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Now that the stupendously long-sighted instrument has been successfully
repaired in orbit, The Space Telescope by Robert W. Smith (Cambridge University
Press, pp 508, £16.95) is all the more fascinating. It is the story
of an idea from its inception to the launching of the hardware, which then
proved faulty. In between comes a maelstrom of political log-rolling, imagination,
purblind-ness, penny-pinching, enthusiasm, despair, confusion and delight
– a picture of human struggle that will cause you to hold on to your hat
in case it springs off your astounded head, as in a comic strip.

The book ends with the wrangling about the chances of a rescue attempt
being made on the telescope, leaving the impression that mounting the operation
to correct the fault in the lenses and the vibration of the solar panels
was not only an impressive technological feat, but also a near-miracle.
Perhaps Smith and his contributors will produce a sequel on the organisation
of space repairs as absorbing as this monumental slice of big science’s
history. Those who appreciate the subtleties of facial expressions will
enjoy the picture of a NASA man explaining the space shuttle to President
Gerald Ford.

* * *

Another slice of scientific history, but not of success, is John R.
Huizenga’s Cold Fusion (Oxford University Press, pp 318, £8.99).

The outline of the tale is well enough known. Early in 1989, Stanley
Pons and Martin Fleischmann galvanised the scientific world by announcing
that they had achieved sustained nuclear fusion at room temperature in
the laboratory. At a stroke, they had outpaced and outmoded decades of
toil with huge machines and colossal temperatures – whose costs matched
their size.

In scores of laboratories around the globe, teams attempted to repeat
the astonishing experiment. It was claimed that Pons and Fleischmann had
obtained 4 watts of power for each watt of input. Alas, the reality was
different, the results negative. Nevertheless, there were groups who clung
on to the dream and there are scientists who still do. This is not the first
time that what Huizenga calls ‘pathological science’ has appeared in the
scientific community, and he quotes other instances, such as the ‘N-ray’
phenomenon in the first decade of this century. No doubt the cold fusion
story will attract authors in the future. They will be hard put to improve
on this account.

* * *

In the time-honoured phrase, Battle for the Elephants (Doubleday, pp
368, £12.99) is a book that, once put down, is hard to pick up. But
not for the expected reason. It takes an effort, and it may be through tears,
to go on through the appalling narrative of savagery inflicted on African
elephants and, more than that, to look at the pictures.

Iain and Orea Douglas Hamilton have devoted their lives – and risked
them in their attempts to try to bring the massacre of these unique and
noble animals for profit to an end. The tales that they recount are moving,
the pictures that accompany them haunting. Horror will keep you awake at
nights. Do whatever you can to help their campaign. Buying Battle for the
Elephants book would be a start.

* * *

During 1990 and 1991 there were disastrous crashes in American telephone
networks. Washington DC was isolated, thousands of people cut off and airports
shut down. The causes were various. One was a single wrong letter in a line
in computer software that caused the failure of half a million international
calls, among other things. None of the crashes was caused by a hacker getting
into the systems’ computers, but the events focused almost hysterical attention
on the disruption (and worse) that might follow ingenious hacking. Bruce
Sterling’s The Hacker Crackdown (Penguin, pp 328, £6.99) is the racily
written story of the hunting of hackers by law enforcement agencies in
what it’s convenient to call cyberspace. Sterling defines this as the place
between two communicating telephones and it is crammed with electronic
speech. Thus, ‘State and federal cops were actively patrolling the beat
in cyberspace.’

There is no doubt that the book is a vivid read, fair to both the hunters’
view – ‘Hackers in Amtrak computers or in air-traffic control computers
will kill somebody some day’ – and the hunted, dodging and protesting about
civil liberties.

* * *

Like The Space Telescope, a new Oxford University Press offering, The
Black Robin (pp 294, £19.50) by David Butler and Dan Merton, is
high-priced; but at least it is cheerful. The book recounts the extraordinary
tale of how the New Zealand Wildlife Service saved the bird in question
from extinction. Only one breeding pair was left when the team decided to
foster eggs and young to another species. It worked. The black robin population
is now more than a hundred.

* * *

Military blunders are memorable, but On the Psychology of Military Incompetence
by Norman Dixon (Pimlico, pp 447, £10) is not what might be supposed
by those of the ‘They’re all bloody fools’ school. The reasons for ineffectiveness
are far more numerous and complicated than simple stupidity – which is not
very interesting – and Dixon is riveting on them all. Many of his examples
of blunders occurred well within living memory.