Importance of the Hubble Space Telescope

Normally, a big budget is allotted to different space programs and equipment. It’s not a secret that maintaining big and advanced equipment and projects is expensive, especially if it concerns carrying a massive telescope into space. But we don’t really know how much all of them cost, right? For instance, the Hubble space telescope is one thing that a lot of people are curious about. It’s by far the largest and most versatile telescope sent to space, and although not the first telescope. It’s also very well-known because the first proposal for it had been in 1923 and it was funded only in the 70s.

So how much the did Hubble space telescope cost back then, and how expensive it was back then? The original amount of funding back then was a whopping $36,000,000 in 1978. Construction was done and a lot of effort and support was given to the concept and construction of the HST. In 1983, a few years before its launch, the telescope was named after Edwin Hubble who discovered that the universe was expanding, one of the greatest discoveries in the 20th century.

Important breakthroughs of the Hubble Space Telescope

To date the Hubble has led to some of the most important discoveries in the world of astrophysics, such as discovering the exact rate of the expansion of the universe. But because over the years there have been disasters and delays, the original $36 million funding has gone up to $2.5 billion. Today, the total cost for the construction and repair is said to be about $6 billion with the help from the European Space Agency of €593 million.

While the Hubble space telescope cost is very steep and so expensive I can’t even imagine that much money, a lot of people are hoping it’s put to good use, and so far it has been a vehicle to breakthroughs in the history of astrophysics and discovering and learning more about our universe.

Currently, there is a planned successor for the Hubble space telescope. The James Webb Space Telescope is an ambitious plan for an infrared space observatory, which main goal is to capture images from the farthest distance in the universe.