WEBVTT

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[music playing]

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- When you think about NASA,
what comes to mind?

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Do you think about images
from incredible missions

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like this or this
or this?

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Or what about some
of the unbelievable spacecraft,

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rovers, and launch systems
like these?

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From the outside,
virtually everything NASA does

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looks amazing,

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but do you ever wonder
how NASA engineers

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and scientists develop
the technology to pull off

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these incredible missions?

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The simple answer
is teamwork.

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That is what NASA does.

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It takes seemingly
impossible tasks

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and makes them possible
by working as a team.

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That's same spirit of teamwork
is still happening today.

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To see this teamwork in action,
we talked with

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a NASA scientist
and engineer

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both working on one of NASA's
newest near impossible missions,

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the James Webb Space Telescope.

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They will explain how
engineering design works to

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support science discovery as
seen through the JWST mission.

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- Lift off!

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[rumbling]
[upbeat music]

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- Hi, I'm Stefanie Milam
and I'm a scientist.

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- I am Begoña Vila.
I am an engineer.

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- My job as a scientist
is to seek the questions

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that we've been asking ourselves
for centuries.

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What we hope to do with
the James Webb Space Telescope

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is sort of study
the next unknown.

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- My job as an engineer
is to make sure

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once we are building
an instrument--

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in this case the James Webb,

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that we are doing all
the testing that we need to do,

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that we are making sure
everything works

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as it's supposed to,
and that it's addressing

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the needs that the scientists
wanted--

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had envisioned when they first
thought of this proposal.

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So some of the technology
we have to develop

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was to be able to collect
more light

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to make the instrument
more sensitive the Hubble.

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And to do that we know we needed
a big mirror,

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but the problem is
if you have a big mirror,

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you have to fit it
inside a rocket.

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That wouldn't work,
so that's how we ended up

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doing 18 individual segments

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that we can fold
inside a rocket

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and once we are in orbit
we can open up.

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And then those mirrors
need to have some special

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technology in the back

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because once we are in orbit,
we want to align them

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so they behave
like a single mirror.

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- So some of the new
technologies

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on the James Webb
Space Telescope will help enable

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new observations
and reveal new things

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in our galaxy and our universe
that we were never able to see

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with other telescopes such as
the Hubble Space Telescope

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or Spitzer Space Observatory.

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This includes looking at
the very first stars

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that were formed
after the Big Bang,

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the first galaxies,
and even seeing how stars

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and planets are formed.

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- We can see how science
and engineering work together,

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each one taking turns
pushing the other.

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What is the role that
science discovery plays

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in pushing exploration?

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- So science and engineering
actually work

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very close together
to develop new missions.

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We have
new questions and insight

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that we really want
to probe in space.

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So we go to our engineers
and we ask them to develop

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and come up with new,
innovative ways that we can

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actually look for things
in the deepest, darkest

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realms of space
at sensitivities

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and capabilities
that we've never had before.

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- And how does
engineering design

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push scientific knowledge
further?

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- Us engineers,
once we receive the requests

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from the scientists,
we work on a plan

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to be able to make
that a reality.

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There might be some things
that they want

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where the technology's
not available yet

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so we have to put a proposal

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to see how we can
move the technology forward

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in order to meet their needs.

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- I think science and technology
work closely together.

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We really want to make sure
that we're achieving

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the best science that we can
at the state of the art

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capabilities that we can.

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So we really push
our engineers to help us

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come up with innovative ways
to really probe the unknown.

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- There you have it.

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Science and technology
are dancing together.

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Sometimes science leads
and sometimes technology leads,

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but at the end of the day,
the partnership between the two

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helps to make history
and change the world.

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All right, that's it for now.

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I'm Derrick
with NASA Launchpad.

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See ya next time.

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[upbeat music]