Hubble Telescope

NASA has always recruited the best-of-the-best scientific, engineering, and management talent. What happened with the Hubble telescope?

* Hubble was the first telescope designed to be maintained in space by astronaughts.

* TheĀ  telescope was constructed of the very best in unique, custom made, components fabricated in NASA facilities. Extremely tight tolerances for all specifications were adhered to.

* Original funding in 1977 was 36 million $. Over the years, disasters and delays increased cost from 36 million $ to 10 billion $ as of 2010.

* Once placed in orbit, the telescope did not perform as expected. Investigation revealed that the mirrors were not ground to the proper shape.

* When a technique for testing the mirrors in a vacuum, the operating environment of the telescope, could not be designed; they did not test the mirrors in a vacuum!

* It took approximately 700 million $ to repair the telescope in space!

NO COMMON SENSE

ANALYZE THE EXAMPLE

* What supports and barriers were in play?

* What were the dynamics?

* Who, or what, won the Tug-of-War?

* Discuss the outcome with your friends and family.

* Use Post #4 as a reference for the dynamics and the relationships between supports and barriers.