Long before it orbited Earth, the Hubble Space Telescope starred in a famous Superman comic
As a huge Superman fan, I have long wanted to own Action Comics No. 419, the issue published in 1972 with an iconic cover showing the Man of Steel hurtling into the sky, seeming to fly right off the page. That’s why, earlier this year, I was delighted to finally track down a copy in the secondhand section of my local comic shop.
Right there on the page was a dead ringer for the real-life Hubble Space Telescope. I was baffled: How did the cartoon version of a space telescope that launched in 1990 get into a comic published in 1972?Paul Cornish/DC Comics “I went down to Washington, ..., and we gave every member of Congress a copy of this Superman comic,” he recalled. “I remember asking as many as I could find..., ‘If I can get the Large Space Telescope talked about in Superman comics, would you think it’s popular enough...?’ Then I’d give them a copy of this issue.”
O’Dell told me that in the early days of the project, the fate of the LST was not solely in the hands of Congress. Proponents also had to convince their fellow astronomers, many of whom would have preferred the money be spent on Earth-based telescopes, that the LST was a worthy investment.
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