Oral title: The ESO New Technology Telescope: a Race to the Future

Oral abstract: When the ESO New Technology Telescope saw its first light in 1989, the concept of 
astronomical telescope known for decades was revolutionised by the unprecedented technical 
performance, cost efficiency and operability of the instrument. Thirty years on, the NTT has returned 
a wealth of outstanding scientific results and keeps contributing to world-class science teaming up 
with the most advanced modern telescopes. The NTT has also served and is continuing to serve as 
a test platform for validating the innovations developed by ESO and its co-operating organisations 
for future telescopes. Advanced systems developed for the ESO Very Large Telescope inaugurated 
in 1999 have been verified on the NTT. The lessons learned in the production and operation of the 
ESO 3.6m Telescope commissioned in 1977 paved the way for a suite of innovations effectively 
merging in the NTT design and later transferred to the ESO Very Large Telescope and Extremely 
Large Telescope. The purpose of the present paper is to recall the key performance aspects of the 
NTT and give an account of its development history and reasons of its success.