Opinion · Live Wire
The BBC World Service is to launch a new four-part season of its acclaimed 13 Minutes podcast, telling the dramatic story of one of the most ambitious scientific instruments ever built - and the tiny flaw that almost destroyed the dream. The Hubble Space Telescope transformed our picture of the universe. It showed that the first galaxies formed much earlier than anyone had thought possible, and revealed that giant black holes lurk at the heart of nearly every major galaxy. 13 Minutes: Trouble with Hubble follows the Hubble Space Telescope from its final preparations for launch, through its deployment in orbit, the discovery of a devastating flaw in its primary mirror, and the extraordinary mission to repair it in space.
Hosted by space scientist Dame Dr Maggie Aderin, the four-part season reveals how a telescope designed to transform humanity's view of the universe became the centre of one of NASA's greatest crises. Hubble had already endured years of delays and millions of dollars in cost overruns before it finally reached the launchpad. NASA saw the telescope as an instrument capable of looking deeper into space than ever before and helping answer some of humanity's most fundamental questions.
But shortly after Hubble reached orbit, scientists discovered that its images were bafflingly blurred. The telescope's primary mirror had been ground to the wrong shape, with its curvature off by an almost unimaginably small amount - the equivalent of around one-fiftieth of the width of a human hair. The problem was catastrophic.
The telescope was in space, around 380 miles above Earth, and seemingly beyond reach. The only way to save it was to send astronauts into space to repair it. Across four episodes, 13 Minutes: Trouble with Hubble tells the human story behind the engineering triumph and disaster.
Podcast presenter, Dame Dr Maggie Aderin, says:“For me, Hubble is a remarkable story of human ingenuity - and of how people respond when things go terribly wrong. It was meant to open a new window on the universe. Instead, NASA faced the enormous challenge of repairing it in space.
“What draws me to this story is the people behind the telescope: their hopes, their mistakes, and their determination to put things right. That human side makes Hubble’s story so powerful. It reminds us that even an extraordinary achievement can begin with failure.” BBC World Service Podcast Commissioning Editor, Jon Manel, says: "I’m delighted that 13 Minutes - the BBC World Service’s space podcast - is back with its fifth season.
Once again, we hear from some of the key astronauts, scientists and engineers, as Dame Dr Maggie Aderin guides us through a story of how an extraordinary plan became reality in the face of huge and unexpected challenges.” Featuring archive mission audio and oral histories from the NASA History Office, 13 Minutes: Trouble with Hubble brings listeners into the control rooms, workshops and spacecraft at the heart of the crisis. 13 Minutes: Trouble with Hubble is a BBC Audio Science Unit production for the BBC World Service. It is hosted by Dame Dr Maggie Aderin, with theme music by Hans Zimmer and Christian Lundberg, and produced by Russell Emanuel, for Bleeding Fingers Music. 13 Minutes: Trouble with Hubble episode 1 will be available from 5 October on BBC Sounds and wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Episodes will be released every Monday.
Episodes will be released a week early on BBC Sounds in the UK, with episodes 1 & 2 available on the launch date. Outside the UK, episodes will also be available a week early to subscribers on BBC.com (in the United States and Canada) and on BBC Podcasts Premium on Apple Podcasts. It will be broadcast on BBC World Service in weekly episodes starting Wednesday 23 December.
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Source: BBC
