What it takes to launch a telescope | Erika Hamden

41,646 views ・ 2019-06-27

TED


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:13
I'm an astronomer who builds telescopes.
0
13070
2721
00:16
I build telescopes because, number one, they are awesome.
1
16563
3961
00:21
But number two,
2
21281
2049
00:23
I believe if you want to discover a new thing about the universe,
3
23354
3708
00:27
you have to look at the universe
4
27086
1532
00:28
in a new way.
5
28642
1228
00:30
New technologies in astronomy --
6
30378
1849
00:32
things like lenses, photographic plates,
7
32251
3598
00:35
all the way up to space telescopes --
8
35873
2415
00:38
each gave us new ways to see the universe
9
38312
3092
00:41
and directly led to a new understanding
10
41428
2705
00:44
of our place in it.
11
44157
1150
00:46
But those discoveries come with a cost.
12
46663
2375
00:49
It took thousands of people and 44 years
13
49450
3641
00:53
to get the Hubble Space Telescope from an idea into orbit.
14
53115
3809
00:57
It takes time,
15
57380
1523
00:58
it takes a tolerance for failure,
16
58927
1818
01:00
it takes individual people
17
60769
1938
01:02
choosing every day not to give up.
18
62731
2770
01:06
I know how hard that choice is because I live it.
19
66247
2949
01:09
The reality of my job is that I fail almost all the time and still keep going,
20
69220
6058
01:15
because that's how telescopes get built.
21
75302
2382
01:18
The telescope I helped build is called
22
78754
1839
01:20
the faint intergalactic-medium red-shifted emission balloon,
23
80617
5256
01:25
which is a mouthful,
24
85897
1619
01:27
so we call it "FIREBall."
25
87540
1355
01:28
And don't worry, it is not going to explode at the end of this story.
26
88919
3759
01:34
I've been working on FIREBall for more than 10 years
27
94137
2511
01:36
and now lead the team of incredible people who built it.
28
96672
3437
01:40
FIREBall is designed to observe some of the faintest structures known:
29
100481
4390
01:44
huge clouds of hydrogen gas.
30
104895
2880
01:48
These clouds are giant.
31
108435
1299
01:49
They are even bigger than whatever you're thinking of.
32
109758
2538
01:52
They are huge,
33
112320
1185
01:53
huge clouds of hydrogen that we think flow into and out of galaxies.
34
113529
3320
01:57
I work on FIREBall
35
117521
1848
01:59
because what I really want is to take our view of the universe
36
119393
3184
02:02
from one with just light from stars
37
122601
3164
02:05
to one where we can see and measure every atom that exists.
38
125789
5368
02:11
That's all that I want to do.
39
131711
1481
02:13
(Laughter)
40
133216
1992
02:15
But observing at least some of those atoms
41
135232
2210
02:17
is crucial to our understanding of why galaxies look the way they do.
42
137466
3771
02:21
I want to know
43
141261
1342
02:22
how that hydrogen gas gets into a galaxy and creates a star.
44
142627
3988
02:27
My work on FIREBall started in 2008,
45
147909
2607
02:30
working not on the telescope but on the light sensor,
46
150540
2898
02:33
which is the heart of any telescope.
47
153462
2079
02:36
This new sensor was being developed by a team that I joined
48
156153
2786
02:38
at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
49
158963
1904
02:41
And our goal was to prove that this sensor would work really well
50
161710
4156
02:45
to detect that hydrogen gas.
51
165890
1760
02:48
In my work on this,
52
168618
1373
02:50
I destroyed several very, very, very expensive sensors
53
170015
6996
02:57
before realizing that the machine I was using
54
177035
2107
02:59
created a plasma that shorted out anything electrical that we put in it.
55
179166
3802
03:03
We used a different machine, there were other challenges,
56
183414
2769
03:06
and it took years to get it right.
57
186207
1977
03:08
But when that first sensor worked,
58
188208
2644
03:10
it was glorious.
59
190876
2198
03:13
And our sensors are now 10 times better than the previous state of the art
60
193098
3907
03:17
and are getting put into all kinds of new telescopes.
61
197029
2948
03:20
Our sensors will give us a new way to see the universe and our place in it.
62
200001
4898
03:26
So, sensors done,
63
206035
2085
03:28
time to build a telescope.
64
208144
1326
03:29
And FIREBall is weird as far as telescopes go,
65
209494
3614
03:33
because it's not in space, and it's not on the ground.
66
213132
2992
03:36
Instead, it hangs on a cable from a giant balloon
67
216148
3488
03:39
and observes for one night only
68
219660
3025
03:42
from 130,000 feet in the stratosphere,
69
222709
2759
03:45
at the very edge of space.
70
225492
2767
03:48
This is partly because the edge of space is much cheaper than actual space.
71
228283
4876
