From the article:

> And, to be honest, it didn’t really matter how much his colleagues protested. As director of the Space Telescope Science Institute, he had a certain amount of Hubble’s time at his personal disposal. “The telescope allocation committee would never have approved such a long, risky project,” he explains. “But as director, I had 10 percent of the telescope time, and I could do what I wanted.”

Also:

> “Scientific discovery requires risk,” Williams says. “And I was at a point in my career where I said, “If it’s that bad, I’ll resign. I‘ll fall on my sword.’”