which was launched on April 24, 1990, by the Space Shuttle ''Discovery'' (STS-31). This was launched due to many efforts by Nancy Grace Roman, aka "mother of Hubble", who was the first Chief of Astronomy and first female executive at NASA. She was a program scientist that worked to convince NASA, the U.S. Congress, and others that Hubble was "very well worth doing".

The first operational space telescopes were the American Orbiting Astronomical Observatory,