1 00:00:00,110 --> 00:00:04,600 BOLDEN: It means that we now understand much more about our universe than we ever would 2 00:00:04,600 --> 00:00:06,490 have known had it not been for Hubble. 3 00:00:06,490 --> 00:00:10,940 GRUNSFELD: It just gives me that sense that we live in this vast and remarkable universe. 4 00:00:10,940 --> 00:00:15,570 WEILER: Hubble today would be a piece of floating space debris if it weren’t for the human 5 00:00:15,570 --> 00:00:19,110 space flight program NARRATOR: To build a telescope, in many ways 6 00:00:19,110 --> 00:00:21,460 is a decision to build a time machine. 7 00:00:21,460 --> 00:00:28,570 The United States Congress approved a large space telescope in 1977, sparking work to 8 00:00:28,570 --> 00:00:34,250 begin on creating this large, complex, and capable orbiting telescope. 9 00:00:34,250 --> 00:00:36,900 LECKRONE: Well, it wasn't easy. 10 00:00:36,900 --> 00:00:44,620 It was a long slog, difficult politically at first to have it accepted and funded in 11 00:00:44,620 --> 00:00:45,620 the US Congress. 12 00:00:45,620 --> 00:00:46,620 And then, technically it was difficult. 13 00:00:46,620 --> 00:00:47,940 MASSIMINO: It's an amazing machine. 14 00:00:47,940 --> 00:00:53,470 It can orbit around the Earth at 17,500 miles an hour. 15 00:00:53,470 --> 00:00:57,899 And the reason it can take all these great images is not only because it's above the 16 00:00:57,899 --> 00:01:05,420 atmosphere, but because it can very steadily hold its gaze on an object in space. 17 00:01:05,420 --> 00:01:09,690 NARRATOR: A globally connected telescope, built through a partnership with the European 18 00:01:09,690 --> 00:01:14,080 Space Agency, which would look into the stars well beyond international borders. 19 00:01:14,080 --> 00:01:15,630 SCOLESE: It takes a lot of people. 20 00:01:15,630 --> 00:01:20,550 You know, it takes people that--obviously the scientists to conceive of it. 21 00:01:20,550 --> 00:01:25,229 It takes engineers to design it and build it and test it. 22 00:01:25,229 --> 00:01:27,021 It takes technicians to actually build it. 23 00:01:27,021 --> 00:01:31,830 It takes the people to keep the rooms clean, the facilities up and operating. 24 00:01:31,830 --> 00:01:38,240 So, it takes people from every walk of life in order to do it, every skill set that you 25 00:01:38,240 --> 00:01:39,240 can think of. 26 00:01:39,240 --> 00:01:44,530 NARRATOR: To then place this telescope into orbit to send back to us the data that scientists 27 00:01:44,530 --> 00:01:48,190 needed, unobstructed and unencumbered. 28 00:01:48,190 --> 00:01:52,090 WISEMAN: And when it was launched in 1990, it really opened a new vista on the whole 29 00:01:52,090 --> 00:01:56,430 universe simply by enabling us to get sharper images above the atmosphere. 30 00:01:56,430 --> 00:02:01,260 BOLDEN: And at the time, I was the--what we called the PLT, or the pilot for the Hubble 31 00:02:01,260 --> 00:02:05,619 deploy mission, which was STS-31 aboard the Shuttle Discovery. 32 00:02:05,619 --> 00:02:09,920 All of us in the crew had a certain feeling of exhilaration and excitement. 33 00:02:09,920 --> 00:02:13,340 We knew that this was going to be an important mission. 34 00:02:13,340 --> 00:02:17,700 UNIDENTIFIED: Two, one, and liftoff of the Space Shuttle Discovery with the Hubble Space 35 00:02:17,700 --> 00:02:21,480 Telescope, our window on the universe. 36 00:02:21,480 --> 00:02:26,260 NARRATOR: On the 25th of April in 1990, the Space Shuttle Discovery, piloted by a future 37 00:02:26,260 --> 00:02:29,599 administrator of NASA, deployed the Hubble Space Telescope into an orbit around Earth. 38 00:02:29,599 --> 00:02:30,599 UNIDENTIFIED: Discovery, Houston. 39 00:02:30,599 --> 00:02:33,450 You have a go to open the doors. 40 00:02:33,450 --> 00:02:35,790 UNIDENTIFIED: Roger, Houston. 