Henry Spencer ) wrote:
: In article ,
: Derek Lyons wrote:
: Only after quite a struggle, though -- Hubble was originally supposed to
: be a mid-1970s project, and it ended up launching at the end of the 1980s.
:
: To be fair; a good chunk of Hubble's delay wasn't strictly the
: programs fault, but that of the Shuttle.

: And to be fair: the shuttle got *blamed* for most of the delays, but in
: fact the development of Hubble itself hit all sorts of snags (many of them
: caused or aggravated by tight budgets), and it was really convenient to be
: able to point the finger at the shuttle. Hubble spent very little of that
: time, only a year or so if I recall correctly, just sitting around waiting
: for transportation. Most of the rest of the time, the Hubble engineering
: team was busy solving problems and hoping their ride wouldn't be ready to
: leave before they were.

Didn't the 1986 Challenger disaster have and effect of the HST launch?
Even with all that extra time the mirror had a flaw.

Eric

: --
: "Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
: -- George Herbert |