NARRATOR: For thousands of years, the course
of exploration had been determined by staring
toward the stars and moving forward with bold
progress into the vast unknown.
STRAUGHN: Astronomy is the oldest science.
People have been looking up at the stars since
we sort of stopped walking around on our knuckles.
The way astronomers become interested in astronomy
to begin with is just by looking at the sky.
TYSON: If it's happening outside of our atmosphere
- comets, asteroids, planets, stars, galaxies
- cosmology, the study of the birth, life,
and fate of the universe, that's what we worry
about.
And we use the laws of physics as discovered
here on Earth and apply them to phenomenon
in the cosmos.
NARRATOR: Humanity reached out and explored
farther and farther, until a place once reserved
for the imagination and the distant view of
a telescope's lens was now walked upon by
humankind.
Music
ARMSTRONG: That's one small step for man.
MUSGRAVE: I had to run outside and look at
the moon and say, "You see that thing?
Well, there's people on there right now."
ARMSTRONG: One giant leap for mankind.
NARRATOR: It was 1969, as ticker tape fell
from the sky and rock and roll blazed across
the American landscape.
Music
Music
MIKULSKI: America loves discovery.
We just--that's in our national DNA.
When Lewis and Clark was sent out on their
expedition by a president of the United States,
it was called discovery.
And that's when we send out our astronauts.
That's when we've now sent out a space telescope,
to go where no other telescopes had gone before
and to see things that had never been seen.
MOUNTAIN: So, astronomy is about exploration.
It's what NASA does.
NASA explores.
NARRATOR: A telescope that would go beyond
the atmospheric limits of the Earth; it's
a simple problem.
When you desire to look at objects far away,
there are limitations.
Through technological advancement, you can
remove these limitations.
The handheld telescope supersedes the naked
eye.
That small glass telescope was replaced by
larger models, then mirrors are added and
then more advancements.
As the size and capacities of the device grow
so do the discoveries, from mapping a few
heavenly bodies circling the sun to seeing
beyond ours and into other galaxies.
GARCIA: Before we ever put, you know, men
in space, astronomers are already thinking
about getting, you know, off of the planet
above the atmosphere in order to get the crystal
clear view.
NARRATOR: But, obstacles such as atmosphere,
clouds, light pollution, and even our own
sun's brightness stand in our way of seeing
things clearly or watching around the clock.
The solution?
A non ground-based robotic observatory.
TYSON: Well, there's that famous song, twinkle,
twinkle little star, how I wonder what you
are.
That left a lot of people thinking that twinkling
stars is exactly what astronomers want, BUT
it is the opposite of what they want.
MASSIMINO: One thing I've noticed as an astronaut
is that when you get into space and you look
at stars, they don't twinkle like they do
on Earth.
What you're seeing in twinkle, twinkle little
star is because the light is coming through
the atmosphere and causing them to twinkle.
TYSON: Starlight does not twinkle on its own.
It twinkles coming through Earth's atmosphere.
And it's that bump, AND grind and jiggle and
wiggle, moving through the layers, different
temperature layers of the atmosphere, that
disrupts the precision of your imaging of
the night sky.
MASSIMINO: THE space telescope was thought
of originally by--Lyman Spitzer had the idea
that if you could get above the atmosphere
you could see a lot more clearly.
NARRATOR: Renowned astrophysicist Lyman Spitzer
gathered support in the astronomy community
for a large space telescope, which later on
would be named in honor of astronomer Edwin
Powell Hubble.
It was Hubble who discovered the universe
was expanding.
Through the lens of a hundred inch telescope,
he made calculations that the universe was
made up of billions of galaxies, well beyond
the visible Milky Way.
His observations pointed out that these galaxies
seemed to be moving away from us.
IDLE: (Singing) We're 30,000 light years from
galactic central point.
We go around every 200 million years.
And our galaxy is only one of millions of
billions in this amazing and expanding universe.
NARRATOR: Using known stars to calculate distances
between galaxies, Edwin Hubble confirmed this
galactic retreat.