41 00:02:35,790 --> 00:02:41,450 BOLDEN: The mission itself was pretty intense in training, because we had to train for any 42 00:02:41,450 --> 00:02:44,879 number of contingencies that we all prayed would not happen. 43 00:02:44,879 --> 00:02:49,190 Ironically, one of those contingencies was failure of the solar array to deploy. 44 00:02:49,190 --> 00:02:53,590 It took us much of the day for the flight control team to say, "Look, we--this is not 45 00:02:53,590 --> 00:02:54,590 working out. 46 00:02:54,590 --> 00:02:57,520 We don't think we're going to get the solar arrays deployed." 47 00:02:57,520 --> 00:03:00,830 UNIDENTIFIED CHATTER Bolden: All of a sudden this great experience 48 00:03:00,830 --> 00:03:03,750 turned out to just go, "This is not good.” 49 00:03:03,750 --> 00:03:06,690 UNIDENTIFIED CHATTER Bolden: When the ground control team called 50 00:03:06,690 --> 00:03:08,070 and said, "Stop, stop. 51 00:03:08,070 --> 00:03:10,360 We think we found a solution. 52 00:03:10,360 --> 00:03:12,220 You know, just stop where you are. 53 00:03:12,220 --> 00:03:14,080 We're going to try this." 54 00:03:14,080 --> 00:03:16,600 And they did and it worked, and so we went ahead and deployed. 55 00:03:16,600 --> 00:03:19,450 UNIDENTIFIED: The deploy activity so far is going very smoothly. 56 00:03:19,450 --> 00:03:21,430 BOLDEN: Okay, they copy you, Story. 57 00:03:21,430 --> 00:03:22,430 And we're at--. 58 00:03:22,430 --> 00:03:27,520 BOLDEN: --It all worked out because of the incredible work of the combination of the 59 00:03:27,520 --> 00:03:34,670 crew onboard, the flight control team in Houston, but most especially very smart people at the 60 00:03:34,670 --> 00:03:40,620 Goddard Space Flight Center who actually knew the Hubble Space Telescope about as well as 61 00:03:40,620 --> 00:03:42,360 any people around. 62 00:03:42,360 --> 00:03:45,060 MUSGRAVE: Discovery, go for Hubble release. 63 00:03:45,060 --> 00:03:46,319 BOLDEN: Houston, Discovery. 64 00:03:46,319 --> 00:03:47,989 MUSGRAVE: Go ahead, Charlie. 65 00:03:47,989 --> 00:03:49,250 BOLDEN: Okay, Story. 66 00:03:49,250 --> 00:03:50,920 We've been taking marks. 67 00:03:50,920 --> 00:03:56,570 Residuals and ratios look good, and we'd like to go ahead and go to the filter state. 68 00:03:56,570 --> 00:03:57,830 MUSGRAVE: We concur, Charlie. 69 00:03:57,830 --> 00:04:01,510 BRAD BIRD: The science that is astronomy would never be the same. 70 00:04:01,510 --> 00:04:05,269 STRAUGHN: When people think about a telescope here on Earth, they think about a mirror with 71 00:04:05,269 --> 00:04:06,519 a tube around it. 72 00:04:06,519 --> 00:04:08,690 And that's exactly what Hubble is. 73 00:04:08,690 --> 00:04:12,280 It's a huge mirror with a huge tube around it in space. 74 00:04:12,280 --> 00:04:16,320 --of course, the purpose of Hubble is to take these beautiful images that we learn about, 75 00:04:16,320 --> 00:04:18,349 and then the data is sent back to Earth for us to study. 76 00:04:18,349 --> 00:04:22,999 NARRATOR: The Hubble Space Telescope powered up, all systems nominal, and the data began 77 00:04:22,999 --> 00:04:28,409 to stream in; images of far off distances, galaxies, and stars, but there was something 78 00:04:28,409 --> 00:04:29,409 wrong. 79 00:04:29,409 --> 00:04:34,059 The magnificent space observatory's imagery was not clear, not crisp. 80 00:04:34,059 --> 00:04:39,360 BOLDEN: We saw the first light images, and to the amateur like me, it looked great because 81 00:04:39,360 --> 00:04:42,830 we had made this great discovery right off the bat; what we thought was a single star 82 00:04:42,830 --> 00:04:44,949 turned out to be a binary star. 83 00:04:44,949 --> 00:04:48,300 When we learned that no, it's not really that good an image. 84 00:04:48,300 --> 00:04:50,259 It's kind of blurred because we have this thing. 85 00:04:50,259 --> 00:04:56,419 FRANK CEPOLLINA: From an agency perspective and from a public perspective and a Congressional 86 00:04:56,419 --> 00:04:57,860 perspective, it was doom and gloom. 