Alan Dressler

The idea for a successor to the Hubble Space Telescope began taking shape in 1989, just a year before Hubble launched, when astronomers started thinking about what the next great space observatory should be.

In September 1993, the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy appointed a committee to study what should come after Hubble, chaired by astronomer Alan Dressler.

The committee's 1996 report recommended a large, infrared-optimised telescope in space, with a primary mirror significantly bigger than Hubble's 2.4-metre aperture.

In 1997, NASA began funding industry study teams at Goddard Space Flight Centre and Ball Aerospace to explore how such a telescope could be built.

Yes.

David Burstein, Roger Davies, Alan Dressler, Sandra Faber, Donald Lindenbell, Roberto Terlovich, and Gary Wagner.

A total powerhouse team.

And their objective was staggeringly ambitious for the technology of the mid-1980s.

Yes.

Something completely unseen, exerting a gravitational force equivalent to tens of thousands of galaxies, just pulling everything toward it.

And that is when, in 1987, Alan Dressler officially coined the incredibly dramatic name, the Great Attractor.

It's such a good name.