The austere conference room of Lester R. Summers Trucking near Ephrata, with its Formica table, soothing green-painted walls and wintry views of Lancaster County farmland, is an unlikely springboard for a mission to discover the secrets of the universe.
An unlikely springboard, but a springboard nonetheless. On Dec. 25, 2021, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope launched from French Guiana, a country on the northeastern coast of South America.
Since 2012, Summers Trucking has transported parts of the telescope to and from manufacturing and testing sites across the country. In 2021, the company transported the finished product from California to French Guiana, going through the Panama Canal.
“It makes me feel appreciative that someone would trust us to be involved in something of this magnitude,” said John Summers, Summers Trucking vice president of customer solutions. “It makes me proud of my employees, that no matter what I’m selling, they’re the ones who get it done. It shows that even the littlest things that people do can be contributing to much bigger successes.”
The $10 billion telescope was a collaboration between hundreds of companies, NASA and the French and Canadian space agencies.
“Not only do we learn from the universe,” Summers said, “but from what mankind can do when we cooperate. There’s so much division right now, and I think examples like this give us good hope for the future.”
It all began in 2007, when NASA needed someone to haul “oversized product,” which was space shuttle parts headed from the Goddard Space Center to Cape Canaveral. NASA saw Summers’ trucks in the Washington area, and previously worked with one of the private companies that Summers hires to escort oversized loads.
“It’s a lot about relationships,” Summers said. “Timing and relationships.”
Truck driver George Ardelean was responsible for getting the telescope to South America, on a transporter 18 feet high, 19 feet wide and 120 feet long. He said the weather in French Guiana was nice, and the locals were friendly.
“It has all been very stressful but in the end very rewarding,” said Ardelean of Stevens. “The stressful part was all the prep work. Once the time comes to move, I had to just get in my head that all the hard work was done and this is just another truck load.”
The James Webb Space Telescope uses infrared light to observe galaxies millions of light-years away.
Due to the amount of time it takes for light to travel from distant galaxies, the telescope can see space as it was millions of years ago.
“As we haul more things, I’ve been doing more reading,” Summers said. “I have to tell you, I’m still trying to understand how the current telescope can look back into time. It’s fascinating to me but it’s also overwhelming.”
It has given Summers a new perspective on his own life.
“It has made me realize how small we are, in the scope of the universe,” he said. “I think sometimes we are overinflated in what we believe we control, and it has led me to realize that Earth is a small part of the universe, Summers Trucking a small part of the Earth, and me a small part of Summers Trucking.”
For both Summers and Ardelean, watching the launch was incredible.
“When I started driving a truck, this was never in my wildest dream,” said Ardelean, who is excited to see what the telescope will discover about the universe.
“I had goosebumps, to put it bluntly,” Summers said. “It was humbling to know that we were part of such a massive endeavor and something that will affect our understanding of the universe.”
Source: Berkshire mont