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Was Hubble big news when it launched? Asking because I'm 28 and was not alive on 1990.

• giantrobot 5y ago
  Hubble or the "Space Telescope" was one of the Space Shuttle's major proposed missions and a major project at NASA in the 80s. Any books or magazine articles about the Shuttle often mentioned the then unnamed Space Telescope. As mentioned in other replies it was originally lambasted after launch for its flawed optics. The first servicing mission which fixed those problems got a lot of press attention, far more than its launch.
• mixmastamyk 5y ago
  Yes, although it had well-known glitches after launch as well.
• krylon 5y ago
  I don't recall the launch as such, but in my memory, it was pretty popular throughout the 1990s. I don't have any first hand memories of the broken optics and the mission to put "glasses" on it, so I think it must have taken a while to become a household name, at least in Europe. Once the optics were corrected, though, it became very big. I once heard an astronomer say that there is pretty much no field in astronomy that did not benefit in some way from Hubble. And for lay people like me, lots of stunning pictures. :)
• op00to 5y ago
  Huge. We watched the launch and the repairs in school.