Behind the Scenes of The Elements of Webb

Narration:

Transcript:

00:00:03:13 - 00:00:28:15

Mike McClare

I came up with elements of Webb because I have seen in all of our articles and videos that we kept mentioning that we used gold and beryllium for these mirrors, that there are all these special materials, but we didn't really explain why we used them. So I wanted to get sort of into the nitty gritty of the material science to explore why these were and then actually just demonstrate why these materials behave the way they do.

00:00:28:27 - 00:00:29:28

Sophia Roberts

I got a piece! I got a piece!

00:00:31:18 - 00:00:48:21

Mike McClare

Not only was it a, I think, cool science adventure for you because you did a lot of research. It was an adventure just going out and capturing everything. That's the great, beautiful Salt Lake back there. Okay. We just got attacked, but they're still swimming around us. These little gnats.

00:00:49:05 - 00:01:10:08

Sophia Roberts

I will say that my proudest moment was being able to go to the beryllium mine. That took a lot of work to get to. We found the beryllium shop, and then we got them to talk to their people and then convincing those people to let us fly into Salt Lake City and actually go to the frickin beryllium mine.

00:01:10:16 - 00:01:12:13

Mike McClare

Was this has all been mined out.

00:01:12:26 - 00:01:43:14

Sophia Roberts

So we've had like so much latitude in this project, which we're very lucky. But yeah, so we were able to hire a drone operator, which was so cool. And so he was able to get perspectives on this huge hole in the ground that we would never otherwise be able to see and actually get like a really good perspective on like just how massive it is and really how much rock you have to remove to get even the smallest amounts of beryllium.

00:01:44:15 - 00:01:59:07

Mike McClare

COVID just wiped this whole thing out because we were planning to go to a lot of different places and then when COVID hit and we couldn't go anywhere, she did. I went to say like 80% of the whole production at your house.

00:01:59:20 - 00:02:00:00

Sophia Roberts

Yeah.

00:02:00:08 - 00:02:04:11

Mike McClare

And you did some amazing stuff at your house. And we're recording.

00:02:05:01 - 00:02:18:11

Sophia Roberts

But first I have to make some distilled water, but first I have to make some distilled water. It was fun. I mean, it made me take a little more time to think about what I was talking about. And I actually think they ultimately made a better video.

00:02:18:29 - 00:02:40:25

Mike McClare

I already see two pieces. One of the great things about this job is that, you know, we meet a lot of different people, you learn a lot of stuff, but you're also able to go into places and see things that, you know, nobody else gets to see. And I think the Element series is really one of those projects that we were just able to go and into different places.

00:02:41:07 - 00:02:56:02

Sophia Roberts

Sort of my philosophy on life is just start doing the things that you want to do. You're never going to have the gear that you want. You're never necessarily going to have the time that you want. But like try to figure it out and just, just do it.