87 00:04:57,860 --> 00:05:04,430 MIKULSKI: Working on a bipartisan basis, we used the best tools to identify, was this 88 00:05:04,430 --> 00:05:11,719 a techno turkey that we would just bag as a terrible mistake and say bye-bye boondoggle, 89 00:05:11,719 --> 00:05:14,479 or were we really going to try to fix it? 90 00:05:14,479 --> 00:05:16,319 WEILER: What we had was a spherical aberration. 91 00:05:16,319 --> 00:05:18,909 CEPOLLINA: The mirror was polished incorrectly. 92 00:05:18,909 --> 00:05:24,270 We were off by half the thickness of a human hair from center to edge. 93 00:05:24,270 --> 00:05:30,199 And that's pretty astounding, that, you know, we could come so close and yet not make it. 94 00:05:30,199 --> 00:05:35,080 GRUNSFELD: The truly remarkable feature of the Hubble Space Telescope is that it was 95 00:05:35,080 --> 00:05:37,749 designed to be upgraded and fixed. 96 00:05:37,749 --> 00:05:41,599 MUSGRAVE: And NASA is absolutely expertise on this. 97 00:05:41,599 --> 00:05:47,020 When you got to get the job done, the team comes from many different places. 98 00:05:47,020 --> 00:05:48,849 UNIDENTIFIED: Two, one. 99 00:05:48,849 --> 00:05:53,229 And we have liftoff, liftoff of the Space Shuttle Endeavor on an ambitious mission to 100 00:05:53,229 --> 00:05:54,919 service the Hubble Space Telescope. 101 00:05:54,919 --> 00:05:59,599 MUSGRAVE: The real magic on the Hubble mission is almost 40 hours of spacewalking, and we 102 00:05:59,599 --> 00:06:01,029 had almost no surprises. 103 00:06:01,029 --> 00:06:05,979 MOUNTAIN: Because astronauts from NASA have been able to go back and refurbish it, put 104 00:06:05,979 --> 00:06:10,159 in new instruments, repair it, and so that 25 years has made it an increasingly more 105 00:06:10,159 --> 00:06:11,349 powerful telescope. 106 00:06:11,349 --> 00:06:15,039 And it's the fact the Hubble is so powerful today which is so remarkable. 107 00:06:15,039 --> 00:06:19,830 After 25 years, it's basically 10 to 100 times more powerful than when it was first launched. 108 00:06:19,830 --> 00:06:25,500 FOALE: I did a mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, and it was a--it wasn't really 109 00:06:25,500 --> 00:06:26,500 a refurbishment. 110 00:06:26,500 --> 00:06:32,999 It was a rescue mission, because the Hubble Telescope uses gyroscopes to determine how 111 00:06:32,999 --> 00:06:37,219 it's moving and how to point, with absolutely no motion, at a star. 112 00:06:37,219 --> 00:06:39,089 And those gyroscopes were failing. 113 00:06:39,089 --> 00:06:42,809 And then, by the time we got there, only one, I think, was working. 114 00:06:42,809 --> 00:06:47,539 And so, it was a dead telescope at that point, and our role on that mission was to basically 115 00:06:47,539 --> 00:06:49,270 repair the Hubble Telescope. 116 00:06:49,270 --> 00:06:53,919 It was a real repair mission, just like the first repair mission to change the optics. 117 00:06:53,919 --> 00:06:57,349 If I had messed that up, I would be the one that had broken the telescope forever. 118 00:06:57,349 --> 00:07:01,220 REZAC: I guess that's part of the excitement of having worked a Hubble mission, because 119 00:07:01,220 --> 00:07:05,689 you know you've got the best team on the ground, the best crew upstairs. 120 00:07:05,689 --> 00:07:08,969 It's exciting, but there is a level of confidence you're going to pull through this. 121 00:07:08,969 --> 00:07:12,699 GRUNSFELD: We were able to leave the Hubble in even better shape, such that now we're 122 00:07:12,699 --> 00:07:14,870 able to celebrate the 25th anniversary. 