How manned space missions have helped astronomers understand the universe?
Manned space missions have made possible some of the greatest advances in our knowledge of the universe. The Hubble Space Telescope, the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory, and the Chandra X-ray Observatory were all launched by manned Shuttle missions, and manned repair missions kept HST in operation. Shuttle missions also launched a number of unmanned planetary probes: Galileo and Magellan were both launched by the Shuttle. Oh, then there was Skylab, which performed extensive solar observations, and the Apollo missions allowing us to figure out how the Moon came to be… Yeah, this subject covers a lot of territory!
