The future of astronomy, as seen by PBS News in 1991
An evening pause: Today is the 75th anniversary of the moment astonomers took the lens cap off the Hale Telescope at Palomar, what astronomers call “first light.” In honor of this anniversary, tonight’s evening pause is a somewhat well-done news piece produced by PBS in 1991, describing the state of ground-based astronomy at that time, which was actually another key moment in the history of astronomy. After decades of no advancement following the Hale telescope, the field was about to burst out with a whole new set of telescopes exceeding it significantly, based on new technologies. We today have become accustomed to those new telescopes, but in 1991 they were still incomplete or on the drawing board.
This was also after the launch of Hubble but before it was fixed, so this moment was also a somewhat dark time for astronomy in general. Watching this news piece gives you a sense of history, as seen by those living at that time. It also lets you see some good examples of the standard tropes of reporters as well as some astronomers. They always say this new telescope (whatever and whenever it is) is going to allow us to discover the entire history of the universe, even though it never can, and never will.
Hat tip Mike Nelson.
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ABC or PBS? MacNeil/Lehrer was a well regarded every night news hour on public TV.
Allan: You are right. I confused this PBS piece with the ABC news show that used to air each evening opposite Carson.
Nightline (5-17-97)
Ted Koppel discusses technology,
w/ guests Ted Kaczynski, Bill Gates, and Gary Kasparov
https://youtu.be/SVVMaZNl-pw
4:03
On a more serious note:
Robert Zimmerman
“The Hubble Space Telescope And The Visionaries Who Built It
13-Forum at The Explorers Club (June 30, 2008)
https://archive.org/details/the-hubble-space-telescope-and-the-visionaries-who-built-it
(1:24:20)
Related:
“going to allow us to discover the entire history of the universe, even though it never can, and never will.”
“Does this subject upset you? Does this subject throw a monkey wrench into how you see yourself, humanity, your religion and your place on the planet and in the universe? You just refuse to believe it? Is it just too crazy to even consider? Well sorry, “IT” just don’t care.
https://www.sigma3ioc.com/post/something-not-nothing-ufo-s-uap-s-we-are-not-alone
“You cannot understand what you cannot detect. Might you be a sheep, or might you be a pig?
Kind of a disturbing question, no?”
Bonus content: Astronaut Gordon Cooper interview: https://youtu.be/FTFlrcvOOcw?si=l6CMkcrUZOUbgSk5
Are you going to argue with a man who strapped on an Atlas 9 rocket and orbited the earth 22 times and tell him he was mistaken about what he himself witnessed firsthand and came to understand about the subject?
“Mercury-Atlas 9 was the final crewed space mission of the U.S. Mercury program, launched on May 15, 1963, from Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The spacecraft, named Faith 7, completed 22 Earth orbits before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean, piloted by astronaut Gordon Cooper, then a United States Air Force major.”
I was holding off, waiting for someone else to note the obvious, but compare this PBS segment from 1991 with what they are airing today. By almost any standard, the former was straight science reporting without any detectable narrative or ideological agenda. If the same kind of story were aired today, it would probably say virtually nothing about the telescopes themselves or the technology behind them, but, rather, it would emphasize the under-representation* of women and minorities in instrumentation and astronomy if not questioning the legitimacy of western (white) science itself. Indeed, almost everything that is now produced by PBS / NPR is so marinated in Critical Theory that you would be hard put to find a program that doesn’t comport with far left narratives about how unjust and awful America is and how it must be punished for its sins.
https://www.zippia.com/astronomer-jobs/demographics/https://www.zippia.com/astronomer-jobs/demographics/
Our past, as usual, is complicated, and there are enough examples of “hidden figures” in the history of science to acknowledge that, heretofore, women and minorities have not always gotten their proper due**. That said, the idea of throwing out the whole enterprise of science because of this — and pretending that American science and technology represents *nothing* but repression and exploitation — is hardly a way to create a better future for anyone, least of all talented women / people of color who are perfectly capable of excelling in this field. Moreover, while it is worthwhile to emphasize the historical and cultural underpinnings of science, it is also important to present its accomplishments and challenges in an objective, non-ideological light, and it would be nice if PBS / NPR could once again find ways to do this.
**While the editorial perspective of Sky & Telescope occasionally dives into the deep end of woke orthodoxy, it must be acknowledged that they have done some commendable work in highlighting the role of women and minorities in astronomy and (quite properly) celebrating their achievements. Who knew, and why didn’t we? But today the enterprise of science is open to anyone who has the talent and enthusiasm for it, and it’s about time.
