Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 11, 1990                   TAG: 9004110475
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SPACE SCOPE RISKY - BUT REWARDING?

Every criticism ever leveled at NASA applies to the space telescope in triplicate. If it doesn't live up to the high expectations it has generated, individual reputations and the whole space program will suffer. But if Hubble does what it is supposed to do, it could be as revolutionary as Galileo's invention of the first telescope.

The project is the result of Dr. Lyman Spitzer's vision and determination. Spitzer outlined his ideas for an orbiting telescope 44 years ago, when rocket science was in its infancy. Since then, he has fought continually for the telescope as administrations and priorities changed, and as the price tag grew. The 24-ton, $2.1 billion object that goes into orbit today is not what Spitzer originally envisioned.

At one time, a larger telescope was to be launched by a conventional rocket. It was to be placed in a much higher orbit - 22,300 miles - where it would have been unobstructed by the planet. But NASA politics changed that, and the telescope became part of the space-shuttle program. Its size was reduced to fit in the shuttle's cargo bay, and the orbit was lowered to 380 miles so that shuttle astronauts could repair and maintain its battery of instruments. A financial crisis almost scuttled the telescope in 1983, and the Challenger explosion further delayed the launch.

But though the Hubble telescope arrives overdue and over budget, like so many government projects, it is still a valuable, necessary step. Unlike some of NASA's more questionable missions, which send men, women and senators into orbit at the drop of a funding proposal, this telescope has legitimate scientific value.

In the blackness of space, five times darker than any moonless night on Earth, the telescope will "see" with incredible accuracy. To demonstrate the Hubble's superiority over existing telescopes, scientists have made an analogy to human sight. A person with vision as sharp as Hubble's could stand in Boston and see a basketball in New York.

Such an instrument has amazing potential. But chances are that in a few weeks, when the first photographs taken from Hubble are released, they won't be amazingly dramatic. Even if their clarity and resolution live up to advance billing, they probably won't make the profound impression on the public consciousness that the first satellite pictures of Earth did. The Hubble telescope is designed to operate in the realm of specialists who analyze spectrograph and photometer readings. They hope to look at stars and the spaces between stars to answer fundamental questions about the age and evolution of the universe. These are not the stuff of tabloid headlines.

But who can say for sure? Most scientists admit that in this kind of astronomy, many discoveries are made by accident. Someone sees something where there is supposed to be nothing. When the Hubble telescope is in orbit, it will have a lot of new nothing to examine. It opens a fresh chapter in humanity's efforts to understand an enigmatic cosmos.