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Desktop Space Exploration

from 5 - Public Education in Astronomy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2011

R. Buckland
Affiliation:
Department of Design and Innovation, The Open University, UK
L. Gouguenheim
Affiliation:
Observatoire de Paris, Meudon
D. McNally
Affiliation:
University College London
J. R. Percy
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Summary

The Humble Space Telescope project aims to launch a small space telescope for educational and recreational purposes, in time for the New Millennium.

The arrival of the 3rd Millennium, accompanied in the United Kingdom by a Millennium Commission distributing 250 million per year of National Lottery funds for good causes and imaginative projects which would otherwise require direct funding by the taxpayer, provides a unique opportunity to design, build and operate a small but capable version of the pioneering Hubble Space Telescope.

In July 1994, a leading British newspaper with a long history of covering developments in science, launched a competition for members of the public to propose science projects to be funded by the Millennium Commission. The idea of a small satellite telescope, fitted with a CCD detector package was submitted by Dr. Martin-Smith, and won a share of the top prize. Meanwhile, Rodney Buckland, a Trustee of the National Science Centre project, took up the idea as an ideal new field site for the Centre, and has become its Project Manager.

It is well established that specialised and initially-expensive technologies – for example Schmidt-Cassegrain optics, CCD cameras, computers and the Internet – began as the advanced tools of professionals, and in time become accessible to amateurs, educators, and the public, for learning and recreation.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1998

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