PARIS — As a self-professed math nerd who grew up on a farm in Norway, Tony Whitman never imagined he would someday be on the team responsible for designing, building and launching a space telescope that would revolutionize how the world views outer space.
Yet that’s exactly what he did as Cryogenic Optical Test Director, ensuring that the James Webb Space Telescope passed every test necessary before it was sent by rocket to orbit the sun, recording images and history of the distant universe.
“I didn’t aspire to work at NASA,” Whitman told students during a special assembly at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School Oct. 10. “I wanted to attend a college or university and explore outside the state of Maine.”
With that opening, Whitman took the audience on a 20-year journey of his involvement with the Webb telescope, from concept to execution. It took 10,000 people from the United States, Canada and across Europe, with the starting point being that what they knew was that they didn’t know how to build it, since nothing like it had ever been built before.
Tony Whitman, a 1981 graduate of Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School, addresses current STEM students about his work designing, constructing and testing the James Webb Space Telescope Tuesday. Nicole Carter / Advertiser Democrat
Components had to be invented as work progressed. The telescope would need to fit into a rocket and be perfectly calibrated and balanced to it. It would need to withstand pressure and cold up to -400F.
Materials, right down to latches, would have to work in outer space at zero gravity, and it was up to Whitman and his crew to make sure they would not fail. The mirror components of the telescope needed to maintain accuracy within the width of a human hair.
The Webb telescope would be 1,000 times faster than its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope.
The process to properly heat up and cool down to withstand the elements of outer space took two to four months. Once launched, it would take six months for the telescope to reach its destination. Whitman’s crew would test every component on Earth, at Johnson Space Center in Houston, within 100 days. The environment threw an earth quake at the project as it was constructed and Hurricane Harvey at it during the testing period.
Everyone had to understand what the worst case scenarios would be.
According to Whitman, the international collaboration of 10,000 had 20 years to worry about how it would work, if it could actually be launched and deployed on its mission.
While visiting OHCHS Tuesday, NASA engineer Tony Whitman caught up with some of his old classmates, including Vicki Merrill, who works at Oxford Hills Technical School. Nicole Carter / Advertiser Democrat
The shy kid who grew up on a farm in Norway and graduated from OHCHS found himself dedicated to capturing the story of the universe as a NASA engineer.
Whitman said it was not just math and science, first learned in Oxford Hills, that propelled him to such infinite heights.
“When you’re working with NASA, politics are involved so knowledge of history and social studies comes into it,” he said. “Communication is very important, especially when you lead teams of people (from different language-speaking countries). I was surprised how much the humanities were involved, to listen to and understand different view points from different people.”
In the end, the James Webb Space telescope exceeded everyone’s greatest expectations. It continues its journey around the solar system, operating on 20-25 years worth of fuel and zero-maintenance. In part, due to that shy kid from Norway, Maine.
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