunsfeld. Fresh off last summer’s hugely successful STS-125 Hubble Servicing Mission, Grunsfeld has stepped down from the astronaut corps to join … Continue reading →

Tagged Astronomy, Baltimore, Hubble Space Telescope, Institutions, Observatories, Optical and Infrared, Space Telescope Science Institute, STS-125

Repaired spectrograph passes 'aliveness' test

Held up by a stripped screw, spacewalker Michael Massimino applied brute force muscle power to an otherwise delicate operation, breaking off an offending handrail and then carefully unscrewing more than 100 small fasteners to get inside a dead science instrument … Continue reading →

Tagged Astronomy, Hubble Space Telescope, Institutions, Michael J. Massimino, NASA, Observatories, Space, STS-125

Hubble Spacewalk #2 a Marathon

Spaceflight Now | STS-125 Shuttle Report | Spacewalk No. 2 ends. Originally planned for six-and-a-half hours, the EVA began at 8:49 a.m. But problems getting one of three dual-gyro rate sensor units installed threw the astronauts well behind schedule. In … Continue reading →

Tagged Astronaut, Edwin Hubble, Extra-vehicular activity, Hubble Space Telescope, Space, Space Shuttle, STS-125, Technology

Happy Birthday, Hubble!

So where were you nineteen years ago today? That is when the Hubble Space Telescope arrived in space. After a very rocky start, it is still going, wowing scientists and the masses alike – and getting ready for it’s final … Continue reading →

Tagged Astronomy, Hubble, Hubble Space Telescope, Lyman Spitzer, NASA, Shuttle, Space, Space observatory, STS-125

O'Brien BLOG »

Science for Sale »

posted March 13, 2013 by Miles O'Brien

HINKLEY, Calif. – We all love a neat, tidy Hollywood ending to a David and Goliath story. Sadly, in the real world, they are hard to come by. More often than not, the little guy might win a battle, but Goliath prevails over the long haul — winning the war.

Before I went to Hinkley, I did, of course, watch the movie once again. As it turns out Erin Brockovich is accurate in many respects.

You might remember the woman who gets a big check at the end of the movie after the down-on-her-luck, crusading legal assistant has brought a giant utility to its knees for polluting the groundwater beneath the tiny desert town half way between L.A. and Las Vegas.

In the movie, she was known as Donna Jensen (and played by Marg Helgenberger). There is no real-life Donna Jensen — the details of her story are a composite of several real-life travails.

But Roberta Walker was the main inspiration. Naturally, it was not long after I met her that I asked her what she thought of the movie.

Read the rest of the post and see the video story here.

About Miles

Miles O’Brien is a veteran freelance broadcast and web journalist who focuses on science, technology & aerospace.

He is the Science Correspondent for PBS NewsHour, and a regular correspondent for the PBS documentary series FRONTLINE and the National Science Foundation Science Nation series.

For nearly seventeen of his thirty years in the news business, he worked for CNN as the Science and Space Correspondent and the anchor of various programs, including American Morning.

Full bio & publicity photos »