The Hubble Legacy

Part One: The Promise

SUMMARY
The still-evolving story of the Hubble Space Telescope is one
that encompasses far-sighted vision, engineering expertise
and the indisputable value of the ‘can do’ attitude that has
resulted in remarkable scientific discoveries.

When NASA first started planning the Hubble Space Tele-

scope in the late 1960s*, the Space Shuttle, which was origi-
nally conceived to permit space-suited astronauts to repair
and upgrade satellites, had not yet been built or flown . For
NASA to commit to design Hubble for astronaut servicing
was a huge leap of faith, similar to that made by President
Kennedy when he committed the nation to going to the
Moon before any American had even ventured as far as NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope Photo courtesy of NASA
Earth’s orbit.
Using incredible scientific and engineering ingenuity, thou-
This fundamental decision led to the incredible Hubble sto- sands of people planned, designed, built, tested, trained for,
ry told in these articles. The high expectations for what the upgraded, repaired and operated this extraordinary instru-
telescope could accomplish was followed by the incredible ment. Their innovations and improvements have resulted in
low points experienced by astronomers, NASA and the pub- more amazing scientific discoveries than anyone ever had
lic following the discovery that a slightly misshapen mirror imagined, as well as an extended operational life for Hubble.
** prevented Hubble from properly focusing on celestial This willingness to persevere in the face of extreme chal-
bodies. It is hard today, after 18+ years of amazing success lenge is a tribute to the human spirit that inspires and en-
for Hubble, to imagine the anguish and despair felt among ergizes us all and serves as an excellent model for tackling
the Hubble community in the years between the launch of today’s challenges - on Earth and beyond.
Hubble in 1990 and the successful results of its First Servic-
ing Mission in 1993.

The exhaustive preparation for that initial rescue and ser-

vicing mission and the three subsequent Hubble servicing
missions have taught many lessons in problem-solving, both * Scientist Lyman Spitzer (1914-1997) spent the 1960’s proposing a
on the ground and in space. “Spin-off” technologies remind large space telescope to NASA and Congress. Initial concept studies
us that when smart people solve technological problems, began in the late 1960s, and the Hubble Space Telescope finally be-
came a reality as a funded program in 1978.
results often go far beyond any original expectations, even
into unrelated areas. ** The mirror was too flat on the outer edges by 1/50 the diameter of
a human hair.
The tragic loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia in early 2003
delayed additional work that had been planned for Hubble.
Subsequent engineering solutions and increases in safety
measures have now made a fifth servicing mission possi-
ble. Hubble has been in operation far longer than originally
imagined and the completion of each of the servicing mis-
sions essentially left a new, improved telescope. The fifth
servicing mission gives Hubble a new ‘lease on life.’

