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.