Unknown: Cosmic Time Machine

00:20:55,420 --> 00:20:56,838 I was taught all my youth 343 00:20:56,922 --> 00:20:59,883 that the whole universe was built in seven days. 344 00:21:01,927 --> 00:21:04,179 And then I went to one class. 345 00:21:05,305 --> 00:21:11,228 The teacher explained how science changed the trajectory of history. 346 00:21:12,396 --> 00:21:15,107 And I thought, "That's the job I want." 347 00:21:15,190 --> 00:21:19,987 "I can do science, and through it, change the course of history." 348 00:21:22,906 --> 00:21:25,033 I've been in the job for five years. 349 00:21:26,034 --> 00:21:30,163 Many people think of me as not patient enough. 350 00:21:30,789 --> 00:21:34,501 My way of accountability sometimes can come across as harsh. 351 00:21:36,211 --> 00:21:37,921 But suppose it failed. 352 00:21:38,797 --> 00:21:43,677 It would set the whole history of world science back 353 00:21:44,428 --> 00:21:45,846 by one to two decades. 354 00:21:46,346 --> 00:21:48,181 I track all my miles. 355 00:21:50,225 --> 00:21:53,437 The whole year… A thousand is the goal every year. 356 00:21:53,520 --> 00:21:55,772 Depending on how stressful the year is, it's more or less. 357 00:21:55,856 --> 00:21:57,524 The more stress, the more miles. 358 00:21:58,317 --> 00:21:59,943 Closing in on 1,200. 359 00:22:00,902 --> 00:22:06,450 NASA, right? This is the agency that has coined the… the tagline, 360 00:22:06,533 --> 00:22:08,535 ''Failure is not an option.'' 361 00:22:08,618 --> 00:22:11,038 It's a tagline that sounds really good, 362 00:22:11,121 --> 00:22:14,291 but every time we do a mission, failure is an option. 363 00:22:14,374 --> 00:22:15,834 [intriguing music playing] 364 00:22:15,917 --> 00:22:19,212 There are all these challenges from the very beginning. 365 00:22:19,296 --> 00:22:22,132 This institute will be managing a telescope 366 00:22:22,215 --> 00:22:24,801 with a launch projected for 2007. 367 00:22:24,885 --> 00:22:28,847 The target price for doing this will be 500 million dollars. 368 00:22:28,930 --> 00:22:31,975 [Thomas] The first time somebody talked about the price of that telescope, 369 00:22:32,059 --> 00:22:35,395 everybody who had-- had worked on-- on the Hubble Space Telescope, 370 00:22:35,479 --> 00:22:38,231 which was close-- more than six billion dollars, 371 00:22:38,315 --> 00:22:40,275 knew it's total bullshit. 372 00:22:40,859 --> 00:22:42,444 As the project grew, 373 00:22:42,527 --> 00:22:46,365 all of a sudden, the cost went to six billion dollars. 374 00:22:46,448 --> 00:22:50,619 Mr. Howard, did you ever see the movie called The Money Pit? 375 00:22:51,745 --> 00:22:52,996 [Howard] Yes, absolutely. 376 00:22:53,080 --> 00:22:57,125 I think the standard line in that movie was, ''It's only two more weeks.'' 377 00:22:57,209 --> 00:23:01,630 Mm-hmm. Now, how can we justify this to our constituents? 378 00:23:01,713 --> 00:23:04,299 [Thomas] There was an investigation by Congress. 379 00:23:04,883 --> 00:23:07,177 And they basically said, "Let's kill that thing." 380 00:23:07,260 --> 00:23:09,388 It felt like it wasn't going to happen. 381 00:23:09,471 --> 00:23:11,390 Congress was going to cancel us. 382 00:23:11,473 --> 00:23:12,808 It was a shock. 383 00:23:12,891 --> 00:23:17,020 I'm a-- a young scientist anxious to do science with this telescope, 384 00:23:17,104 --> 00:23:19,272 and now we're stopping after all this time? 385 00:23:20,065 --> 00:23:23,360 [Thomas] Congress said, "We'll give you the money," and that's when I came in. 386 00:23:24,361 --> 00:23:25,821 Nobody wanted to talk about it. 387 00:23:25,904 --> 00:23:28,115 It's like, "Oh, it's-- it's not-- it's fine." 388 00:23:28,198 --> 00:23:32,202 It's like, "Well, how are you performing?" "We're losing time, but it will be fine." 389 00:23:32,285 --> 00:23:33,495 It was not fine. 390 00:23:41,169 --> 00:23:45,382 I remember it getting ready for vibration and acoustics. 391 00:23:45,465 --> 00:23:47,759 [men speaking indistinctly] 392 00:23:47,843 --> 00:23:52,139 [Thomas] What you do is you try to break the telescope. 393 00:23:52,222 --> 00:23:55,016 Of course you want it to survive, but you shake it 394 00:23:55,100 --> 00:23:57,018 just like it will be shaken in the rocket. 395 00:23:57,644 --> 00:24:03,233 And we blasted sound at it, just like it will see during a launch. 396 00:24:03,316 --> 00:24:05,402 [high-pitched ringing] 397 00:24:05,485 --> 00:24:06,736 [low humming] 398 00:24:08,155 --> 00:24:10,157 [rattling growing louder] 399 00:24:22,252 --> 00:24:24,629 [Thomas] The first test went really, really well. 400 00:24:27,549 --> 00:24:31,511 Then, when we tested it with the spacecraft and the sunshield, 401 00:24:32,053 --> 00:24:34,181 the fasteners started falling down. 402 00:24:35,724 --> 00:24:37,434 There's