WEILER: Now, let's take it ever further back.
A lot of people don't realize this, but the
Huddle Space Telescope was dreamed up by Lyman
Spitzer back in 1948.
And he wrote a paper on the advantages of
putting a telescope in space to get above
the atmosphere, etc.
And that started a lifelong--a quest by Lyman
to get the Hubble Space Telescope up there.
He fought with the Congress with the able
help of John Bahcall, who I consider the granduncle
of Hubble, both at Princeton.
And he and John fought with Congress and convinced
Congress to provide the early funding in the
late '70s.
ALTMAN: It looks out at galaxies and brings
them to us, crosses vast distances that we
don't have the technology to travel.
But, we can travel in a time machine using
the Huddle to show us what the universe was
like 13 billion years ago with the light that
it pulls in, and also exposes us to just how
vast the universe really is, with billions
and billions of galaxies full of billions
of stars.
NARRATOR: To build a telescope in many ways
is a decision to build a time machine.
The United States Congress approved a large
space telescope in 1977, sparking work to
begin on creating this large, complex, and
capable orbiting telescope.
LECKRONE: Well, it wasn't easy.
It was a long slog, difficult politically
at first to have it accepted and funded in
the US Congress.
And then, technically it was difficult.
CEPOLLINA: We need to find a new way and the
new technology to approach the development
of expensive satellites that would go to orbit,
that could somehow take advantage of human
repair and perhaps a space transportation
system.
NARRATOR: An advanced international observatory
with multiple tools, multiple cameras, instruments,
and capabilities.
MASSIMINO: It's an amazing machine.
It can orbit around the Earth at 17,500 miles
an hour.
And the reason it can take all these great
images is not only because it's above the
atmosphere, but because it can very steadily
hold its gaze on an object in space.
ROMAN: Aerospace companies came in with proposals
for a space telescope, a large space telescope.
All of them had men riding around with the
telescope.
This was the last thing that astronomers wanted.
In the first place, we were trying to get
rid of the atmosphere, and a man needs an
atmosphere.
In the second place, a man's going to wiggle.
I don't care how careful he is, when you're
taking a half hour or an hour exposures, he's
going to wiggle sometimes.
And when you wiggle in space, the spacecraft
wiggles the opposite way.
NARRATOR: A globally connected telescope,
built through a partnership with the European
Space Agency, which would look into the stars
well beyond international borders.
SCOLESE: It takes a lot of people.
You know, it takes people that--obviously
the scientists to conceive of it.
It takes engineers to design it and build
it and test it.
It takes technicians to actually build it.
It takes the people to keep the rooms clean,
the facilities up and operating.
So, it takes people from every walk of life
in order to do it, every skill set that you
can think of.
NARRATOR: To then place this telescope into
orbit to send back to us the data that scientists
needed, unobstructed and unencumbered.
WISEMAN: And when it was launched in 1990,
it really opened a new vista on the whole
universe simply by enabling us to get sharper
images above the atmosphere.
MUSGRAVE: Humanity has always looked out there,
to the heavens, to get the meaning and the
hope of their life here.
So, you look out there for what's going on
down here.
People understood that about Hubble before
we carried it up there, and so that's the
magic.
Bolden: And at the time, I was the--what we
called the PLT, or the pilot for the Hubble
deploy mission, which was STS-31 aboard the
Shuttle Discovery.
All of us in the crew had a certain feeling
of exhilaration and excitement.
We knew that this was going to be an important
mission.
UNIDENTIFIED: Two, one, and liftoff of the
Space Shuttle Discovery with the Hubble Space
Telescope, our window on the universe.
NARRATOR: On the 25th of April in 1990, the
Space Shuttle Discovery, piloted by a future
administrator of NASA, deployed the Hubble
Space Telescope into an orbit around Earth.
UNIDENTIFIED: Discovery, Houston.
You have a go to open the doors.
UNIDENTIFIED: Roger, Houston.
BOLDEN: The mission itself was pretty intense
in training, because we had to train for any
number of contingencies that we all prayed
would not happen.
UNIDENTIFIED: Morning, Story.
REEVES: Good morning, Discovery.
Good morning from Bill Reeves and the Orbit
One Team, and you got a go for HST deploy
ops.
UNIDENTIFIED: And Houston, Discovery.
The transfer to internal power is complete.
The umbilical is dead-faced, and we'll be
standing by for your go for umbilical release.
MUSGRAVE It was the people's instrument long
before we launched it.
So, and like I said, I was the lead communicator
in the carry-up and deploy mission, STS-31,
but it was the people's machine then.
UNIDENTIFIED CHATTER
BOLDEN: Ironically, one of those contingencies
was failure of the solar array to deploy.
It took us much of the day for the flight
control team to say, "Look, we--this is not
working out.
We don't think we're going to get the solar
arrays deployed."
All of a sudden this great experience turned
out to just go, "This is not good," when the
ground control team called and said, "Stop,
stop.
We think we found a solution.
You know, just stop where you are.
We're going to try this."
And they did and it worked, and so we went
ahead and deployed.
UNIDENTIFIED: The deploy activity so far is
going very smoothly.
BOLDEN: Okay, they copy you, Story.
And we're at five--.
BOLDEN: --It all worked out because of the
incredible work of the combination of the
crew onboard, the flight control team in Houston,
but most especially very smart people at the
Goddard Space Flight Center who actually knew
the Hubble Space Telescope about as well as
any people around.
UNIDENTIFIED: J.C.?
UNIDENTIFIED: Go.
UNIDENTIFIED: Network go.
Payloads, waiting on you.
UNIDENTIFIED: Flight payloads.
We are go.
UNIDENTIFIED: Go ahead.
CapCom, we have a go for release.
UNIDENTIFIED: Discovery, go for Hubble release.
BOLDEN: Houston, Discovery.
MUSGRAVE: Go ahead, Charlie.
BOLDEN: Okay, Story.
We've been taking marks.
Residuals and ratios look good, and we'd like
to go ahead and go to the filter state.
MUSGRAVE: We concur, Charlie.
WEILER: We launched Hubble April 24th, 1990,
and we were all on top of the world.
Many of us astronomers had never done an interview,
and suddenly we were on Today and Nightline
and Good Morning America, etc.
And the media loved us.
The Hubble was big news across the country.
Everybody loved us.
UNIDENTIFIED: And it's here, 381 miles up,
where the telescope is to be place in orbit
tomorrow.
So, the celebration will continue.
UNIDENTIFIED: Oh, yes.
Hey, I get to launch something here, guys.
UNIDENTIFIED: Westfall’s family, neighbors,
and colleagues who had traveled here from
California toasted the telescope.
BRAD BIRD: The science that is astronomy would
never be the same.
STRAUGHN: When people think about a telescope
here on Earth, they think about a mirror with
a tube around it.
And that's exactly what Hubble is.
It's a huge mirror with a huge tube around
it in space.
And the--of course, the purpose of Hubble
is to take these beautiful images that we
learn about.
And so, the images are recorded on cameras,
and then the data is sent back to Earth for
us to study.
NARRATOR: The Hubble Space Telescope powered
up, all systems nominal, and the data began
to stream in; images of far off distances,
galaxies, and stars, but there was something
wrong.
The magnificent space observatory's imagery
was not clear, not crisp.
BOLDEN: As a member of the deploy crew, we
had come back, done our debrief, and, you
know, we had done our job.
And so, we were happy.
We thought everything was okay until the word
came that, ah, we saw the first light images.
And to the amateur like me, it looked great
because we had made this great discovery right
off the bat; what we thought was a single
star turned out to be a binary star, when
we learned that no, it's not really that good
an image.
It's kind of blurred because we have this
thing.
FRANK CEPOLLINA: From an agency perspective
and from a public perspective and a Congressional
perspective, it was doom and gloom.
MIKULSKI: Working on a bipartisan basis, we
used the best tools to identify was this a
techno turkey that we would just bag as a
terrible mistake and say bye-bye boondoggle,
or were we really going to try to fix it?
