American Notes SPACE

The Hubble Space Telescope's devolution from Wonder of the Age to Blunder of the Century continued without letup last week. For one thing, the Associated Press reported that Perkin-Elmer Corp., which built the flawed mirror on the telescope, gave a subcontractor backward drawings for part of the telescope's guidance system -- forcing the prime contractor to pay the San Diego-based subcontractor, Composite Optics Inc., to rebuild it. Composite Optics reportedly made a tidy 63% profit.

For another, Tennessee Democratic Senator Albert Gore Jr. told his Commerce Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space that Perkin-Elmer shrugged off a test that might have exposed flaws in the Hubble's mirrors while they were still on earth. Apparently, Gore said, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was persuaded that a so-called end-to-end, or full-assembly, test (not provided for in the winning bid) was unnecessary. Some NASA officials have argued that the test was not needed for technical reasons. Others claim it would have added hundreds of millions to the $1.5 billion price of the telescope. Given the problems that were discovered after the Hubble was launched, that money might have been well spent.