123 00:07:14,870 --> 00:07:18,749 NARRATOR: With the repairs completed, Hubble blew the world away with what it saw and what 124 00:07:18,749 --> 00:07:19,749 we now could behold: sharp, clean, and crisp data, images of stars forming, and Ultra Deep 125 00:07:19,749 --> 00:07:20,749 Field images of thousands of galaxies showing just a glimpse at how big this universe is. 126 00:07:20,749 --> 00:07:24,809 Circling the globe at five miles per second, this school bus sized observatory was the 127 00:07:24,809 --> 00:07:30,149 most technologically advanced device ever launched, and has stayed amazingly advanced 128 00:07:30,149 --> 00:07:35,259 through five repair and upgrade missions, from the first mission critical optics repair 129 00:07:35,259 --> 00:07:42,679 on Space Shuttle mission STS-61 to the last servicing mission, STS-125, which added the 130 00:07:42,679 --> 00:07:48,429 wide field camera three and replaced or improved sensors, batteries, and numerous other components. 131 00:07:48,429 --> 00:07:53,559 BOLDEN: The magnitude of the things that they wanted to accomplish almost meant certain 132 00:07:53,559 --> 00:07:54,710 failure somewhere. 133 00:07:54,710 --> 00:07:58,270 But, the crew said "Look, we can do this. 134 00:07:58,270 --> 00:08:02,569 You know, we will have accomplished so much more in making Hubble better than it is ever 135 00:08:02,569 --> 00:08:03,610 believed to be." 136 00:08:03,610 --> 00:08:05,709 GARCIA: Everybody knows Hubble. 137 00:08:05,709 --> 00:08:07,300 It's really true. 138 00:08:07,300 --> 00:08:12,729 Worldwide, all throughout the US, everybody, all ages, all walks of life, you say Hubble 139 00:08:12,729 --> 00:08:15,029 Space Telescope, people know what you're talking about. 140 00:08:15,029 --> 00:08:20,159 NARRATOR: More than a simple telescope, Hubble is humanity's grand observatory of the vastness 141 00:08:20,159 --> 00:08:21,229 of space. 142 00:08:21,229 --> 00:08:25,259 And we've kept exploring by staring into the universe and moving forward. 143 00:08:25,259 --> 00:08:29,479 STRAUGHN: The great thing about Hubble now, this year, is that it's still going strong. 144 00:08:29,479 --> 00:08:32,889 And we expect it to last out 'til 2020, maybe even longer. 145 00:08:32,889 --> 00:08:41,219 TYSON: Hubble has consistently taken us to places we've never been visually, of course, 146 00:08:41,219 --> 00:08:49,339 and given--and empowered us to answer questions that, in a previous generation of telescopes, 147 00:08:49,339 --> 00:08:50,620 we couldn't even pose. 148 00:08:50,620 --> 00:08:55,260 GRUNSFELD: And that allowed us to probe much deeper in the universe and see phenomena that 149 00:08:55,260 --> 00:08:57,600 were otherwise hidden from us. 150 00:08:57,600 --> 00:09:03,740 And it revealed a scientific wonderland of discoveries, but even more so, it showed us 151 00:09:03,740 --> 00:09:06,839 for the first time how beautiful the universe is. 152 00:09:06,839 --> 00:09:12,509 Because the Hubble Space Telescope was able to observe the cosmos with the kind of intricate 153 00:09:12,509 --> 00:09:15,300 detail that we observe with our human eyeballs. 154 00:09:15,300 --> 00:09:20,110 Bolden: It means that we now understand much more about our universe than we ever would 155 00:09:20,110 --> 00:09:23,000 have known had it not been for hubble. 156 00:09:23,000 --> 00:09:30,350 That we have not only young people, students, but now professionals who have grown up with 157 00:09:30,350 --> 00:09:36,110 Hubble and who have had Hubble change their lives and change their minds about careers 158 00:09:36,110 --> 00:09:40,149 because they saw a hubble image and decided that you know “I don’t really think I 159 00:09:40,149 --> 00:09:43,050 like science, but I think I want to try it. 160 00:09:43,050 --> 00:09:48,020 Because I want to go take part in doing something with this particular instrument that makes 161 00:09:48,020 --> 00:09:50,740 these incredible visual images for people. 162 00:09:50,740 --> 00:09:54,250 So I think it has changed not just text books, but people’s lives. 163 00:09:54,250 --> 00:09:58,440 NARRATOR: We’re on a never ending journey and the hubble space telescope celebrates