  The Spitzer Space Telescope, born as the Shuttle Infrared Telescope Facility
(SIRTF) and later the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (still SIRTF), was
under discussion and development within NASA and the scientific community for
more than 30 years prior to its launch in 2003. This brief history chronicles a
few of the highlights and the lowlights of those 30 years from the authors
personal perspective. A much more comprehensive history of SIRTF/Spitzer has
been written by George Rieke (2006).
