Richard Isakson wrote:
wrote ...
The original LST ws planned to be 120 inches aperture and scaled
down
to be shuttle deployed.

That doesn't clarify the issue. Supposedly nobody knows what
happened
to the 'spare' HST optics fabricated by Kodak. One supposes they
went
into a KH-12.

I've always wondered if putting the wrong mirror in Hubble was an
accident.
Is it possible that they launched a black program right in front of
our
eyes?


ONe summer at Stellaphane (Amatuer telescope makers' convention)
I heard a talk by the Kodak guy. He said that they tried to talk
NASA into having a contest--test both sets of optics and use
the best of the two in the Space Telescope. Nasa declined (one
presumes that would involve making changes to the existing
contract with Perkin Elmer(?) which they would probably fight
as they would not want to risk losing the good publicity
they'd get from THEIR optics being in the Space Telescope.
Boy did that work out well for them!

So, no to your theory. The contract Kodak won was for
designated back up optics from the moment the RFP was
released.

Unless of course somehow the Kodak and PE optics were
swapped. But that would imply that the fault was discovered
befor the optics went to be assembled--in which case one
hopes they'd have been fixed.

--

FF