Hubble Telescope Couldn't See Straight. So Astronauts Gave It Glasses.

In 1990 NASA launched a telescope whose mirrors it called the most perfect of their size ever made. Within weeks it found the main mirror was the wrong shape. An official investigation found the error had shown up in tests nine years before launch. "Both indicators of error," it said, "were discounted at the time as being themselves flawed." This is what the record says. Hubble's 2.4 metre mirror was polished at Perkin-Elmer in Connecticut, checked against a test instrument with a lens about 1.3 millimetres out of place, so it was polished, very precisely, to the wrong shape. Two other tests in 1981 showed the error. Both were set aside. At a Senate hearing in July 1990, NASA's deputy administrator said: "Well, you are right, it was not tested." In December 1993 seven astronauts made five spacewalks to install a new camera and a corrective device called COSTAR, each built with the mirror's error in reverse. The mirror itself was never fixed. It is still up there, still the wrong shape. Told through NASA's own films and mission tapes from 1981 to 1994, the 27 June 1990 press conference, the printed Congressional record, the Allen Board report, the GAO, the company's own filings, and the people who built, defended and repaired Hubble in their own recorded words. CHAPTERS 0:00 Cold open: "It's the best" 1:50 Chapter 1: The finest mirror in the world 4:33 Chapter 2: The test that was trusted 7:29 Chapter 3: Window on the universe 10:04 Chapter 4: Spherical aberration 12:26 Chapter 5: Was it tested? 15:31 Chapter 6: A closed shop 18:20 Chapter 7: The opposite prescription 22:04 Chapter 8: Let's go fix this thing 26:10 Chapter 9: The trouble with Hubble is over 28:19 Chapter 10: What came next SOURCES AND ARCHIVE Film and audio: NASA Goddard Scientific Visualization Studio archive reels: "NASA at Work: Space Telescope" (1981); USIA news story with Riccardo Giacconi (1983); NASA production (BDM, 1989); STS-31 mission tape (April 1990); NASA press conference, 27 June 1990; Space Astronomy Update (1992); STS-61 preflight briefing, flight day highlights and postflight press conference (1993 to 1994); STScI control room tape (18 December 1993); first images press conference (13 January 1994); Shoemaker-Levy 9 briefings (1994); NASA interview with Ed Weiler (2023). Records: US House hearings No. 29 (16 June 1983) and No. 156 (13 July 1990); US Senate, S. Hrg. 101-1087 (10 July 1990); NASA releases 90-91, 90-111 and 94-7; NASA STS-61 press kit (1993) and mission reports (1994); Perkin-Elmer Form 10-K, fiscal 1994 (SEC). Reports: The Hubble Space Telescope Optical Systems Failure Report (the Allen Board), NASA, November 1990; George A. Rodney, SRM&QA Observations and Lessons Learned, NASA, 1990; HST Strategy Panel, A Strategy for Recovery, 1991; US GAO, GAO/NSIAD-91-248 (1991) and GAO/NSIAD-93-247R (1993). Newspapers and magazines: The New York Times, 28 June 1990 (Warren E. Leary) and 5 October 1993 (William J. Broad); United Press International, 30 June 1990 (Rebecca Kolberg); Associated Press, 29 June 1990. Oral histories: NASA Johnson Space Center Oral History Project: Ed Weiler (24 October 2016 and 4 April 2017), Lennard Fisk (8 September 2010), Joe Rothenberg (27 September 2016), Kathryn Sullivan (28 May 2009), Jeffrey Hoffman (12 November 2009). Photographs: NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Kennedy Space Center and Johnson Space Center image archives (images.nasa.gov); NASA first light image, 20 May 1990 (science.nasa.gov); "Star before and after COSTAR", credit NASA, ESA, and the COSTAR Team (ESA/Hubble, CC BY 4.0); the Hubble backup mirror, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (Open Access, CC0). Cited, not shown: Lew Allen Jr. on Air Talk, KPCC, Pasadena, 19 September 1990 (his words are quoted; the recording is not used). FAIR USE This documentary uses short excerpts of archival film, audio, newspapers and documents for criticism, commentary and historical documentation. Most of the film, photographs and records are the work of the United States Government and are in the public domain. All rights in any other material stay with its owners. If you own material used here and have a concern, please contact us through the channel's About page. ABOUT THE NARRATION The narrator's voice is synthetic, created for this channel. There is no AI-generated video and no AI-generated image anywhere in this film. Everything on screen is real footage, real photographs and real documents, plus our own explainer graphics drawn over them. #Hubble #NASA #Documentary