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NASA's new space telescope goes beyond Hubble · THE DAILY BRIEF

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  Speaker 1: If the science and space exploration types are right about
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  Speaker 1: the Roman Space Telescope, the latest and greatest piece of
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  Speaker 1: kit to be pointed off into the final frontier, we
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  Speaker 1: won't need to use our imagination to picture what's out there.
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  Speaker 2: We are going to see it like never before.
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  Speaker 1: It's the size of a tour bus, weighs the same
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  Speaker 1: as a T-Rex and is about to be blasted off
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  Speaker 1: into space. It's the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and
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  Speaker 1: NASA say.
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  Speaker 2: It's going to blow our collective minds.
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  Speaker 1: Keith Cowing is a man who does that just about
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  Speaker 1: every time I speak to him, who I read often
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  Speaker 1: on nasawatch.com, ex-NASA space station payload manager, space biologist, journalist
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  Speaker 1: and master interpreter of complex science and tech.
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  Speaker 2: It's a big buildup, Keith.
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  Speaker 1: A lot of rocket launches are about getting satellites into
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  Speaker 1: near-Earth orbit to provide internet from space. This, on the
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  Speaker 1: other hand, is good old-fashioned exploration.
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  Speaker 2: What do you most want to know?
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  Speaker 1: What do you most want to see that this telescope
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  Speaker 1: can show us, can show you?
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  Speaker 3: Okay, in simple terms, this is what we're launching. It's
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  Speaker 3: a telescope.
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  Speaker 4: That's what it is. A lot of the other stuff
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  Speaker 4: that you launch, you just say, yeah, it's got a
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  Speaker 4: weird name.
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  Speaker 3: You don't know what it does.
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  Speaker 4: This is designed to be the follow-on and partner with
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  Speaker 4: a lot of telescopes that you already have out there.
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  Speaker 4: Hubble Space Telescope has been out there for decades. The
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  Speaker 4: James Webb just went out there a few years ago.
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  Speaker 4: And this spacecraft is going to go in together. They overlap,
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  Speaker 4: but they have specialties. But this one, you know, I'm
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  Speaker 4: going to get to use my limited German at some
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  Speaker 4: point and say Ausgesichnet, because it can see this massive
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  Speaker 4: amount of the sky together. Compared to what you would
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  Speaker 4: see with the Hubble or the Webb. So it's just
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  Speaker 4: going to blow people's minds. It's written down in the handbook.
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  Speaker 4: We'll blow people's minds.
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  Speaker 1: So you mentioned the James Webb telescope. It showed us
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  Speaker 1: a lot in space. amazing resolution, some really cool images,
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  Speaker 1: if I could put it like that. But when I
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  Speaker 1: read your article on astrobiology.com, you tell readers, including me,
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  Speaker 1: that this telescope is looking for cool planets. Why is
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  Speaker 1: it important that this telescope can show us cool planets?
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  Speaker 4: Well, my interest these days as I quasi-retire is back
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  Speaker 4: to being a biologist, and I think you can probably
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  Speaker 4: see a little planet behind me, studying other worlds that
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  Speaker 4: might support life. And we've seen, we've found thousands of
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  Speaker 4: planets out there now, but they're usually big, they're hot,
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  Speaker 4: they're weird.
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  Speaker 3: You and I would not have much fun living there.
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  Speaker 4: But we have found a few through indirect means that
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  Speaker 4: could be in what's called the habitable zone, where a
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  Speaker 4: world could be habitable. We don't know if there's any
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  Speaker 4: life there. It's just, it could, like Goldilocks, you know,
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  Speaker 4: not too hot, not too cold. This telescope and the
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  Speaker 4: one that will follow it, the Habitable Worlds Telescope, all
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  Speaker 4: these worlds together can sort of look through, very closely,
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  Speaker 4: image these planets, maybe a few pixels, but see little dots,
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  Speaker 4: be able to understand the atmosphere around it and the
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  Speaker 4: star itself, because how the star works is often important
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  Speaker 4: as to what the planet will have, and may lead
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  Speaker 4: us closer and closer to find worlds that when we
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  Speaker 4: send another telescope with even bigger optics or use telescopes
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  Speaker 4: on Earth, we may actually find worlds that have what's
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  Speaker 4: called a biosignature. a hint that there might be life there.
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  Speaker 4: And that tends to be on, as we said at
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  Speaker 4: the beginning, cool worlds, not these ultra-hot things where the
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  Speaker 4: rivers of lead and all this stuff that isn't nice.
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  Speaker 3: For living things.
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  Speaker 2: So we have the James Webb. That's great.
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  Speaker 1: But we genuinely need this to take the next big
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  Speaker 1: leap in terms of our understanding what's out there.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, we do.
