"Dear Visitor, Voices of McDonald Observatory is a collection of oral history narrations given by human counterparts of McDonald Observatory. The voices in this book come from people, like you, from all over the Earth who are at the Observatory every day working, playing, struggling, loving, living. It is through the nurture of these people that the Observatory earns its character. The narrators have lifetimes of endearing stories to share with you. They will tell you some of their experiences, hardships, failures, great deeds and visions for the future, along with some gentle astronomy and living Texas history. Listen to the voices of McDonald Observatory; hear how they transformed a remote outpost on the western frontier of the United States to an outpost on the frontier of human knowledge. They will tell you about the fires on the land, the fires in the sky, and the fires that burn inside each of them. They are ranchers, craftsmen, laborers, chefs, politicians, businessmen, astronauts, engineers, Presidents, and astronomers. The science achieved on this mountain draws the outline of McDonald Observatory; the unique messages from the men and women on these pages paint it with the colors of life."