One year ago this week [in Jan­u­ary 1986], the Space Shut­tle Chal­lenger explod­ed short­ly after take­off, tak­ing sev­en astro­nauts to a fiery death. Eval­u­a­tion of the acci­dent and redesign of the shut­tle and boost­er rock­ets has inter­rupt­ed the launch sched­ule for at least two years. For astronomers, the ground­ed shut­tle has meant a frus­trat­ing delay in deploy­ment of the Hub­ble Space Tele­scope, one of the most remark­able instru­ments in the his­to­ry of sci­ence, and one that has the poten­tial to rev­o­lu­tion­ize our knowl­edge of the universe.