Editing Hubble Space Telescope (section)

=== Quest for funding ===
The continuing success of the OAO program encouraged increasingly strong consensus within the astronomical community that the LST should be a major goal. In 1970, NASA established two committees, one to plan the engineering side of the space telescope project, and the other to determine the scientific goals of the mission. Once these had been established, the next hurdle for NASA was to obtain funding for the instrument, which would be far more costly than any Earth-based telescope. The [[United States Congress|U.S. Congress]] questioned many aspects of the proposed budget for the telescope and forced cuts in the budget for the planning stages, which at the time consisted of very detailed studies of potential instruments and hardware for the telescope. In 1974, [[public spending]] cuts led to Congress deleting all funding for the telescope project.{{sfn|Spitzer|1979|pp=33–34}}

In 1977, then NASA Administrator [[James C. Fletcher]] proposed a token $5 million for Hubble in NASA's budget. Then NASA Associate Administrator for Space Science, [[Noel Hinners]], instead cut all funding for Hubble, gambling that this would galvanize the scientific community into fighting for full funding. As Hinners recalls:<ref>{{cite web
|url=https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/JSCHistoryPortal/history/oral_histories/NASA_HQ/Administrators/HinnersNW/HinnersNW_8-19-10.htm
|title=NASA Headquarters Oral History Project – Noel W. Hinners
|date=August 19, 2010
|website=Johnson Space Center History Portal
|publisher=NASA
|access-date=July 14, 2022
|archive-date=July 15, 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220715150041/https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/JSCHistoryPortal/history/oral_histories/NASA_HQ/Administrators/HinnersNW/HinnersNW_8-19-10.htm
|url-status=live
}}</ref>

{{blockquote
|text=It was clear that year that we weren't going to be able to get a full-up start. There was some opposition on [Capitol] Hill to getting a new start on [Hubble]. It was driven, in large part as I recall, by the budget situation. Jim Fletcher proposed that we put in $5 million as a placeholder. I didn't like that idea. It was, in today's vernacular, a "sop" to the astronomy community. "There's something in there, so all is well".

I figured in my own little head that to get that community energized we'd be better off zeroing it out. Then they would say, "Whoa, we're in deep trouble", and it would marshal the troops. So I advocated that we not put anything in. I don't remember any of the detailed discussions or whether there were any, but Jim went along with that so we zeroed it out. It had, from my perspective, the desired impact of stimulating the astronomy community to renew their efforts on the lobbying front. While I like to think in hindsight it was a brilliant political move, I'm not sure I thought it through all that well. It was something that was spur of the moment.

[...] $5 million would let them think that all is well anyway, but it's not. So let's give them a message. My own thinking, get them stimulated to get into action. Zeroing it out would certainly give that message. I think it was as simple as that. Didn't talk to anybody else about doing it first, just, "Let's go do that". Voila, it worked. Don't know whether I'd do that again.
}}

The political ploy worked. In response to Hubble being zeroed out of NASA's budget, a nationwide lobbying effort was coordinated among astronomers. Many astronomers met [[United States House of Representatives|congressmen]] and [[United States Senate|senators]] in person, and large-scale letter-writing campaigns were organized. The [[National Academy of Sciences]] published a report emphasizing the need for a space telescope, and eventually, the Senate agreed to half the budget that had originally been approved by Congress.{{sfn|Spitzer|1979|p=34}}

The funding issues led to a reduction in the scale of the project, with the proposed mirror diameter reduced from 3 m to 2.4 m, both to cut costs<ref name="gander">{{cite book|last=Andersen |first=Geoff|title=The telescope: its history, technology, and future|date=2007|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0-691-12979-2|page=[https://archive.org/details/telescopeitshist00ande/page/116 116] |url=https://archive.org/details/telescopeitshist00ande/page/116}}</ref> and to allow a more compact and effective configuration for the telescope hardware. A proposed precursor {{cvt|1.5|m}} space telescope to test the systems to be used on the main satellite was dropped, and budgetary concerns also prompted collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA). ESA agreed to provide funding and supply one of the first generation instruments for the telescope, as well as the [[solar cell]]s that would power it, and staff to work on the telescope in the United States, in return for European astronomers being guaranteed at least 15% of the observing time on the telescope.<ref>"Memorandum of Understanding Between The European Space Agency and The United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration", reprinted in [https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4407/vol5/ExploreUnknown.pdf ''NASA SP-2001-4407: Exploring the Unknown''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170120024958/https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4407/vol5/ExploreUnknown.pdf|date=January 20, 2017}} Chapter 3, Document III-29, p. 671.</ref> Congress eventually approved funding of US$36 million for 1978, and the design of the LST began in earnest, aiming for a launch date of 1983.{{sfn|Spitzer|1979|p=34}} In 1983, the telescope was named after [[Edwin Hubble]],<ref>{{cite web|url=https://history.nasa.gov/hubble/chron.html|last=Okolski|first=Gabriel|title=A Chronology of the Hubble Space Telescope|publisher=NASA|access-date=April 26, 2008|archive-date=June 27, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080627010420/http://history.nasa.gov/hubble/chron.html|url-status=live}} {{PD-notice}}</ref> who confirmed one of the greatest scientific discoveries of the 20th century, made by [[Georges Lemaître]], that the [[universe]] is [[expanding universe|expanding]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://hubble.nasa.gov/overview/conception-part1.php|title=The Path to Hubble Space Telescope|publisher=NASA|access-date=April 26, 2008|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080524211736/http://hubble.nasa.gov/overview/conception-part1.php|archive-date=May 24, 2008}} {{PD-notice}}</ref>