The Telescope Everyone Called a Failure

When NASA launched the Hubble Space Telescope in April 1990, engineers expected triumph. Instead, the first images came back blurred and useless. A grinding error in the primary mirror — off by just 2. 2 microns, roughly one-fiftieth the width of a human hair — had rendered the $1. 5 billion instrument nearly blind. Newspapers called it a national embarrassment.…