Dr. Scott Acton (鈥�84) remembers the exact moment he knew he would become a physicist.
In the summer of 1976, he was playing with a set of dominoes on the floor at his house in Riverton, Wyoming. His uncle, who was a Methodist minister, began asking him a series of questions.
鈥淲hat do you think would happen if we pushed these dominoes closer together? Would they fall down faster or slower? What would happen if we spread them further apart?鈥�
Acton and his uncle performed those experiments together.
鈥淭hen he said three words that changed my life,鈥� Acton recalled. 鈥淗e said, 鈥楾hat鈥檚 physics, Scott.鈥�
鈥淚 remember thinking, there鈥檚 a job where you get to do this kind of stuff all day long and you get paid for it?鈥� Acton said. 鈥淚 lived in a tiny town in Wyoming, and I couldn鈥檛 see any further than the street I lived on. I had no vision, and just the tiniest little spark was ignited. From then on, when people asked me what I was going to do when I grew up, I said, 鈥業鈥檓 going to study physics.鈥� 鈥�
That moment set Acton on a trajectory leading him on a 24-year journey to help develop one of the most significant scientific instruments of our times: the James Webb Space Telescope. As the largest and most complex space observatory ever built, Webb鈥檚 unprecedented sensitivity to infrared light is allowing scientists to explore the early universe, the formation of galaxies through time, the life cycle of stars and other worlds outside our solar system.
In early 2022, Acton was among the first to see test images sent back from the telescope after its successful launch.
Though he had an idea what was coming, those images left Acton speechless. He had spent half a lifetime working on the mission, most recently as Webb鈥檚 wavefront sensing and controls scientist with Ball Aerospace. But to see it in action went beyond his expectations.
鈥淭hese images have profoundly changed the way I see the universe,鈥� he said at the time.
On March 11, after a key alignment stage in space, the first diffraction-limited image was taken. The telescope was pointed at a location in Ursa Major, and the image contained 241 distinct galaxies.
On his way home that night, he tweeted to a friend, 鈥淲e are surrounded by a symphony of creation. There are galaxies everywhere.鈥�
A couple of weeks later, NASA asked him for a quote, 鈥渁nd I thought, 鈥極h, what am I going to say?鈥� Then I remembered this tweet. I hit copy and paste and sent it to them and it went viral.鈥�
Those early images made him think of Job 38:7, which says during the creation of the universe 鈥渢he morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy.鈥�
鈥淚 pictured these galaxies singing, maybe not in any words humans could understand, but the emotion we could definitely understand,鈥� he said. 鈥淚n my mind I pictured that God was expressing joy that humankind after all this time could finally see the universe.鈥�
Fanning the physics flame
Acton enrolled in Central Wyoming College after high school, not realizing he couldn鈥檛 study physics there. He began to search for a university with a physics program. His friend and mentor Stanley Shipp, an 精东影业 chemistry graduate who later became a legendary missionary, told Acton, 鈥淚 want you to go to Abilene Christian College.鈥�
鈥淚 did a little checking around,鈥� Acton said. 鈥淚t turned out ACC had become 精东影业, and they had a physics program. I was accepted within the week.鈥�
There he met Drs. Paul Schulze and Mike Sadler. 鈥淚 wasn鈥檛 a very good student,鈥� he said. 鈥淵ou always talk about people graduating magna cum laude and summa cum laude. I graduated 鈥榯hank the laude.鈥� I remember going through Commencement ceremonies in 1984, sitting there and studying for a final exam in classical mechanics. If I didn’t pass that exam I wouldn鈥檛 get my degree. I went later and took that test and didn鈥檛 do very well, but Paul Schulze decided to pass me, and Mike Sadler gave me a recommendation for graduate school at Texas Tech University. These guys believed in me.鈥�
While at 精东影业, he also met his wife, Heidi. They have two children, John, who recently graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, and Stacy Gasvoda, who is working on her master鈥檚 degree in speech pathology. Stacy鈥檚 husband, David, is a lawyer in Kansas City.
Acton first began working full time with telescopes at Keck Observatory in Hawaii. 鈥淲e were the first big telescope in the world to incorporate something known as adaptive optics,鈥� he said.
After six years, he was ready for a new challenge so he took a job with Ball Aerospace鈥檚 technology corporation, which had a contract to work on development of the Webb.