03:53
(Laughter)
72
233183
1244
03:54
So building it, of course, more failures:
73
234451
3616
03:58
mirrors that failed,
74
238908
1169
04:00
scratched mirrors that had to be remade;
75
240101
1953
04:02
cooling system failures,
76
242666
1271
04:03
an entire system that had to be remade;
77
243961
2167
04:06
calibration failures, we ran tests again and again and again and again;
78
246731
6097
04:12
failures when you literally least expect them:
79
252852
2414
04:15
we had an adorable but super angry baby falcon that landed
80
255290
3906
04:19
on our spectrograph tank one day.
81
259220
1900
04:21
(Laughter)
82
261144
1029
04:22
Although to be fair, this was the greatest day
83
262197
2190
04:24
in the history of this project.
84
264411
1592
04:26
(Laughter)
85
266027
1183
04:27
I really loved that falcon.
86
267234
2266
04:30
But falcon damage fixed, we got it built
87
270209
3152
04:33
for an August 2017 launch attempt --
88
273385
2225
04:35
and then failed to launch,
89
275634
2130
04:37
due to six weeks of continuous rain in the New Mexico desert.
90
277788
4780
04:42
(Laughter)
91
282592
2528
04:45
Our spirits dampened, we showed up again,
92
285144
1964
04:47
August 2018, year 10.
93
287132
2603
04:50
And on the morning of September 22nd,
94
290247
3040
04:56
we finally got the telescope launched.
95
296611
2435
04:59
(Applause)
96
299501
4713
05:04
I have put so much of myself -- my whole life -- into this project,
97
304238
4722
05:08
and I, like, still can't believe that that happened.
98
308984
2949
05:12
And I have this picture that's taken right around sunset on that day
99
312663
3717
05:16
of our balloon,
100
316404
2754
05:19
FIREBall hanging from it,
101
319182
1197
05:20
and the nearly full moon.
102
320383
1638
05:22
And I love this picture.
103
322045
1245
05:23
God, I love it.
104
323314
2206
05:27
But I look at it,
105
327092
1152
05:28
and it makes me want to cry,
106
328268
1430
05:30
because when fully inflated, these balloons are spherical,
107
330751
4262
05:35
and this one isn't.
108
335037
1516
05:36
It's shaped like a teardrop.
109
336577
1976
05:38
And that's because there is a hole in it.
110
338577
3325
05:43
Sometimes balloons fail, too.
111
343104
2029
05:45
FIREBall crash-landed in the New Mexico desert,
112
345856
2352
05:48
and we didn't get the data that we wanted.
113
348232
2305
05:50
And at the end of that day, I thought to myself,
114
350561
3937
05:54
"Why am I doing this?"
115
354522
1650
05:57
And I've thought a lot about why since that day.
116
357545
3014
06:01
And I've realized that all of my work has been full of things
117
361202
4432
06:05
that break and fail,
118
365658
1482
06:07
that we don't understand and they fail,
119
367164
2555
06:09
that we just get wrong the first time,
120
369743
2258
06:12
and so they fail.
121
372025
1463
06:13
I think about the thousands of people who built Hubble
122
373512
2573
06:16
and how many failures they endured.
123
376109
1953
06:18
There were countless failures, heartbreaking failures,
124
378086
3133
06:21
even when it was in space.
125
381243
1682
06:22
And none of those failures were a reason for them to give up.
126
382949
3567
06:27
I think about why I love my job.
127
387541
1547
06:29
I want to know what is happening in the universe.
128
389112
2427
06:31
You all want to know what's happening in the universe, too.
129
391563
2796
06:34
I want to know what's going on with that hydrogen.
130
394383
2334
06:37
And so I've realized that discovery is mostly a process
131
397891
3479
06:41
of finding things that don't work,
132
401394
1839
06:43
and failure is inevitable when you're pushing the limits of knowledge.
133
403257
3743
06:47
And that's what I want to do.
134
407024
1606
06:49
So I'm choosing to keep going.
135
409010
2447
06:51
And our team is going to do
136
411960
1682
06:53
what everyone who has ever built anything before us has done:
137
413666
4183
06:57
we're going to try again,
138
417873
1236
06:59
in 2020.
139
419133
1180
07:00
And it might feel like a failure today -- and it really does --
140
420648
4955
07:05
but it's only going to stay a failure
141
425627
2281
07:07
if I give up.
142
427932
1606
07:09
Thank you very much.
143
429562
1228
07:10
(Applause)
144
430814
6279
About this website

This site will introduce you to YouTube videos that are useful for learning English. You will see English lessons taught by top-notch teachers from around the world. Double-click on the English subtitles displayed on each video page to play the video from there. The subtitles scroll in sync with the video playback. If you have any comments or requests, please contact us using this contact form.

https://forms.gle/WvT1wiN1qDtmnspy7