Milt–
Glad you brought that up. (your first paragraph)
However, I would put forth the proposition; PBS only appeared to be less “political” in 1991, cuz’ they were infinitely less-obvious as to their bias.
Not to be concerned, the CCP Chinese and the Russians will wait for America to restructure and transform into a more “Equity” driven world power.
They are looking at their wrist watches right now saying: “What’s taking so long, do we have to stay in this holding pattern until it has been accomplished?”.
“Well, we will wait for as long as it takes I guess.”
https://media1.tenor.com/images/89f8c1e3d2fa4d0081e6af67ff5a78d4/tenor.gif?itemid=11174641
” least of all talented women / people of color who are perfectly capable of excelling in this field.”
Typical white male dominance, racist, colonial, repressive, Judeo /Christian Western attitude.
After the “Fundamental Transformation” (Accent on mental) this kind of observation will no longer be necessary and will be banned.
The “NEW” history going forward after the transformation will recognize and empower those who have been historically oppressed and the word “excellence” will no longer be relevant.
It really is a brave new world.
However, this will all be as a result of authoritarian power and the concept of human beings having free and fundamental Rights not bestowed upon them by government.
Should work out well.
https://www.sigma3ioc.com/post/african-american-sensibilties-in-chemestry
Did even half of what they said about ground based mirrors even come about?
“Did even half of what they said about ground based mirrors even come about?”
Oh, yes. Did you hear the reference to the Keck Foundation? Keck I and Keck II on Mauna Kea, both 10-m segmented mirrors. And there are several spin-cast single mirrors now in use, although they’re mostly 4-m class.
One thing I think they ignored in their explanation of the 50-year gap after the 200-in (that’s 5-m) Hale telescope is the fact that Hale and anything larger were limited by “seeing”. Even on excellent nights when the atmosphere is doing very little to the incoming light, it still smears light coming from a single point into a blob at least a couple of arcseconds across, so there wasn’t much point in building mirrors that could resolve smaller areas. Yes, they could see dimmer objects, but the atmosphere also contributes at least some background light even at the darkest sites. And if your already dim object has gotten smeared out over an area 10-100 times its original size, it can easily get buried in the atmospheric noise. So, yes, it was mechanically difficult to produce usable monolithic mirrors larger than Hale, but there also didn’t seem to be much point.
The big thing that has happened to ground-based astronomy that wasn’t foreseen at all in 1991 is adaptive optics. All those ways of moving the individual mirror segments around can be used in real time to compensate for what the atmosphere is doing to the light, so you can get back something close to the original resolution of your mirror. It takes computer power undreamed-of in 1991, and even then it really only works in the infrared, but it’s a big reason for the renaissance in ground-based astronomy.
Call Me Ishmael: Another component in the renaissance of ground-based astronomy that began in the 1990s was the acceptance of the idea of segmented primary mirrors. For most of the 20th centuries it was assumed that only larger mirrors would work, and the 200″ (5-meter) Hale at Palomar appeared to demonstrate the practical limit in size.
Once it was proven by the Multiple Mirror Telescope (MMT), dedicated in 1979 that a segmented mirror could do the job, telescopes like Keck began to raise funds and get built. Combined with the new technology that made it possible to make precise mirrors as big as 8-meters, ground-based astronomy saw a renaissance.
That renaissance is now ending due to the arrival of valuable low-orbit satellite constellations. The time has come to shift everything into space, where the seeing is perfect and you actually can achieve as much with much smaller mirrors, as Hubble’s 2.4-meter mirror has proved.
https://www.nao.ac.jp/en/research/telescope/subaru.html
Robert wrote: “The time has come to shift everything into space, where the seeing is perfect and you actually can achieve as much with much smaller mirrors, as Hubble’s 2.4-meter mirror has proved.”
The good news is that many telescopes have already been put in space, taking advantage of the perfect seeing and eliminating other limitations of an atmosphere, increasing the detectable frequencies, decreasing the light interference from nearby towns and cities, and increasing the viewing time to 24 hours per day, not just night time (or daytime, if you are observing the Sun).
The better news is that the James Webb Space Telescope has proved that space telescopes can be made very large, too, combining the advantages of perfect seeing with the advantages of increased light gathering and improved resolution.
________________
From the end of the PBS video:
Wasn’t the Hubble Telescope the most important telescope in this quest, in the nineties through to the launch of the James Webb telescope? Didn’t the Webb telescope produce data that made us question many of the conclusions that we had made even before the nineties and through to today?
If only we can stop making expensive government telescopes and let commercial companies make cost effective space telescopes, we may get even more big bang for our buck.