Re: Wishful thinking...
Right. Wonderful things appear on the leading edge, and for some reason are not duplicated before they wear out or disappear from view.
NASA awarded the Hubble Telescope objective-mirror contract to Perkin-Elmer; the losing bidder was Kodak. This all was discussed in considerable depth when the winning mirror, built into the instrument and shot off into orbit, turned out to have an aberration. As it happened, the Hubble instrument's accessibility to astronauts enabled the agency to calculate, assemble and install an optical corrector.
There is great demand for viewing-time on pretty nearly all astronomical telescopes, even ones of much more modest specification than Hubble. The Kodak mirror is on display at a museum, from which it could be retrieved. NASA now knows how to build successful space telescopes. The only really serious expense would be a launch vehicle, but surely the people planning joyrides for billionaires could be persuaded to lend a hand ... perhaps by way of apologizing for all the shiny space litter.
T.R. Sanford