Nancy Roman

Dr. Roman was remembered as "the mother of the Hubble." As NASA's first chief of astronomy and the first woman in a leadership position at the space agency, Dr. Roman oversaw the early planning for the Hubble Space Telescope, which began orbiting Earth above its atmosphere in April 1990 to capture an unobstructed view of the universe. Placed into orbit from a manned Discovery shuttle and named for the pioneering American astronomer Edwin Hubble, it became the first large optical telescope in space. It has enhanced knowledge of distant galaxies as well as planets in our own solar system by transmitting images that would have been distorted if it were operating from within the Earth's atmosphere. The idea for that kind of large optical telescope had circulated in the scientific world since the astronomer Lyman Spitzer Jr. envisioned it in 1946. But the concept met with skepticism over feasibility and cost. So the road toward getting the Hubble into the skies was a long one. "It was Nancy in the old days before the internet and before Google and email and all that stuff who really helped to sell the Hubble Space Telescope, organize the astronomers, who eventually convinced Congress to fund it, " Edward J. Weiler, Dr. Roman's successor as chief scientist for the Hubble, told the Voice of America in 2011.