Project Stratoscope: On the left is a model of the Stratoscope telescope from the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. I looked back in 1990 and was surprised how well the research capabilities of the Hubble aligned with my recommendations in the RAND report. I was essentially involved with that telescope for over fifty years. This report would be the beginning of the long journey to the launching of the Hubble Space Telescope. In the following years I would talk to fellow astronomers encouraging them to think about this new approach to astronomy. My analysis convinced me that a large, general-use optical telescope in space would be of paramount importance to the scientific community. ![]() No satellite resulted directly from my report and many scientists were skeptical, but I didn’t give up. Many of them could not be studied at all from the Earth and others only to a limited extent. I included sixteen areas of possible research. ![]() My paper for them outlined a space telescope that could be used for scientific research. With my long and ardent background in science fiction, I found this invitation an exciting one and accepted with great enthusiasm. ![]() At the time, RAND was designing a satellite to orbit the Earth and my friend asked me if I would be interested in writing a chapter for the study on the possible astronomical uses of such a space satellite. towards the end of the war in 1946, a friend told me about a new organization the Air Force had set up to do top secret research called the RAND Project.
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