Å®ÉúСÊÓƵ

It was the thrill of the century. Astronomers were transfixed and armchair
comet-watchers glued to their TVs. The crash of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 into
Jupiter offered something for almost everyone. But in all the excitement,
did anyone spare a thought for the 400 or so scientists and engineers working
on Galileo – the NASA space probe that should have snapped the perfect pictures?

Although Galileo was launched well before Shoemaker-Levy 9 was even
discovered, it should have been in the best position to view the crashes
as fragments of the comet piled into the giant planet last month. But a
string of delays and mechanical failures got in the way, and it has been
the Hubble Space Telescope that got all the best shots and all the glory.
The Galileo team will have to wait several more weeks for their first low-resolution
images to reach Earth.

The stresses and strains of working on the troubled Galileo project
have had a profound effect on the scientists’ lives, says Gloria Golden,
a clinical psychologist in San Francisco who has followed their ups and
downs. Some members of the Galileo team have been working on the project
for 20 years, during which they suffered a long series of hitches to their
mission.

Galileo’s journey to Jupiter finally got under way in 1989, seven years
later than scheduled. The probe’s instruments and sensors are designed to
gather information on the planet’s moons, its highly charged magnetic field
and its atmosphere.

But even after it had set off, things still did not go smoothly for
Galileo. In 1992, the main antenna, which should have sent data back to
Earth, jammed when ground control tried to unfurl it. All attempts to free
it failed, and the probe now has to rely on a smaller antenna that sends
data back at a sluggish 10 bits a second.

For the people working on the Galileo mission, depression is an occupational
hazard, says Golden. She interviewed members of the team over four years,
from 1987 to 1990, charting their despair as they suffered the various setbacks
to the mission. NASA altered Galileo’s specifications, changed its priorities,
and eventually reduced funding for the project. The launch slipped further
and further back from its original 1982 date. By 1986, the team had redesigned
the mission six times, and feelings of futility were setting in.

Morale hit rock bottom after the shuttle Challenger exploded in 1986.
‘Maybe I should have thought about those seven who died,’ one scientist
told Golden. ‘But really I didn’t. My first thought was a very direct, immediate,
‘There goes our mission’.’ The accident delayed all planetary expeditions
for three years.

Some of the team felt they had been let down by NASA, even by their
country. Å®ÉúСÊÓƵs are not objective ‘thought machines’, says Gol-den,
reporting her study in the latest issue of the journal Social Studies of
Science. They are normal people with normal troubles and normal needs. Their
lives could have been made more bearable if they had received proper recognition
for the work they were doing, she says. Certificates or medals, and heightened
media interest in the project and the team, might have been enough to revive
flagging self-esteem. Cary Cooper, professor of occupational psychology
at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, agrees:
‘Most people are managed by punishment, not reward,’ he says. ‘People need
praise and reward all the way along the line, particularly with a project
with such a long gestation period.’

All those feelings of frustration and depression are now forgotten,
says Bill O’Neil, project manager for the Galileo mission. ‘The team is
very excited at what the mission has accomplished,’ he says. ‘We’ve had
a tremendous bounty of scientific data and now we’re very near to our goal.
Thoughts of disappointment are all in the distant past.’

But success brings its problems too. ‘People all too often don’t realise
that success is stressful,’ says Cooper. Members of the team may soon start
to worry about what they will do with the rest of their lives once their
goal of many years is realised. ‘NASA has to plan what these people will
do next,’ warns Cooper.

Barring setbacks, Galileo will rendezvous with Jupiter on 7 December
1995.