The Hubble Space Telescope...

"David A. Scott" wrote in message .1.4...
In many ways the Hubble is a failure they never even cut the
mirror correctly. Do we really want a monument to that simple
error. I still think we should try to build one the right way
but since management has gone so far down hill its likely our
next attempt would be far worse. Hubble could have done much
more if it was ground correctly. The extra lenses added to it
failed to make it as good as it should have been.

Dead. Wrong! Firstly, extra mirrors, not lenses, and in
point of fact there's no "extra" about it anymore, the
individual instruments in HST now were designed with the
mirrors actual shape in mind and correct for it in their
optical paths, often without increasing the number of
optical elements used compared with an instrument designed
for a nominal Hubble mirror. More importantly, the
sharpness of the light focused by HST after these
corrections have been made is actually better than the
design criterion for Hubble. In all aspects Hubble has
far exceeded the design criteria and goals for the project,
it is an unqualified success by any sensible measure.