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hubble
As details of NASA's mishandling of the project emerged, the public learned about drastic overpayments of contractors, lack of adequate testing and the worst blunder of all, a flawed primary mirror that fuzzed images, making the Hubble a decidedly unfunny, spacefaring Mr. Magoo.
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Saturn's ultraviolet aurora, as captured by Hubble
Photo credit: J.T. Trauger (Jet Propulsion Laboratory)/NASA
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Hubble was the star that failed, and the media wasted no time giving it
the proverbial swirly. Hyped with the sort of fanfare that only a $2.5
billion price tag can command, Hubble was ripe for ripping, a floating,
bloated argument for dismantling the U.S. space program in favor of soup kitchens and school bus programs. NASA reeled under the salvos.
Yet it was weirdly reassuring to know that the supposed best and brightest of the land had to endure the same travails that the common folk do – specifically, incompetence, inept management and corrupt contractors, according to a special investigative panel. It was more reassuring still when astronauts repaired Hubble manually, space-cowboy-mechanic style, reminding us that, for the time being at least, humans were not obsolete.
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