Hubble 3D: Deep Space

---

Seven brave astronauts

are about to launch...

...on the most challenging and

risky mission ever flown in space.

It's an interesting emotion

when you're sitting there...

...and realizing the clock is ticking.

- All the preparation time is over.

- Feel okay, sir?

It's time to go out there and do it.

All right. Okay, good.

It's not a foolhardy risk.

It's not roller-skating down

Massachusetts Avenue in rush hour.

If there's some risk that goes along

with achieving a dream...

...I think it's worth it, and that's

what I would wanna tell my kids.

Dreams do come true.

Okay.

It felt a lot like Christmas morning.

You know,

going to get to open your presents.

I got up, big smile on my face.

And marched down to have my breakfast

and just really felt great.

Right now the thing

I'm looking forward to most...

...is the solid rocket booster ignition.

I wanna get started.

I think it was my grandfather that had

the most profound influence on me.

He'd bring out the binoculars

and he'd teach us about the sky.

No idea that I would be

traveling to the stars.

But here I am.

I go through the mission

in my mind, and ask, "Okay...

...what could go wrong?" And I ask myself,

"Are we ready to handle that?"

This is the last chance

to save the Hubble Space Telescope.

Here we are, cocooned

on our beautiful planet Earth...

...warmed by the light of

our nearest star, the sun.

When you see our home like this,

you think:

"Out there in all that black space...

...could there be another place like it?

Is there anybody else out there?"

The nearest of those stars

is billions of miles away...

...but that hasn't stopped us

from exploring them.

Galileo was the first.

Centuries later,

we built a truly magical machine...

...the likes of which Galileo

could never have imagined.

Nice and slow.

The Hubble Space Telescope.

It took more than 10 years

and 10,000 people to build.

Keep coming.

And it would be the first of its kind

to be launched into orbit around the Earth.

Okay, stop. Okay, hold it steady.

This astronaut crew was

chosen to ferry the telescope to space.

Hello, hello, hello.

They launched from the Kennedy Space

Center aboard the shuttle Discovery.

T-minus 10, go for main engine start.

We are go for main engine start.

T-minus six, five, four...

...three, two, one.

And liftoff.

With the sea and clouds

of Earth reflecting on its door...

...the great silver bird was released

to soar in orbit 320 miles above us.

Soon it would be

sending images back to us.

Could we finally unlock

the secrets of the universe?

Would we discover

other worlds like ours?

The whole world waited for Hubble

to open its enormous eye.

Engineers have discovered that

the giant telescope has a warped mirror.

One of the mirrors in the Hubble Space

Telescope is out of shape, and as a result...

...the pictures it's sending back

are no better than those from the ground.

You've got a go to open the doors.

Okay, swinging.

It would be three long years

before astronauts could return...

...with a remedy for the ailing Hubble.

I'm not even pulling it,

I'm just coaxing it with my fingertips.

Pitch, pitch up a little.

They installed two instruments...

...each containing a huge contact lens.

Scientists hoped the new lenses

would sharpen the telescope's blurry vision.

Good work, guys.

Above the splendor of

Africa's Cape of Good Hope...

...Hubble was launched once again.

In the next 10 years,

three more astronaut crews...

...would repair and enhance

Hubble's vision even further...

...transporting us to places

we could only have dreamed about.

In a stream of staggering images...

...Hubble revealed the powerful

prolonged aurora on Saturn.

The haunting gaze of a dying star,

the Helix Nebula.

The awesome Eagle Nebula,

known as the pillars of creation...

...a birthplace of stars.

And the Mice...

...a pair of galaxies twisted

and torn by their gravitational dance.

Hubble captured imagery so complex...

...we can actually travel through it.

This is real star travel.

The bright star passing by is Sirius.

It's one of the nearest to Earth,

a mere 50 trillion miles away.

We're now heading towards

the three little stars in a slanted row there...

...called Orion's Belt.

Distances here are so vast,

they're measured in light-years.

A single light-year

is almost six trillion miles.

Orion is 1500 light-years away.

That means we're traveling

at 150 trillion miles a second.

We're going to explore that

rose-colored cloud just below the belt.

It's called the Orion Nebula.

There are amazing things happening

inside these clouds.

As we look through Hubble's eye...

...we're getting to see them

as never before.

We're descending into

a gargantuan canyon of clouds.

It's 90 trillion miles across.

It's a star nursery.

The biggest of the young stars

are right in the center of the nursery.

Their energy creates

unbelievably strong winds...

...howling down this vast canyon

at five million miles an hour.

The winds have blasted out

a huge bowl-shaped cavity...

...in the side of the cloud

facing the Earth...

...giving Hubble and us...

...a window on the secret life

of the stars inside.

The biggest star here is surrounded

by a flock of baby stars...

...each nested in its own cocoon.

The wind from the giant star is blowing

so hard against these little ones...

...it creates shock waves on their

near sides, and long tails behind.

That's why astronomers have nicknamed

these strange objects "tadpoles."

Inside each cocoon

is an infant solar system.

These tadpoles might turn into

full-grown solar systems one day...

...but the continuous blast of wind

may stunt their growth.

But tucked away in a calmer part

of Orion's nursery...

...Hubble has found confirmation...

...that planets are forming

around other stars.

Our own solar system

may have looked just like this...

...when the sun had formed,

but the Earth did not yet exist.

Perhaps this is how we

and our own world began.

The once-ailing

Hubble Space Telescope...

...offered its greatest performance yet...

...a glimpse of time and space astronomers

had previously only dreamed about.

But for the Hubble, time is running out...

...amid new concerns

about safety in space.

In early 2003, the tragic loss

ofspace shuttle Columbia...

...forced NASA to rethink its program.

NASA has canceled

Hubble's final service mission.

In Washington, Senator Barbara Mikulski

led the charge to review the decision...

...questioning NASA Administrator

Sean O'Keefe's January claim...

...that keeping Hubble alive

wasn't worth the cost or the risk.

Hubble is not a piece of techno-junk

that's creaky, tattered and worn.

If we do nothing,

then within about two years...

...either its gyroscopes

or its batteries will die...

...and it'll tumble out of control.

But flight designers came up

with a daring plan to reduce the risk.

If the shuttle was damaged

during launch...

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes