Rescuing the Hubble Space Telescope
In the past two decades, the Hubble Space Telescope has produced thousands of staggering images of the universe — capturing colliding galaxies, collapsing stars, and pillars of cosmic gas and dust with its high-precision cameras. These images have driven many scientific discoveries, and have made their way into popular culture, having been featured on album covers, fashion runways, and as backdrops for sci-fi television episodes. With Hubble’s advanced capabilities today, it’s hard to recall that the telescope was once gravely threatened. But shortly after its launch in 1990, scientists discovered a flaw that jeopardized Hubble’s entire endeavor. What followed was a political and public backlash against the $1 billion mission — and NASA, the agency that oversaw it. For the next three years, engineers scrambled to design a mission to repair the telescope in space — an ambitious plan that would result in the most complex Space Shuttle mission ever...