WEILER: Couldn't get the telescope focused,
had trouble pointing it sometimes, and that
went on until about early June when people,
smart people, finally figured out that what
we had was a spherical aberration.
CEPOLLINA: The mirror was polished incorrectly.
And it wasn't by much.
It was half the thickness of a human hair
across 100 inches.
You know, you can try to imagine what--how
much sag something that weighed 2,300 pounds
would have.
And yet, we were off by half the thickness
of a human hair from center to edge.
And that's pretty astounding, that, you know,
we could come so close and yet not make it.
WEILER: The mirror was still a perfect smooth
curve, but it had the wrong prescription.
It wasn't the right curve.
Just like my eye is a perfectly good eye,
it's got a smooth curve to it, but it's the
wrong prescription.
Light doesn't come to a focus at the right
spot.
So, how do we fix it?
Well, we fix it with corrective lenses, the
opposite prescription.
And that's what we talked about on the famous
press conference of June 27th, 1990, where
I had the unique honor of explaining to the
American people and the press that Hubble
wouldn't be doing the science we had promised.
WEILER: I'm going to try to give you a perspective
on the short term ramifications of this particular
issue and also the long term ramifications
in terms of what we can do, the science we
can do, the science we won't be able to do
for a while in the short term, and most importantly,
the solutions to this problem in the future.
NARRATOR: Decades of planning and hope seemed
extinguished by a blurring spherical aberration
in Hubble's primary mirror.
WEILER: We feel that we can characterize the
problem, this spherical aberration problem,
well enough that we can take advantage of
an insurance policy that we haven't talked
much about and that hasn't been in the press
much.
And that is we started a long time ago to
plan a maintenance program.
GRUNSFELD: The truly remarkable feature of
the Hubble Space Telescope is that it was
designed to be upgraded and fixed.
NARRATOR: On Earth, you'd order a replacement
part and correct the problem when the shipment
arrived.
But, Hubble was over 340 miles from the Earth's
surface, moving at nearly 18,000 miles per
hour.
You'd need a special repair team.
MUSGRAVE: The team comes together through
multiple domains, multiple disciplines, and
multiple organizations, multiple divisions.
You got to get a job done, and NASA is absolutely
expertise on this.
When you got to get the job done, the team
comes from many different places.
SEMBACH: When Hubble was first launched, it
had the spherical aberration on its primary
mirror, so the prescription for the mirror
wasn't right.
It took a team of people to figure out what
that prescription actually was in practice
as opposed to what it should have been, and
then people to figure out how to actually
solve Hubble's blurry vision at the time.
This institute and NASA and its contractors
figured out a way to put together a prescription
for correcting that spherical aberration.
MUSGRAVE: After those two failures, the big
boss came over and looked at me and said,
"Story, fix it."
Okay, I'll fix it.
UNIDENTIFIED: Two, one.
And we have liftoff, liftoff of the Space
Shuttle Endeavor on an ambitious mission to
service the Hubble Space Telescope.
MUSGRAVE: The real magic on the Hubble mission
is almost 40 hours of spacewalking, and we
had almost no surprises.
We had 13 major systems to fix.
And day after day we just kept working away
getting the system fixed, and they'd tell
us this one is up and running and it's fixed.
And we kept on going through five days.
And finally we finished the job and, hey,
it's totally restored.
MOUNTAIN: Because astronauts from NASA have
been able to go back and refurbish it, put
in new instruments, repair it, and so that
25 years has made it an increasingly more
powerful telescope.
And it's the fact the Hubble is so powerful
today which is so remarkable.
After 25 years, it's basically 10 to 100 times
more powerful than when it was first launched.
GRUNSFELD: Crew members, women and men in
white spacesuits rode to the recue like a
great Western.
And so, this was a huge deal for me personally
as an astronomer, astrophysicist, and astronaut,
to have the privilege of going to Hubble on
my first mission in 1999.
GOOD: Like taking the car in for an oil change,
rotate the tires.
So, we were changing out batteries.