In collaboration with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Copyright 2008 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co., Inc. All rights reserved.
 The Hubble Legacy
Part One: The Promise
Hubble: Astronomy’s time machine
‘New era’ for mankind will open today
By Paul Hoversten, USA TODAY
April 25, 1990
Page 1A
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The splendor of the universe is
about to come into focus as the space shuttle astronauts
prepare to send the $1.5 billion Hubble Space Telescope
into orbit today.
Not since the Italian astronomer Galileo turned his spy-
glass to the heavens 400 years ago and saw craters on the
moon and stripes on Jupiter has there been such a quan-
tum leap in astronomy.
Until now, scientists wanting a clear look at stars and gal-
axies were thwarted by Earth’s turbulent atmosphere,
which blurs and distorts the view. But Hubble - orbiting
high above the clouds - can peer undisturbed.
“We’re about to be given a pair of glasses that brings the
universe into 20/20 clarity,” says NASA science chief Len-
nard Fisk. “It’ll be like the little near-sighted child in the
classroom who gets a pair of glasses and at last can see
what the teacher has been writing on the blackboard.”
At stake are answers to some of the most perplexing mys-
teries of the ages: How big is the universe? How old is it?
How do galaxies evolve? Are there other planets?
“Humans have pondered these questions since they first
left their cave and looked up into a clear night sky,” says
NASA project scientist Ed Weiler. The telescope “will pro-
vide ... a wonderous sailing ship to explore these puzzles.”
NASA is expected to release Hubble’s first pictures - of the
3 billion- year-old star cluster NGC 3532 - to the media
within a week. The star cluster is 1,500 light years from
Earth. Light travels 5.88 trillion miles in one year.
The telescope does have limitations. Because it orbits 360
miles above Earth, its view is blocked by the planet. Obser-
vation is limited to 30 minutes in each 90-minute orbit.
In collaboration with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Copyright 2008 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co., Inc. All rights reserved.
But strange sights are out there:
- Faraway quasars - star-like objects smaller than our solar
system but 1,000 times as bright.
- “Black holes,” or collapsed stars, with gravity fields so
dense not even light can escape.
- “White dwarf” stars that formed billions of years after
most galaxies.
Hubble also may see Jupiter-size planets around other
suns.
“I don’t think we’re going to go to magic or superscience,”
says Riccardo Giacconi, head of the Space Telescope Sci-
ence Institute at Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins Institute, where
Hubble data will be analyzed and stored.
But the universe “may be put together in ways that we can’t
even fathom. There will be heroic attempts to understand
it ... because (doing so) is the key to what may happen.”
In particular, Giacconi and others want to know if the uni-
verse is still expanding - as U.S. astronomer Edwin Hubble,
for whom the telescope is named, found in the 1920s. That
discovery led to the “Big Bang” theory, that the universe
formed in a cosmic explosion 15 billion years ago.
But how the universe will end is “one of the things nobody
knows,” says Hubble scientist Richard Harms of Applied
Research Corp. “If we can show the curvature of space, it
will help us understand the ultimate fate of the universe,
whether it keeps expanding forever or collapses.”
Built by Lockheed and Perkin-Elmer Corp. (now part of
Hughes Danbury), Hubble is an engineering marvel - half a
billion times more sensitive than the human eye, 10 times
more powerful than any telescope. It features:
- An 8-foot primary mirror, the most finely polished in the
world. It’s so smooth that, if scaled to the size of the Earth,
imperfections would be just five inches high.
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 The Hubble Legacy
Part One: The Promise
By comparison, ordinary eyeglasses scaled in the same
way would have peaks as tall as the Empire State Building.
- A truss that holds two mirrors 16 feet apart without shift-
ing more than 1/10,000th of an inch in heat or cold. That’s
1/30th the thickness of a piece of typing paper.
- Five science instruments, each the size of a refrigerator
that run on just 110-150 watts of power. That’s as much as
a typical three-way light bulb.
- Detectors sensitive enough to see a flashlight on the
moon from Earth (a distance of 250,000 miles) or a firefly
in Sydney, Australia, from Washington, D.C. (10,000 miles).
- Resolution with 10 times the clarity of past telescopes. A
license plate can be read at 30 miles, a nickel at six.
- A pointing mechanism steady enough that a laser fired
from the Capitol could hit a dime on Manhattan’s World
Trade Center and stay fixed on it for 24 hours.
The 12 1/2-ton telescope - 20 years in the making - is a
time machine: Astronomers will be able to see starlight
emitted 14 billion years ago - almost to the Big Bang - and
seven times farther than ground telescopes can see.
“To look back in time, we look deeper into space,” says
astronomer James Westphal of the California Institute of
Technology. “It’s a little hard for me to say what we’ll see.
Many surprises, and they may be very common.”
Hubble is the first of four Great Observatories that NASA
plans to launch in the 1990s, moving the pursuit of astron-
omy off the ground and into space. The telescope, which
measures mainly visible light, and two other observato-
ries, which will record cosmic X-rays and gamma rays, will
be launched and serviced by space shuttles.
In collaboration with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Copyright 2008 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co., Inc. All rights reserved.
“We’re witnessing what will literally be the dawn of a new
era in astronomy,” says Fisk. “Never before has humankind
had the opportunity to increase its knowledge of the uni-
verse more rapidly than we will in the 1990s.”
In the process, NASA and space supporters are hoping the
wonders to be studied will inspire a new generation of sci-
entists and astronomers. Hundreds of astronomers around
the world - as well as promising college students in the
USA - will have access to the data.
“This is a stunning opportunity that will have a tremen-
dous impact on science education from grade school to
grad school,” says Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., whose
committee oversees NASA’s budget.
Operating costs for Hubble are expected to run $200 mil-
lion a year during its 15-year lifetime, pushing the total
program cost to about $5 billion.
“When this thing flies, there’s a lot riding on it,” says Gi-
acconi, echoing the concerns of many scientists who want-
ed Hubble to fly years earlier, on an un-manned rocket and
at a much higher altitude than the shuttle can go.
That would have stretched the telescope’s viewing time
per orbit, but made it impossible for astronauts to repair in
the event of a breakdown.
“I hate to think about it,” Giacconi says. “We’re talking
about lifetimes here of many people. One would like to not
have to do this (via shuttle) too many times.”
Shuttle commander Loren Shriver, noting Hubble is
planned to operate into the next century, says, “It should
be, and is, a source of national pride for the country.
“I might be able to tell my grandkids some day, `Yeah, it’s
still up there and is still sending back some data and your
old grandad actually had something to do with that.’ “
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Source: NASA, USA TODAY reporter Paul Hoversten, graphic by Bob Laird, USA TODAY