Every huge step in the history of technology has started with someone who had an amazing dream. Most of them were mocked and declared impossible, yet those people’s dreams are the things that have gotten the world where we are today.
In the early 1900’s, a scientist named Hermann Oberth wanted nothing more than to see space. He was frustrated to find that nothing he did was good enough to fulfill his dream. He tried everything on earth to try to see images of space. Then he thought he was looking in the wrong place. He didn’t need to look from earth, but from space. His dream was to build a telescope that orbited earth from space. That way, he could not only see just beyond earth, but much, much farther: he had a view of much of the universe. When Oberth died, his dream was made a reality. They sent the first telescope into space in 1990, and called it the Hubble Space Telescope. It orbited earth at 595 kilometers above earth. It made the headlines of almost every major newspaper as the “window on the universe” and everybody was ecstatic to find what the outcome would be. When it took its first pictures, scientists were dismayed by them. It looked as if “a thin strip of gauze wrap was placed in front of the lens.” The pictures were so blurry and distorted. NASA diagnosed the problem as a defective mirror. The shuttle ‘Endeavor’ was sent to fix the problem in 1993, then at last, the telescope could see clearly. In 1997 the shuttle ‘Discovery’ was sent to replace some parts of the telescope, and sent it 15 kilometers farther into space. In 1999 ‘Discovery’ installed a computer that was 20 times faster than the last one. In 2005, NASA wanted to remove the telescope from space because of having to send several shuttles on several occasions to service the telescope, but were inspired by how far they had come, so decided to keep it in space until at least 2010.
I think we can all agree, that because of one man who had an “impossible” dream, it changed the technology and history of space forever. I think we all should be more like Hermann Oberth, and when we have an “insane, impossible” dream, we should try to make it happen, because who knows? It might change man kind forever!
Just by Oberth’s dream, astronomers sent a giant space telescope (Hubble Space Telescope) to take pictures of our galaxy, so we could see what the universe was like, outside of earth. A hundred years ago, that was impossible. Now, in is not unusual to see a picture of earth from space, or a picture of some other planet.
Hermann Oberth had a dream to see our galaxy, so he sent a space telescope into space, and it is used to this day, to make new discoveries of space, and the celestial planets in it. If we would all try to act on our “dreams” we could change man-kind, and our history forever.
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