We were changing out the gyros, things that
just made the telescope work.
MUSGRAVE: So, you have a satellite out there,
and you got to maintain its attitude and you
got to maneuver to point very closely.
The only ultimate force that you impose on
the machine is magnets.
Now, as Hubble goes around the Earth, here's
the magnetic field of Earth.
And the magnetometers, which I replaced, those
magnetometers, they sense where the magnetic
field of the Earth is, and the computers say,
"Okay, I'm going to turn these magnets on
or off.
And that's the way I'm going to control Hubble
attitude."
SEMBACH: Remember, up in space, you know,
there isn't anything for Hubble to push against,
so it has to push against something internal
like these spinning wheels.
FOALE: I did a mission to the Hubble Space
Telescope, and it was a--it wasn't really
a refurbishment.
It was a rescue mission, because the Hubble
Telescope uses gyroscopes to determine how
it's moving and how to point, with absolutely
no motion, at a star.
And those gyroscopes, six of them, were failing.
And then, by the time we got there, only one,
I think, was working.
And so, it was a dead telescope at that point,
and our role on that mission was to basically
repair the Hubble Telescope.
It was a real repair mission, just like the
first repair mission to change the optics.
If I had messed that up, I would be the one
that had broken the telescope forever.
MCARTHUR: This amazing telescope with all
this history and, you know, what if I wreck
it?
What if I do something bad?
GRUNSFELD: Then I got the opportunity to go
a second time as the payload commander on
STS-109.
And when we actually were doing the spacewalks
and I went out and shook hands with Mr. Hubble,
the telescope, you know, holding on to the
side, I truly felt like, you know, this was
my partner and that we were here, you know,
to help.
REZAC: I guess that's part of the excitement
of having worked a Hubble mission, because
you know you've got the best team on the ground,
the best crew upstairs.
It's exciting, but there is a level of confidence
you're going to pull through this.
MCARTHUR: It's incredible, the things that
they can come up with.
And they have the time and the resources to
develop that here, and then we take, you know,
sort of the best solution up with us to implement
in space.
There is it.
It looks exactly the way it's supposed to
look.
It's exactly where it's supposed to be and
I'm just going to reach over and grab it.
So, it was a really good feeling.
And what we did after we grappled the telescope
and put it in the payload bay was, every day
that the spacewalks were going on, which was
the five days after we grappled the telescope,
the two guys go outside and one of them is
pretty much always on the end of the arm.
Unidentified: Go on three, bueno.
GOOD: Copy.
Go three.
Unidentified: So, we'd drive them around and
put them into position to do their work.
Unidentified: You are clear to continue and
increase the rate of your--.
UNIDENTIFIED: --Yep.
You can increase the rate, Megan.
MCARTHUR: Copy, picking up the rate.
Unidentified Man: Oh, what a beautiful view.
MCARTHUR: They'd ask me to bring them in closer
or move them by the telescope.
I'd have to ask them, "Hey, you need to check
and verify how much space do I have."
And of course, their mind is on their job,
the instrument that they're holding, the tools,
whatever.
And so, having to work that coordination,
training really helps there.
But, it is--it's delicate in the sense of
you don't want to hurt the hardware, you don't
want to hurt the person, and you certainly
don't want to hurt the telescope.
Unidentified Man: Okay, you can stop there,
Megan.
MCARTHUR: Motion stopped, check.
Unidentified Man: Thank you.
GOOD: It was 19 years old at the time when
we went up there, and the batteries were original
equipment.
And so, they're charging and discharging,
you know, like your--think about your phone,
your cell phone.
You know, you're lucky to get a year or two
out of that battery, right?
So, this is original batteries, so we replaced
the batteries.
Those are still working great.
But, then some of the more interesting parts
were actually replacing some of the science
instruments.
So, we took up a new camera and a new spectrograph
and put those in.
And then, we also fixed some broken instruments
up there.
There was a broken camera and a broken spectrograph.
These are the science instruments so that
when the light comes in the telescope, these
are the things that take the pictures and
do all the science for the--you know, for
the astronomers and everybody back here on
Earth.
