>>3194334Actually, they would have put a larger one in orbit, but there wasn't a fairing large enough to do that at that time. Hopefully, with all these new massive rockets in the works with massive fairings, we will get much larger scopes in space. Even now (2019) the JWST will be going up on an Ariane 5. Look at how large it is compared to Hubble in this old image.
Needless to say, it isn't a matter of cost.
