It's been about 30 years since NASA astronauts saved the Hubble Space Telescope on an immensely daring mission. At the time, it was perhaps the most daring mission scientists had conceived of.. In short, Hubble was launched in 1990 with faulty optics that produced blurred images. Fortunately, however, the space telescope, which orbits Earth, was designed to be physically repaired by astronauts. Yes, mid-orbit.
But even with this capability, before Hubble launched, nobody really expected those repairs to have to come so soon — and in such dramatic fashion.