JOHNSON: The breaking off of one of the hand
tools that Massimino--Mike Massimino had to
do.
Unidentified Man: Houston, you ready for this?
Unidentified Man: Go.
We're ready.
Unidentified Man: Okay, Mass, you have a go.
MASSIMINO: Here we go.
It's off.
Disposal bag, please?
JOHNSON: It was pretty exciting watching that
from inside, 'cause that had a lot of bearing
on whether we got that part of the mission
accomplished.
So, it was pretty interesting.
GRUNSFELD: A third time I got to go back.
And, you know, I just can't tell you how thrilled
I was and how thrilled I was that we had a
great team and we were able to leave the Hubble
in even better shape, such that now we're
able to celebrate the 25th anniversary.
I was a little bit worried that when we deployed
the Hubble, you know, I'd feel really sad
again, but this time I didn't.
I just felt thrilled that we hadn't broken
the Hubble, that we'd upgraded it, that it
was in the best shape of its life, and that
we'd done our job and a little bit more to
give Hubble a very long life, bringing back
all of its rewards to us here on planet Earth
in terms of great discoveries.
STRAUGHN: The fact that astronauts were able
to go up and fix Hubble was really a groundbreaking
thing.
And it tells a really critical part of NASA's
history, when science and human space exploration
worked together really critically for the
first time.
SEMBACH: Without the repair missions, you
wouldn't have Hubble lasting 25 years.
Hubble's best days are still to come.
NARRATOR: Astronauts and support staff on
the ground had made tremendous improvements
to Hubble's already majestic payload.
With the repairs completed, Hubble blew the
world away with what it saw and what we now
could behold: sharp, clean, and crisp data,
images of stars forming, and Ultra Deep Field
images of thousands of galaxies showing just
a glimpse at how big this universe is.
MASSIMINO: I do have a favorite Hubble image.
I have a couple of them, but the one that
pops into my mind is the Cone Nebula.
And it is an early release image, and the
reason I like that is because it showed that
we installed the advanced camera for surveys
correctly.
JOHNSON: Hubble has brought just knowledge
of the universe that I think is beyond belief
to the normal person.
And some of the discoveries of the Hubble
Space Telescope in terms of the universe expanding
are just mindboggling.
FLANAGAN: Every time I look at it, I stare
and I stare and I want to see what's in that
finger, you know, what's in that pillar?
And interestingly, if you look at it in the
infrared, you can actually see into it.
STRAUGHN: The Hubble Ultra Deep Field was
released in 2004 when I was in grad school.
And to this day, I really remember the day
when that image came out.
My grad advisor printed this image, this beautiful
image with galaxies that we'd never seen before
on a huge sheet of paper and rolled it out
on the table for us grad students to look
at, and just said, you know, "Look at this
image.
Look what's here.
What can we learn from this?"
And so, I really loved that visual, sort of
tangible representation of look at this beautiful
thing and what can we learn.
NARRATOR: Circling the globe at five miles
per second, this school bus sized observatory
was the most technologically advanced device
ever launched, and has stayed amazingly advanced
through five repair and upgrade missions,
from the first mission critical optics repair
on Space Shuttle mission STS-61 to the last
servicing mission, STS-125, which added the
wide field camera three and replaced or improved
sensors, batteries, and numerous other components.
BOLDEN: The Hubble was an incredible undertaking.
If I look at the very last Hubble servicing
mission, STS-125, it was perhaps the most
ambitious single mission that this agency
has ever undertaken.
It was five spacewalks back to back to back
to back to back.
That's no break in between the spacewalks
like we normally will do.
The magnitude of the things that they wanted
to accomplish almost meant certain failure
somewhere.
But, the crew said--the crew and the whole
team, the team that put the mission together
said, "Look, we can do this.
You know, we will have accomplished so much
more in making Hubble better than it is ever
believed to be."
So, Hubble gave us an excellent example of
people, a team, that was not afraid of failure.
SCOLESE: Failure was not an option.
We were going to succeed.
