Shaping Science

"Shaping Science draws on a decade of immersive ethnography with NASA's robotic spacecraft teams to create a comparative account of two great space missions of the early 2000s. Although these missions appear to involve robotic explorers gathering data autonomously in the far reaches of the solar system, teams of scientists and engineers control them in detail, remotely from earth. By examining the two teams' formal organizational structures and informal work practices in the day to day process of mission planning, Janet Vertesi reveals just how deeply entangled the teams' production of knowledge about other worlds is with the local organizational considerations and practices of producing social order in their labs. This book admirably demonstrates the significant conclusion that the social organization of a scientific team affects the scientific practices and results of that team"--