NASA's $50 Million Hubble Mistake

Soon after the Hubble Telescope launched, scientists realized there was something wrong with it’s mirror. This video looks at how Hubble’s mirror ended up being flawed and how NASA fixed it for 50 million dollars.

References:

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Music used in this video:

» Reconciliation - Asher Fulero
» Stuck In The Air - The Tower Of Light
» Double You - The Mini Vandals
» Marianas - Quincas Moreira
» See You - Maxzwell
» Air To The Throne - Doug Maxwell
» Long Road Ahead - Kevin MacLeod

Credits:

Narrated by: Beau Stucki

#Nasa #Hubble #HubbleTelescope

[Lando_P]

My high school science teacher was a jerk and bragged about working on the Hubble mirror. I bet it was his mistake haha

[macjonte]

Missed the story where the manufacturer actually found the problem before delivery, but management didn’t trust the measurement...

[themadman]

It's gonna be a real shame to see Hubble deactivate, but it's done good work over the years it's been up there.

[BaghaShams]

I remember watching the repair mission on TV at the time. Their dumbed-down explanation was that Hubble had blurry vision and needed glasses to see better. As a kid at the time I knew the real reason must be much more complicated than that. But I guess it turns out that was actually a pretty decent explanation; it just left out a bunch of additional interesting information.

[JustArtsCreations]

One of the most amazing parts of this is the fact they did the repair and replacement IN SPACE?!

[Guest]

Now let’s hope this doesn’t happen to the james Webb telescope because if it does the James Webb telescope can not be repaired so the telescope will essentially be scrap

[redsquirrelftw]

Hubble is an incredible feat of engineering especially considering how long ago it was. Will be sad when it is officially deemed end of life, but it will be exciting to see what the new one (James Webb) will do.

[willgotsch]

"However, as the engineers were setting up the null corrector, one of the mirrors was set up incorrectly, perfectly cancelling Hubble's flaw" yeah.. more like one or the engineers adjusted it cause he was petrified his boss was going to chew him out for fucking up the mirror. We've all done shit like this at work. Usually the consequences aren't quite as bad though.

[JediBuddhist]

It is rumoured, that to this day, a lone NASA employee still sits on Hold to Perkin Elmer Customer Service waiting for a refund and prepaid returns lable.
... So the legend goes.

[RosebudKane]

Gosh I wanna make a Sandy Bullock joke right now, will not.

[j_m_b_]

My uncle's good friend was the one who helped design the smaller mirror to fix the flaw in the larger mirror. He also knew the team members that used the null corrector on the larger mirror and he once said to us, "NASA left the most important part of the process to three buffoons that graduated college with a 3.2 GPA. They were so laser focused on testing the large mirror that they totally neglected to test the test setup."

The moral of the story (especially for software engineers writing code tests) is to remember to examine the logic of your test code to make sure you are accurately testing the right things. If your tests come out flawlessly, make sure you are testing exactly what you think you are testing.

[HylanderSB]

Gosh. It would have been nice to tell a different story on Hubble's birthday, but I guess after 30 years, we're just happy to be remembered.

[victorcercasin]

I have heard many times of the hacked repair performed in Hubble, but never new how exactly it worked. Good job.

[uzaiyaro]

I've heard of the mirror defect from one or two other youtubers, but the fix seems to be glossed over a bit, which I won't knock them for—they're still great videos, but I'm really happy that the fix was covered here. Thanks!

[snivla]

The guy who fixed hubble got the idea in the shower by looking how the shower head moved and how it ran up and down its vertical rail and how it flicked out . He made the correctional lens and used the shower head idea to get it a bit like a ship in a bottle to deploy the optics. That would be the costar instrument...

[jamesspash]

My grandfather was the head of the optics polishing dept at Perkin Elmer Nowalk CT., at the time. When I asked him what went wrong he said that "Hubble was such a big deal, the engineers grabbed the mirror and moved it to a different plant, instead of leaving with the his group that knew what they were doing".

[geemanbmw]

Humanity need to recapture Hubble and bring her back to a museum.

[RamLaska]

I remember at the time, newspapers nicknamed it "hobble."

IIRC, they also developed a software filter to partially correct the mirror aberration until COSTAR was deployed

[markmiller]

This video is incorrect - the null corrector was what they used to measure the mirror during polishing. as the null corrector was off - the mirror was perfectly polished to the wrong spec.

they also had an offer from Zeiss... about 10% more expensive. which is well below the usual difference in price of Zeiss products, when compared to the concurrence and back when it still meant something. could have been the bargain of a century.