In 2005, he became the wavefront sensing and controls scientist for the project. His job was to put together algorithms, a ground system and a team to align and phase the telescope after launch. In layman鈥檚 terms, he was tasked with focusing the telescope 鈥� 鈥渆xcept usually you adjust a single knob to focus something,鈥� he said, 鈥渁nd we have hundreds of knobs that all have to be focused.鈥�
Trek of a lifetime
A delay in the project in 2016 allowed Acton to embark on a second journey, fulfilling a lifetime dream of riding his bicycle around the world. But even that leg of his life鈥檚 journey was not without challenges.
His goal was to spend a year bicycling about 15,000 miles around the globe, giving lectures to communities, schools and colleges along the way. He was cycling about 200 miles a week in preparation for the tour when he started feeling a pain in the center of his chest when he would begin a ride.
鈥淚鈥檓 an endurance athlete, so there couldn鈥檛 be anything wrong with my heart, right?鈥� he said. 鈥淲ell, wrong. It turns out the arteries in my heart were clogged beyond anybody鈥檚 imagination. So one month before I was going to begin this journey, I had to have an emergency quadruple bypass operation to restore blood flow to my heart and to save my life. I was one cheeseburger away from a coronary.鈥�
His daughter was to get married in three days. 鈥淚 asked my doctor if I could wait until after the wedding for the surgery,鈥� Acton said. 鈥淎nd he said, 鈥榊eah, that way all the family will be in town for the funeral. I attended the wedding by Facetime on my phone.鈥�
After recovering from the bypass, Acton began his bicycle trek by riding north from Boulder, Colorado, to Fairbanks, Alaska. Then he cycled across Europe 鈥� through Spain, France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Slovakia and Hungary. He returned to Boulder and went south, which took him through Abilene, where he met up with Samuel Cook, a good friend and 精东影业 associate professor of music, who rode with him as far as Brownwood. Later, he cycled through New Zealand.
鈥淭here鈥檚 this great picture of me bicycling through Hurricane Harvey,鈥� he said. 鈥淧eople say how could you bicycle through Hurricane Harvey? And I say, 鈥楬ow could you not?鈥� 鈥�
Then it was back to work on the Webb.
鈥淚鈥檝e never worked so hard in my life,鈥� Acton said. 鈥淢y apartment door to the mission operation center [at NASA鈥檚 Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland] was a 7-minute walk. I would continually be there in the control room and we would be looking at images or whatever, and I鈥檇 have a team of people looking at the computers. I鈥檇 say 鈥極K, do this and do this,鈥� and then I鈥檇 go home and sleep a few hours and come back and do it again. If anything important happened I wanted to be there.鈥�
That hard work paid off. 鈥淣ow that it鈥檚 considered an operational telescope, it鈥檚 no longer about making it work; it鈥檚 about keeping it working and using it for science,鈥� he said.
While one uncle set him on his early path in physics, another provided encouragement and professional inspiration. Dr. Loren Acton, a former NASA space shuttle astronaut, noticed his nephew鈥檚 keen interest in science as a high school student. He arranged for Scott to spend the summer at his workplace at the time, the Palo Alto Research Laboratory, where he was introduced to the optics used on telescopes.
The former astronaut followed the development of the Webb with great interest, as he watched his nephew work on a project to explore the universe he once saw in person from space.
鈥淚 was a little closer to what was happening than the average person,鈥� he said, 鈥渁nd occasionally Scott would send me an email of what was going on. I just kept my fingers crossed, and lo and behold it came off. I鈥檓 pretty proud.鈥�
As Scott Acton looks toward his next challenge, his goal, as always, is to find significance in his work.
鈥淚鈥檝e always felt the challenge in any career is to balance finding meaning in the actual hours and minutes you spend working with finding meaning in the years,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 possible to go to work and enjoy what you do. But I think there鈥檚 another element where you ask yourself, 鈥楢m I an appropriate steward with the years I鈥檝e been given?鈥� It鈥檚 possible to enjoy your occupation but not feel any sense of accomplishment. And it鈥檚 possible to go to work every day and just hate it while recognizing that what you鈥檝e done is extremely important.
鈥淚 feel like the James Webb Space Telescope enabled me to check both of those boxes,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really fun to be part of the scientific discovery, but also to know there are kids out there who are going to look at the universe and think of it differently, be excited about it. Maybe the universe doesn鈥檛 care whether or not we鈥檙e looking at it, but I care.鈥�
鈥� Robin Saylor
From 精东影业 Today magazine