As Dr. Campbell has already stated, by honoring the Hubble Space Telescope team tonight, the Space Foundation recognizes the achievements of great team involving people from NASA, industry and academia. It proves that a diverse group of people from quite different cultures can create a wonder of modern civilization every bit as great as the seven wonders of the world that were created by our forbearers. And it has been done through the space program, one of the most inspiring adventures undertaken by humankind.
On behalf of my colleagues at the Space Telescope Science Institute and the world scientific community, I am grateful that the Space Foundation has recognized this science project with the 2001 Space Achievement Award. Thank you for honoring the work done by the Hubble Team, thank you for your support of space science, and thank you for recognizing the value of intellectual curiosity as a motive force for our society.
Many people played important roles in bringing this project to fruition. Dr. Campbell and I are pleased to represent them here. We want to stress that our personal roles in the mission were small compared to the efforts of thousands of talented engineers, scientists, and managers who built the telescope and saw it through good times and bad to realize its incredible potential.
The Hubble Telescope has been one of the most successful science projects in history. It has increased our knowledge of the heavens in measurable ways. It has engaged the public at large in our understanding of science and our place in the universe, and it has succeeded in uniting many partners from several countries in a common goal.
The dream of Hubble started in the 1940's with the publication of a paper by Lyman Spitzer of Princeton University concerning the potential of a large telescope in space. This was at the time that Robert Goddard was refining his experiments with rockets and the German team led by Werner von Braun had already perfected the V2 rocket as an instrument of war.
Spitzer understood that observing the heavens was best done from space. He foresaw that it would only be a matter of time before space travel was possible, and he understood the power we would have if our most sensitive instruments were free from the confines of the Earth's atmosphere.
His dream came true with Hubble. It points the way to an even richer future in which we can begin to answer the most basic questions of philosophy: how did the universe come to be the way we see it, where did we come from, and where are we going?
We stand on the verge of a new era in which these basic questions will move from the realm of philosophy into the realm of science. Following Hubble's lead, we can now build telescopes capable of looking back to a time when there were no stars and galaxies. We know how to measure the most fundamental properties of the universe, how to characterize its constituents in exquisite detail, how to find and study other planetary systems, and how to search for life itself outside of our Solar System.
We can tackle these problems because we can now build observatories in space. Indeed, it is the aerospace industry that makes possible a shift in our dreams and opens up avenues for exploration that were once thought to be the realm of the ancient gods alone.
It is my hope that the Hubble will be only the first of a series of scientific jewels dotting the crown of our space achievements. The incredible creativity of engineers and the discipline of our best managers coupled to the dreams of scientists will open up the cosmos as in no other time in the history of the human species.
It is a great privilege to thank you tonight for recognizing exploration of the universe as an important goal of space exploration. I invite you to help us make the next great space science projects such a success. Help us make the successors to Hubble even better than the original, so that we continue to make discoveries that we now cannot even imagine.