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  Speaker 4: And also the Hubble's getting old, and you could probably
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  Speaker 4: go and fix it again. But, you know, it has
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  Speaker 4: some of the capabilities, and it's interesting that these telescopes
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  Speaker 4: counter-react balance each other in that they can see things
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  Speaker 4: that the others can't, but they can also see the
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  Speaker 4: same things in the same wavelengths. And when you put
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  Speaker 4: these all together, it's like having different lenses on your
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  Speaker 4: iPhone and you take different pictures at different wavelengths and
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  Speaker 4: then you tell the software to merge it together and
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  Speaker 4: you get more information you might otherwise get. And again,
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  Speaker 4: these pictures, you and I, these things are manipulated a
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  Speaker 4: bit so you and I as humans can look at
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  Speaker 4: them and say, oh, that's pretty. But this is data,
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  Speaker 4: and you can tell by what shows up, what color
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  Speaker 4: ranges it are, and so forth, what chemicals you're seeing.
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  Speaker 4: And if you take different wavelengths of views at the
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  Speaker 4: same spot, you can understand better what is in there
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  Speaker 4: and what is not. And again, you're showing some of
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  Speaker 4: these exploding stars out there. That's what you want with
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  Speaker 4: this telescope. And now as your graphic is showing, it's
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  Speaker 4: showing the sheer majesty of the universe that it can
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  Speaker 4: capture and compared to Hubble. It's just going to keep
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  Speaker 4: zooming and zooming and zooming.
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  Speaker 3: That's the cool thing about this telescope.
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  Speaker 2: Which brings us.
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  Speaker 1: Back to the German city of Heidelberg, funnily enough, which
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  Speaker 1: has a stake here, I see, the Max Planck Institute,
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  Speaker 1: where the study of nuclear physics made some important steps
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  Speaker 1: forward in the past. What have the clever folks there
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  Speaker 1: done to make sure that these other precision instruments in
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  Speaker 1: this system sitting inside the SpaceX rocket work in sync
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  Speaker 1: to give us the best image?
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  Speaker 2: What's their role here?
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  Speaker 4: Well, they usually fly one, but they make a whole
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  Speaker 4: bunch of them, and they throw them through. When I
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  Speaker 4: worked at NASA sometimes, we would buy extra things and
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  Speaker 4: drop them just to see what would happen, literally, just
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  Speaker 4: to see how they would survive shocks. So by the
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  Speaker 4: time you've got this telescope assembled, they have tortured this
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  Speaker 4: device by itself and plugged into other things enough times
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  Speaker 4: to know that.
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  Speaker 3: It will survive the launch. It will survive the trip.
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  Speaker 4: Out to the L2 point, the little orbit out beyond
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  Speaker 4: the Earth, where it will stay, the temperature ranges and
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  Speaker 4: everything else. And they run the telescope on the ground
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  Speaker 4: so they know it will talk to Earth. But it's
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  Speaker 4: not a simple process where you say, all right, we're
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  Speaker 4: sending you the thing, plug it in, see you later.
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  Speaker 3: It takes years.
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  Speaker 4: Right.
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  Speaker 1: One of the great recent success stories in space, and
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  Speaker 1: you mentioned it, was the Hubble telescope.
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  Speaker 2: It showed us a lot. And it was somehow repairable.
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  Speaker 2: You also mentioned this.
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  Speaker 4: I gather.
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  Speaker 1: Once this thing, the Roman Space Telescope, blasts off, we're
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  Speaker 1: not going to get another chance to reboot it or
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  Speaker 1: use the soldering iron if this one breaks down.
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  Speaker 4: Actually, the Hubble is in Earth orbit, so it's designed
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  Speaker 4: to be visited, and we did. A friend of mine
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  Speaker 4: has been up there several times to fix it.
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  Speaker 3: His name is John Grunsfeld.
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  Speaker 4: He was the head of the Space Telescope Science Institute,
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  Speaker 4: and he was the chief scientist at NASA. And I
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  Speaker 4: remember going into his office as we were talking about
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  Speaker 4: the web, and they wanted to put this little clip
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  Speaker 4: thing on it so that a space could grab it.
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  Speaker 4: And they eventually got something. And he kept talking about
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  Speaker 4: the fact that, well, what if we want to go
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  Speaker 4: there and fix it? Well, now, if you look at
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  Speaker 4: the Roman Space Telescope, there's a very proper docking target.
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  Speaker 4: So a spacecraft probably doesn't exist yet, has a standard
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  Speaker 4: way to go up to a dock to it. Now,
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  Speaker 4: whether we'll go out there or why we would go
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  Speaker 4: out there, I don't know. But at least it now
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  Speaker 4: has the ability where we could go out there and
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  Speaker 4: tinker with it.
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  Speaker 1: OK, next on my list that I wanted to know,
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  Speaker 1: dark matter. I gather this is a really big picture
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  Speaker 1: field of study. How big a step could this telescope
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  Speaker 1: help us make in understanding it? And why does it
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  Speaker 1: matter in the grand scheme of things? And I gather,
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  Speaker 1: as you've told us, we are looking at the grand
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  Speaker 1: scheme of things out in space with this.
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  Speaker 4: Well, sometimes I sit here and I hear little footprints,
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  Speaker 4: and I have mice in my wall from the woods
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  Speaker 4: that live nearby. I don't know where they are, but
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  Speaker 4: I know there's mice. I can't see them, but I
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  Speaker 4: can sense them sometimes. So that's kind of like what
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  Speaker 4: dark matter often is. And you can see its effect
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  Speaker 4: on things that you can see, like a galaxy may
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  Speaker 4: move differently than the matter that we can see. And
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  Speaker 4: you say, well, there's got to be other matter there.
