NASA astronaut and University of Chicago alumnus John Grunsfeld, SM'84, PhD'88, photographed a vintage Edwin Hubble basketball Tuesday on the space shuttle Atlantis, with the Hubble Space Telescope visible through the portholes.
"Broke out the b-ball today before HST release," Grunsfeld wrote in a May 19 e-mail to Michael Turner, the Bruce and Diana Rauner Distinguished Service Professor in Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of Chicago. Grunsfeld and three of his crewmates successfully upgraded the Hubble telescope during five spacewalks this week.
Hubble, SB, 1910, PhD, 1917, was a star basketball player at the University of Chicago before he became a famed astronomer. Hubble and his fellow Maroons posted a score of 18-12 with the game ball in a 1909 victory over Indiana University.
For more information, see http://www.uchicago.edu/features/20090504_grunsfeld.shtml.
The Hubble Space Telescope is visible through the view ports and the earth beyond that in this photo sent by alumnus John Grunsfeld of a basketball he took into space.
—Prof. Chuan He
