This is a classic article from New 杏吧原创鈥檚 archive, republished as part of our 50th anniversary celebrations
MANY claims have been made for the significance of the Hubble Space Telescope. In 1986, for example, Riccardo Giacconi, director of the American institute set up to administer the telescope, said that knowledge gained from Hubble would have as great a sociological impact as the revolutions started by Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Newton. In the light of last week鈥檚 discovery that the telescope is seriously flawed, such claims will have to be reassessed. So, too, will the enthusiasm with which 鈥渂ig science鈥� projects are often pushed at the expense of more modest 鈥� but often no less effective 鈥� proposals.
The problems which emerged last week will obviously be a great disappointment to astronomers and others who have spent years developing the telescope. What appear to be design faults with the telescope鈥檚 mirrors mean that the images it records in the visible range will not be much better than those recorded by ground-based telescopes. The telescope will still be able to carry out important science, but it will not expand our understanding of the universe as much as was intended. At least, not unless NASA either retrieves the telescope and replaces the secondary mirror, or sends up new instruments.
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At present, it appears that one of the telescope鈥檚 two mirrors was cut, ground and polished to the wrong specification. The flawed mirror may now be only a mere 500 kilometres or so distant, but it is in space 鈥� an expensive and complicated place to reach.
Hubble鈥檚 predicament will inevitably influence politicians faced with demands for large amounts of money for other big projects, such as the space station and the superconducting supercollider. Both are considerably more controversial than Hubble; and costs are spiralling. A hasty overreaction must be avoided. Hubble鈥檚 problems should not deter politicians from funding large scientific projects. Rather, it should warn them against being seduced by the glamour of technology whose appeal to national prestige may override scientific common sense.
This article was originally published in New 杏吧原创 on 7 July 1990
50 Years of New 杏吧原创: The Best Articles 鈥� find many more in our exclusive Special Report. You can also have your say on what you think was the biggest scientific advance of the last 50 years, in our