GRUNSFELD: What's really exciting to me is
just the breadth of the scientific discoveries
it's been able to make, everything from the
age of the universe to proving the existence
of black holes to discovering brand new things
like the universe is accelerating due to mysterious
dark energy.
TYSON: I grew up, telescopes put into orbit
wouldn't last more than three, at most five
years.
So, they never had a chance to grow on you,
to become part of your soul of expectation
for the next astronomical discovery.
With Hubble, the fact--I think the fact that
it was repairable meant it could just stay
with you for decades, now 25 years.
GARCIA: Everybody knows Hubble.
It's really true.
Worldwide, all throughout the US, everybody,
all ages, all walks of life, you say Hubble
Space Telescope, people know what you're talking
about.
That's extraordinary.
NARRATOR: More than a simple telescope, Hubble
is humanity's grand observatory of the vastness
of space.
And we've kept exploring by staring into the
universe and moving forward.
STRAUGHN: The great thing about Hubble now,
this year, is that it's still going strong.
And we expect it to last out 'til 2020, maybe
even longer.
But, we definitely have to start thinking
about the future.
And NASA right now is building and putting
together and testing the James Webb Space
Telescope.
MASSIMINO: That's going to be put even further
away from the Earth than Hubble, and be able
to see much further into the universe and
provide even more information and even better
images.
I think that's going to be very exciting when
we get that into space.
NARRATOR:: The team here at NASA will continue
that momentum with the next great observatory
coming soon to the NASA inventory, the James
Webb Space Telescope, with a primary mirror
six times larger than Hubble's and over a
hundred times more powerful.
GRUNSFELD: There are places that the Hubble
just can't see.
The Hubble Space Telescope can't see inside
the dark cocoons of dust and gas where baby
stars are born and planets form.
The James Webb Space Telescope and the infrared
will be able to peer into those cocoons and
show us the details of those first moments
of star and planet formation.
ALTMAN: The big thing is how exciting space
is for the future.
It's going to be incredible.
We're at the cusp of a new era with new machines
being designed, new missions being flown.
We are going to visit other planets, and I'm--I
just hope that young people can get excited
about taking us that next step.
I can't wait to watch them do it.
It's a great time.
JOHNSON: Growth in space; for kids that are
involved in science and technology, I think
space is a great way to aim your career at.
I think we're going to discover new things.
I'm really excited that NASA's got a number
of programs going, including the James Webb
Telescope, which'll bring the same kind of
discoveries Hubble has.
So, the future's pretty bright.
NARRATOR: Today Hubble is still making new
discoveries, seeing distant stars and galaxies
that have never been seen before, improving
our knowledge of the early universe, and clarifying
images of our closest neighbors.
CEPOLLINA: Look at the Washington Post.
On the front page of the Washington Post there
is a colored picture of a brand new galaxy
just discovered by Hubble.
And to be able to look at that picture and
say, "My gosh, we did that," that's exciting.
That's exciting.
TYSON: Hubble has consistently taken us to
places we've never been visually, of course,
and given--and empowered us to answer questions
that, in a previous generation of telescopes,
we couldn't even pose.
NARRATOR:: From comets and asteroids to some
of the most distant galaxies yet discovered,
Hubble continues to revolutionize astronomy
in our solar system and beyond.
Hubble has changed the way we view our universe
and ourselves.
STRAUGHN: There is no doubt that the Hubble
Space Telescope has changed the way that we
as astronomers understand the universe.
But, I think even more significantly than
that, Hubble's changed the way that the world
views space.
WEILER: You know, when you look back on the
last 25 years of Hubble, it's just incredible
because we have made major breakthroughs in
almost every field of astrophysics, from planetary
nearby to our own galaxy to the very, very
beginning of time.
And to think that we mere humans are sitting
here and getting close to understanding this
incredible universe that's around us, and
Hubble has been a key component in that over
the last 25 years.
NARRATOR: We're on a never-ending journey.
And the Hubble Space Telescope celebrates
its quarter century of exploration as part
of that journey.
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