WEBVTT FILE 1 00:00:00.020 --> 00:00:04.030 [slate] 2 00:00:04.050 --> 00:00:08.050 [slate] 3 00:00:08.070 --> 00:00:12.130 So 4 00:00:12.150 --> 00:00:16.200 the James Webb Space Telescope is Hubble's scientific successor. 5 00:00:16.220 --> 00:00:20.350 And I like to think of it as NASA's vehicle for the deepest space exploration 6 00:00:20.370 --> 00:00:24.470 that humanity can do. It will allow us to see 7 00:00:24.490 --> 00:00:28.500 farther back in time, to the time when the very first stars and galaxies 8 00:00:28.520 --> 00:00:32.590 were being born. Additionally it's different from Hubble in that 9 00:00:32.610 --> 00:00:36.730 it's an infrared optimized telescope, and so this means 10 00:00:36.750 --> 00:00:40.960 it will allow us to peer through clouds of gas and dust in our own galaxy 11 00:00:40.980 --> 00:00:45.040 where stars and planets are being born today. 12 00:00:45.060 --> 00:00:49.070 [slate] 13 00:00:49.090 --> 00:00:53.270 14 00:00:53.290 --> 00:00:57.360 To make sure any kind of spacecraft works, what we need to do is a lot of 15 00:00:57.380 --> 00:01:01.430 is testing here on Earth before we launch it into space. 16 00:01:01.450 --> 00:01:05.490 So we test things at the very smallest component level and then we 17 00:01:05.510 --> 00:01:09.670 assemble them into larger structures and we test it at that level. And we 18 00:01:09.690 --> 00:01:13.740 assemble them into even larger structures and we test it at that level. 19 00:01:13.760 --> 00:01:17.820 So it's through this process of incremental build and test as we like to 20 00:01:17.840 --> 00:01:21.930 call it that we assure ourselves that the structure that we eventually 21 00:01:21.950 --> 00:01:26.130 launch will perform as we need it to. 22 00:01:26.150 --> 00:01:30.160 [slate] 23 00:01:30.180 --> 00:01:34.240 Short answer is of course 24 00:01:34.260 --> 00:01:38.440 very carefully. So you want to test all the relevant 25 00:01:38.460 --> 00:01:42.480 environments or the things that will put the hardware through stressing 26 00:01:42.500 --> 00:01:46.580 situations. And so you want to test for things like will it survive launch. 27 00:01:46.600 --> 00:01:50.690 Will it survive the extremely cold temperatures minus 400 28 00:01:50.710 --> 00:01:54.900 Fahrenheit it has to. Will it deploy, fold out, like it needs to. 29 00:01:54.920 --> 00:01:58.950 And if you go to the Goddard Space Flight Center right now 30 00:01:58.970 --> 00:02:03.040 in the cleanroom there they have the telescope deployed and there they're doing optical 31 00:02:03.060 --> 00:02:07.190 testing. So after you've done some of these other tests, deployment or 32 00:02:07.210 --> 00:02:11.380 launch vibration, you have to make sure your optics still work 33 00:02:11.400 --> 00:02:15.400 and you do optical testing of the telescope. 34 00:02:15.420 --> 00:02:19.440 [slate] 35 00:02:19.460 --> 00:02:23.610 I guarantee you that the scientific 36 00:02:23.630 --> 00:02:27.640 community will use Webb to study the TRAPPIST-1 system. I was at a science 37 00:02:27.660 --> 00:02:31.740 conference last week and this was among the hot topics that were discussed there. 38 00:02:31.760 --> 00:02:35.890 The community if very excited to use NASA's 39 00:02:35.910 --> 00:02:40.110 next great telescope to study exoplanet systems and so things 40 00:02:40.130 --> 00:02:44.200 like the TRAPPIST-1 systems and possibly other nearby exoplanets will be among 41 00:02:44.220 --> 00:02:48.300 the first things that Webb looks at once it starts its science operations. 42 00:02:48.320 --> 00:02:52.330 [slate] 43 00:02:52.350 --> 00:02:56.460 You can go 44 00:02:56.480 --> 00:03:00.570 to NASA.gov or you can go to JWST.NASA.gov 45 00:03:00.590 --> 00:03:04.690 to see lots of information about the Webb. There's information about 46 00:03:04.710 --> 00:03:08.830 engineering behind it. There are thousands of images and there are videos 47 00:03:08.850 --> 00:03:12.890 about it. There's discussions of the science that we've planned for the mission 48 00:03:12.910 --> 00:03:19.312 and even a little bit about some of the people who are building the Webb.