🇺🇸 NASA’S TELESCOPE LAUNCH NEARLY TURNED INTO A $1.5B FIREWORK The year was 1999. NASA strapped its heaviest-ever payload onto the Shuttle Columbia and hit the ignition. 5 seconds later, sparks flew, literally. 2 digital control units fried mid-launch. 1 more failure, and Columbia would’ve been skywriting its own obituary. Only sheer NASA redundancy (and nerves of steel) saved the crew from a “mission abort” that would’ve made Apollo 13 look like a minor detour. That’s how close we came to turning a billion-dollar telescope into orbiting shrapnel. Source: NASA