The proposal was accepted by Congress, which granted the Large Space Telescope program funding in 1977. A mirror reduction from 3 to 2.4 meters helped bring the project down to about $200 million, approximately half the originally expected price tag. NASA wanted to take advantage of international cooperation to reduce the overall cost of the program, making it more likely to receive Congressional support. The European Space Research Organization (ESRO), later to become the European Space Agency (ESA), was also invited to participate in the project by producing inexpensive solar panels and taking part in observations and research. Funding for the telescope was originally denied by the House Appropriations Subcommittee in 1975, but this prompted a large-scale lobbying effort by NASA and leading astronomers, led by Spitzer and John Bahcall, another Princeton astronomer who was also an original proponent of the telescope. Unfortunately for the program, the large space telescope's total cost was roughly estimated at $400 to $500 million, making it a tough sell. With NASA on board, the next step for what would become the Hubble Space Telescope was to obtain federal funding for the project. In 1971, George Low, NASA's Acting Administrator, gave approval to the Large Space Telescope Science Steering Group to conduct feasibility studies. Although there was initial dissent within NASA over whether the agency should work its way up to a large-scale observatory or take one giant leap to the final product, the decision to develop the Space Shuttle program greatly improved the flexibility NASA would have in designing a space telescope. In the mid-1960s, NASA and its contractors conducted phased studies into the feasibility of a large space telescope. Other NASA studies had also originally called for space telescopes, albeit using smaller mirrors that the 120-inch size proposed by the National Academy of Sciences. Wernher von Braun, one of America's leading rocket scientists who came from Germany after World War II, had already looked into the challenges of a space telescope with his team at the Marshall Space Flight Center in the 1960s. In order to move from concept to reality, the telescope needed support from NASA, the only agency likely to be able to execute the National Academy's recommendation. The report said that a large orbital telescope would make a "dominant contribution to our knowledge of cosmology," by helping scientists study stars, measure distances to galaxies, and investigate the physics behind our universe. In 1969, the committee published Scientific Uses of the Large Space Telescope, in which the National Academy of Science urged the construction of such an instrument. During the first meeting in 1966, this group performed comprehensive studies on possible uses for a large space-based telescope. While teaching at Princeton University, Spitzer was asked to head a National Academy of Science Ad Hoc Committee on the Large Space Telescope. A space telescope would also allow scientists to accurately measure these emissions as well. Furthermore, the atmosphere blocks X-rays emitted from high-temperature phenomena in stars and other objects, so they cannot be detected by instruments on the Earth's surface. Even the most precise and advanced telescopes on the ground cannot escape this phenomenon, but a telescope in orbit can. His paper, entitled Astronomical Advantages of an Extra-Terrestrial Observatory, explained that the Earth's atmosphere blurs and distorts light coming from stars. In 1946, Lyman Spitzer, a professor and researcher at Yale University, argued that a space telescope would offer great advantages over ground-based observatories. The first serious concepts of a space-based optical observatory began just after World War II. Thanks to incredible efforts of scientists and engineers, the telescope has also given astronomers insight into the history and fate of our universe.Īlthough the Hubble Space Telescope has been in orbit since 1990, its origins date long before that. One of the most technologically advanced pieces of equipment that humans have put into orbit, Hubble has helped researchers make important discoveries about our universe, ranging from planets and stars to galaxies and cosmology. A Brief History of the Hubble Space Telescopeįor more than 15 years, the Hubble Space Telescope has been providing scientists and the public with spectacular images of deep space.
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