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  Speaker 3: Well, what's the other matter? Dark matter.
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  Speaker 4: It's sort of a name for something we know somehow
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  Speaker 4: exerts an influence, but we can't see it.
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  Speaker 3: We can't touch it. We can only see its influence.
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  Speaker 4: And so by launching a telescope like this, which has
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  Speaker 4: a grander view of things and a much more precise view,
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  Speaker 4: And the ability to hone in on things and to
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  Speaker 4: look outwards, you're just getting a better ability to look
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  Speaker 4: at the effect it has on things. You won't be
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  Speaker 4: able to see dark matter, but you might see clear
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  Speaker 4: patterns of how normal matter, if there's such, you want
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  Speaker 4: to call it that, is interacting with that.
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  Speaker 3: So every time you get a better set.
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  Speaker 4: Of glasses, you can see the unseeable better, I guess. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: There's an awful lot riding on this one, Keith. It's
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  Speaker 2: a big payload.
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  Speaker 1: It's a big object that SpaceX has to deliver to
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  Speaker 1: a fascinating point that you referenced there called Lagrange Point L,
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  Speaker 1: as he checks his notes.
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  Speaker 2: L2, I think. Tell us about this neighbourhood.
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  Speaker 1: Is this the same place where the James Webb telescope
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  Speaker 1: hangs out?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it is.
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  Speaker 4: And actually it's a place where you, it's one of
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  Speaker 4: the places, it's one of the more stable ones that
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  Speaker 4: it gives you the ability to, if I can use
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  Speaker 4: my telescope again, because it's a balanced point between the
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  Speaker 4: earth and the sun, you don't have to spend a
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  Speaker 4: lot of time constantly adjusting where it's pointing.
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  Speaker 3: It's sort of, it's very stable.
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  Speaker 4: Second of all, it's further away from earth and earth
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  Speaker 4: reflects a lot of the light back from the sun.
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  Speaker 4: And you have to have to deal with, when you
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  Speaker 4: have a spacecraft in low earth orbit, You have to
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  Speaker 4: deal with the sun's energy coming back at you from
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  Speaker 4: the earth. Well, now when you're out at this distance,
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  Speaker 4: you don't have to worry about it. You could also
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  Speaker 4: worry less about the glare of the bright earth and
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  Speaker 4: the sun and a few other things. So it's the perfect,
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  Speaker 4: it's like going up on a very tall mountain away
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  Speaker 4: from the city.
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  Speaker 3: You don't have a lot of things to worry about.
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  Speaker 4: You can focus more on just looking at the thing
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  Speaker 4: that you want to look at.
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  Speaker 1: How important is this telescope for NASA for space exploration
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  Speaker 1: generally at a time science budgets are hard to win
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  Speaker 1: back on earth?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, money's a big thing, isn't it? It's an issue everywhere.
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  Speaker 4: You can bring politics into it or leave it out.
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  Speaker 4: It's still expensive. We're getting better at this. And this
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  Speaker 4: telescope is an example of you know, the mirror inside
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  Speaker 4: of it is lighter than Hubble's. It actually was in
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  Speaker 4: one of the secret satellites that our government built for
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  Speaker 4: whatever they do when they look at the Earth.
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  Speaker 3: It wasn't being used.
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  Speaker 4: My friend John and a few others got together and said,
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  Speaker 4: can we Have the mirror.
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  Speaker 3: Can we buy it from you? And they said yes.
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  Speaker 4: And it's similar in size to the Hubble. It's just lighter.
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  Speaker 4: But what they were able to do is get a
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  Speaker 4: mirror that had already been paid for that wasn't going
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  Speaker 4: to be used, drop it into a spacecraft that's, let's
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  Speaker 4: just say, designed 30-something years later than Hubble so it's
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  Speaker 4: more efficient. The processors are better. Everything's 21st century. You know,
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  Speaker 4: it's not the 1980s and 90s and so forth. And
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  Speaker 4: it's designed better to do what it's being done. And
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  Speaker 4: it's learned from other spacecrafts.
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  Speaker 3: Before, the trails that they have blazed.
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  Speaker 4: But it's also purposefully designed to be one in a
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  Speaker 4: series that, again, this other telescope that's going to follow
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  Speaker 4: the Habitable Worlds Observatory will specifically look for habitable worlds.
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  Speaker 3: Meanwhile, on Earth, we're.
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  Speaker 4: Building these gigantic telescopes, which, again, will overlook that. So together,
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  Speaker 4: you know, you get these things that you really have
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  Speaker 4: an ever-improving ability to just look out there and see
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  Speaker 4: things that you have wanted to understand and trip over
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  Speaker 4: things that you never thought you'd see.
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  Speaker 3: And don't understand.
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  Speaker 1: Keith, I can't wait for this one. I hope you
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  Speaker 1: get some sleep if you can, and please do enjoy
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  Speaker 1: launch day.
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  Speaker 3: Okay.
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  Speaker 2: Keith Cowan, a pleasure as always. That's all for now.
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