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Hubble is neither the first telescope
in space, nor will it be the last,

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but it is the only one that
can be serviced by astronauts

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and this unique, intimate
relationship between human and machine,

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combined with the
observatory's storied history

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makes Hubble the stuff of legend.

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This year we celebrate 20
years of Hubble in orbit.

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This is the Hubblecast.

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News and images from the
NASA / ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

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Travelling through time and space
with our host, Dr. J

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EPISODE 35: Hubble, The Stuff of Legend
a. k. a. Dr. Joe Liske.

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Welcome to the Hubblecast.

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Our fascination with
the starry skies

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can be traced back to the
earliest human civilisations.

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In antiquity, the Greeks and Romans
were so taken with the heavens

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that they lent the names of their
gods to the planets of the Solar System.

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Much later, our
fascination with the skies

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was fuelled by the
invention of the telescope

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and, much later still, this led to
the development of space telescopes.

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In the early 20Th. century,
scientists begun to seriously think

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of the possibility of
telescopes in space.

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In 1923, Hermann Oberth, who was
a Romanian and German descent,

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and is widely considered to be
the father of space telescopes,

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wrote a book, Die Rakete
zu den Planetenräumen,

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putting the idea into
print for the first time.

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After World War II, technology
that was developed for defence

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was being considered
for space exploration

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and in 1946, the American
astronomer Lyman Spitzer

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wrote a paper extolling the
advantages of a space telescope.

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One of these advantages is, of course,

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to be free of the blurring
influence of the Earth's atmosphere.

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It wasn't until the late 1960 that
Spitzer's dream started to become a reality

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in the form of the Large Space Telescope,
which was Hubble's first given name.

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The project seemed like a
natural follow-on to the successes

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of previous smaller orbiting
observatories and NASA's Apollo missions.

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However, the plans had to
suffer a lengthy interruption.

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The 1970 were a decade of
challenges for the US Government,

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which sets the NASA's budget.

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The Vietnam war continued
through the middle of the decade

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and, on top of that, a crippling oil
crisis had severe effects on the economy.

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Spitzer, who was a distinguished
scientist and motivated lobbyist,

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campaigned tirelessly for his
dream telescope in the 1970,

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but budget issues
continued to hamper him

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and his fellow space
telescope visionaries.

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Finally, an idea to
collaborate internationally

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brought the dream one
step closer to reality.

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The European Space Agency
stepped in the late 1970s

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as another "parent" to
the troubled telescope,

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providing not only
funding, but people power

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and literal power in the
form of the solar cells,

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the life-blood of the
solar-powered observatory.

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ESA also built one of the observatory's
first generation instruments,

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the Faint Object Camera.

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In 1983, the Large Space Telescope was
christened the Hubble Space Telescope,

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after the celebrated
astronomer Edwin P. Hubble.

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However, even with proper
funding and an official name,

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the project still faced
many uphill battles.

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The contractors that were building
the mirror and the spacecraft

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were going over budget and
they were missing deadlines.

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This pushed the launch date
further and further back,

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but in early 1986 everything finally
seemed ready for an autumn departure.

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But then, tragically, on
the 28th of January 1986

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the seven-member crew of
the Space Shuttle Challenger

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was lost in an explosion
shortly after launch.

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After the shocking Challenger disaster,
NASA halted all shuttle missions

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from 1986 through the fall of 1988,

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until a lengthy review could be
conducted and astronaut safety assured.

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During the grounding
of the shuttle program,

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engineers continued to work on Hubble
in its temporary home, a cleanroom.

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On a bright April morning in 1990,

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the Space Shuttle Discovery
carried a crew of five

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to finally deliver Hubble to its
home 600 kilometres above the Earth,

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decades after its initial conception.

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The celebrations ended quickly when,
shortly after Hubble was deployed,

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scientists discovered a spherical aberration
in the space telescope's primary mirror.

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The distortion in the images, seen
as a fuzzy halo, was the result

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of an incredibly tiny, 2-micron flaw
in the shape of the primary mirror.

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This would be the equivalent of the
thickness of two average sheets of paper.

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But it was enough to distort the images,
frustrate scientists and engineers

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and prompt the ridicule of
the media and taxpayers alike.

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Hubble became synonymous
with expensive failure.

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But, like any legend,
Hubble fought back.

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Aiming at correcting the optics
of its flawed mirror shape

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and installing a new instrument
as part of the maintenance plan,

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the first Servicing Mission
to the Hubble Space Telescope

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was launched in December 1993.

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Among the seven-member crew was the
European astronaut Claude Nicollier.

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During a riveting mission,
astronauts brought Hubble back

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to the glory its creators intended.

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The COSTAR package was the
equivalent of corrective glasses,

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albeit large ones, the
size of a refrigerator.

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Another new instrument
was installed as well,

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the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2
that itself had corrective optics

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and an impressive ultraviolet
detection capability.

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In the following 17 years, Hubble literally
changed the way we see the Universe

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and it discovered many
fundamental new scientific truths.

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In the next Hubblecast,
we'll be exploring

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some of these science highlights
from the past two decades.

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Last year, astronauts visited the veteran
space observatory for the fifth time.

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The public was enthralled
by the dramatic spacewalks

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that set time and
certainly endurance records.

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Removing the telescope's clunky
glasses, the now-obsolete COSTAR package,

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astronauts installed the most
powerful camera now in space,

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the Wide Field Camera 3, and
the new Cosmic Origins Spectrograph.

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From what seemed like a
far-fetched idea

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to what is arguably the most
recognised icon in space,

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Hubble is truly a star!

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In honour of Hubble's 20th year,
we'll be launching a fresh new look

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for the European Hubble
website at spacetelescope.org

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Stay tuned for the new site
launching on 22nd. of April.

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This is Dr. J
signing off for the Hubblecast.

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Once again, nature has surprised us
beyond our wildest imagination...

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Hubblecast is produced
by ESA / Hubble

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at the European
Southern Observatory in Germany.

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The Hubble mission is a project
of international cooperation

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between NASA and
the European Space Agency.

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Now that you've caught up with Hubble

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make sure to get the
latest from the ground too.

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The ESOCast highlights the best of
the European Southern Observatory

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and its powerful telescopes that
observe from high in the Chilean Andes

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at the southern hemisphere's best known
sites for astronomical observations.