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Transcript/Script((PLAYBOOK SLUG: The Week in Space (TV)
HEADLINE: James Webb Telescope Set for Launch
TEASER: Plus, space tourist returns with travel plans for the future
PUBLISHED AT: 12/23/2021: at 1:40pm
BYLINE: Arash Arabasadi
CONTRIBUTOR:
DATELINE: Washington
VIDEOGRAPHER: AP/REUTERS/NASA’S GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER/NASA/NASA-TV/NASA TV/EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY
PRODUCER: Arash Arabasadi
SCRIPT EDITORS: MAS,sv
NOTE:
VIDEO SOURCE (S): AP/REUTERS/NASA’S GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER/NASA/NASA-TV/NASA TV/EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY
PLATFORMS (mark with X): WEB __ TV X RADIO __
TRT: 2:24
VID APPROVED BY: MAS
TYPE: TVPKG
UPDATE: ))
[[INTRO: NASA looks likely to launch a much hyped and often-delayed space telescope. Plus, SpaceX makes history again, and a space tourist is already planning his next trip. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us the Week in Space.]]
((mandatory cg NASA’S GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER))
((NARRATOR))
It’s finally happening… we think. NASA’s often-delayed launch of the James Webb Space Telescope is currently scheduled for Christmas Day, December 25th, but that comes after at least two delays in just the past week.
((mandatory cg NASA))
((NARRATOR))
Webb is the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, which launched in April of 1990. The project brings together NASA, European and Canadian space agencies with the goal of looking at the first galaxies of the universe, some hundred-million-years after the Big Bang.
[RADIO TRACK: Project scientist, Klaus Pontoppidan tells AP the new flagship telescope may answer the ultimate questions.]
((Klaus Pontoppidan, Space Telescope Science Institute))
“Webb’s mission to understand exoplanets, I think, goes really to some of the core of our humanity. These fundamental questions of, ‘Are we alone in the universe? Where do we come from? Where do we go?’ The universe is so huge. You, you’d think out there somewhere there would be life.”
((mandatory cg NASA))
((NARRATOR))
The telescope is so large that it has to be folded up to launch. It has a sun shield about the size of a tennis court to keep Webb’s instruments a frigid negative-190-degrees Celsius, or just two degrees above absolute zero. While its technology far surpasses its predecessor, experts say it’s too soon to bury Hubble.
[RADIO TRACK: Chair of the Astronomy Department at Columbia University, David J. Helfand explains why to AP.]
((David J. Helfand, Columbia University))
“First of all, the Hubble telescope is still operating and may operate for another five-to-ten years, if we’re lucky. And secondly, it’s a very different kind of telescope. The Hubble telescope is optimized to see the part of the universe that our eyes can see, whereas the James Webb telescope is optimized to see in the infrared part of the spectrum, which gives us a whole different set of information for the universe.”
((mandatory cg: European Space Agency))
((NARRATOR))
The world’s biggest and most-powerful telescope should already have launched a decade ago. In that time, its cost nearly doubled to just-shy of 10-billion-dollars.
((mandatory cg NASA-TV))
((NARRATOR))
In other news, SpaceX launched its 24th commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station. A Falcon 9 rocket carried a Dragon spacecraft that docked with the ISS about 22-and-a-half hours after launch. Dragon carried cargo but no crew.
((mandatory cg NASA TV))
((NARRATOR))
And finally this week, Japanese billionaire businessman Yusaku Maezawa successfully added “astronaut” to his resumé when he and his travel partner returned from a 12-day leisure trip to the ISS. The 46-year-old Maezawa paid north of 80-million-dollars for the journey, and he’s currently looking for eight people to join him for a lunar voyage in 2023. Arash Arabasadi, VOA News.
NewsML Media TopicsScience and Technology
Topic TagsSpace
NetworkVOA
Embargo DateDecember 23, 2021 15:25 EST
Brand / Language ServiceUS Agency for Global Media
