How do you get
from here
…to here
…to here?
Hubble’s History
Venice is just a few centimetres above sea level,
a pretty interesting starting point to reach the space.
But in 1609,
Galileo Galilei brought this city a bit closer to the stars
when he gave one of the very first demonstrations of his new telescope.
A few months after that,
he discovered Jupiter’s moons,
Io, Ganymede, Callisto and Europa.
Four centuries later,
another telescope has made its mark here.
Hubble was launched in 1990.
And that’s of course when its history of scientific discoveries starts.
But Hubble’s history isn’t just about science and technology.
Like Galileo’s story, it’s also one of politics, money…
and extremely smart people doing very difficult things.
The team planning Hubble had to make difficult decisions
about where to simplify the telescope to satisfy these political and monetary constraints.
In fact, even the size of Hubble had to be reduced
from a staggering 3 metres in diameter to its eventual,
and still impressive, 2.4 metres.
While the Hubble team worked away at the technical problems
and struggled to stay on budget,
a political storm was brewing in Washington DC.
Politicians were alarmed by the rising costs,
and told NASA to find an international partner.
An early collaboration with Europe turned out to be essential.
European involvement boosted the wavering support from US congress
and with the European Space Agency as a partner,
the Hubble project was back in action.
Hubble survived the politics,
only to be derailed by optics.
Spherical aberration — a flaw in the main mirror —
meant that the telescope couldn’t focus properly.
Where Hubble’s images should have been razor-sharp,
astronomers struggled to make out the fine details of their observations.
Though nobody had predicted a problem with the mirror,
Hubble was designed with the unexpected in mind.
It’s the only space telescope ever launched that was intended to be serviced in space.
This meant that astronauts were able to return to Hubble to fix the problem.
In total Hubble was visited five times by astronauts
which carried out repairs and installed upgrades.
And so from planning, to launch, to repair,
Hubble’s history has been a rollercoaster of highs and lows.
But it has all been worth the politics, the sweat and the tears!