The Earth's atmosphere is the bane of astronomers. The idea of sending a telescope into space to avoid it was first proposed long before the first satellites were launched, long before anyone even dreamt of sending astronauts to space. German rocket scientist Herman Oberth was a pioneering thinker of his time and suggested a space bound telescope as early as 1923. A space telescope avoids frustrating problems such as cloudy and misty observing nights, the twinkling of stars even on clear nights and absorption of the ultraviolet and infrared parts of the spectrum.

It took many years before technology caught up with Oberth's idea. The American Lyman Spitzer proposed a more realistic plan for a space telescope in 1946 and lobbied for his idea for almost 30 years. In the 1970s NASA and the European Space Agency took up the idea and proposed a 3 metre space telescope. Funding began to flow in 1977 and it was decided to name the telescope after Edwin Powell Hubble who had discovered the expansion of the Universe in the 1920s. Although the Hubble Space Telescope was down-sized to 2.4 metres the project started to attract significant attention from astronomers.