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A Zimmerman Bibliography

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Get autographed copies of Robert Zimmerman's books!

My Newest Book, released May 2008

  • The Universe in a Mirror, the Saga of the Hubble Space Telescope and the Visionaries Who Built It. The book, released in May 2008 from Princeton University Press, is available for order. The book tells the story of the men and women who conceived, built, and saved the Hubble Space Telescope. Their effort, which often involved significant personal sacrifice, not only gave us all a spectacular glimpse into the unknown, it forever changed our perception of the universe.

    The Hubble Space Telescope

    "Zimmerman demonstrates the importance of vision, perservenance, politics, and good luck in getting this national telescope constructed, fixed, and operated. He also illustrates, somewhat poignantly at times, the human costs and disappointments that came up along the way." -- J. Michael Shull, University of Colorado at Boulder.

    To put it simply, the Hubble Space Telescope is the telescope that would not die. On a fundamental human level, Hubble epitomized the inevitable and irresistible lure of the unknown. Everyone involved in the telescope's creation knew that a telescope above the atmosphere was going to see things that had never been seen before. No one could resist that promise.

    Read the first chapter!

    Read the Wall Street Journal review by Glenn Reynolds.

    Read the Wall Street Journal article by Daniel Henninger.

    Read the New York Times review by Dennis Overbye.

    Named to Booklist's Top Ten Sci-Tech Books for 2008.

    Named to the long list of thirteen books eligible to win the 2009 Royal Society Prizes for Science Books. See their review.

    Read my thoughts upon taking the Page 99 test for page 99 of "The Universe in a Mirror."

    Read my thoughts about life, exploration, and guns at the Powell's Books Technica Q&A.

Some biographical information

  • I have not only been fortunate to write about some of the most exciting moments in space history, I have also had the great and grand fortune to actually go where no one has gone before....more.

Books by Robert Zimmerman

My Space Watch column: Nov. 2004 - June 2005

Magazine Articles and Broadcast Media

  • including essays and scripts written for Natural History, Air & Space Magazine, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Astronomy, Sky & Telescope, The Science Channel, The Sciences, Invention & Technology, American History, and many others.

Recent and upcoming appearances:

Why we explore the unknown...

There's a land where the mountains are nameless,
   And the rivers all run God knows where;
There are lives that are erring and aimless,
   And deaths that just hang by a hair;
There are hardships that nobody reckons;
   There are valleys unpeopled and still;
There's a land--oh, it beckons and beckons,
   And I want to go back--and I will.

There's gold, and it's haunting and haunting;
   It's luring me on as of old;
Yet it isn't the gold that I'm wanting
   So much as just finding the gold.
It's the great, big, broad land 'way up yonder,
   It's the forests where silence has lease;
It's the beauty that thrills me with wonder,
   It's the stillness that fills me with peace.

From Robert Service's
"The Spell of the Yukon"

Mountains on Mars
Photograph taken by Mars Express of
what is believed to be a frozen ocean near the Martian equator.

Genesis book cover Genesis book cover Last updated: March 11, 2010

Written by Bob Zimmerman, who is always reachable at zimmerman@nasw.org. This webpage was created using Xywrite 3.55, the best word processing program ever written. The webpage was also written to be as simple and as straightforward as possible, avoiding frames and gratuitous graphics. You want dancing arrows? Go to a dotcom.