Hubble's Cosmic Journey
Release Date: April 18, 2015
Watch Date: May 18, 2023
Regardless of your feelings on Neil deGrasse Tyson, of which there are many highly varied ones, he has a nice voice. You can't really argue that. And when that nice voice is used to confidently explain anything about space, which it usually is, you can't help but want to listen. I think people even retain information better when Neil deGrasse Tyson says it. So it makes complete and perfect sense you would have him narrate a documentary about the Hubble Space Telescope, and it makes even more sense that the documentary would then turn out to be excellent.
Honestly, this documentary is so, so good. It explains the science of how the Hubble Space Telescope works, and just why having a telescope outside of Earth's atmosphere is so important to scientific progress. It does a fantastic job of explaining the struggles in engineering and funding that Hubble had to go through just to be launched into space, it's immediate dismissal by humanity due to a flaw, the epic struggle to come up with a solution and then fix it, and then the fight to, after a handful of successful trips to continue to maintain and repair it, gain funding for one last trip that would push the telescope to it's limits.
The interviews with the the scientists, whose jobs are correctly labeled this time, are detailed and emotional. These men and women had everything wrapped up in the success of this project, and knew just how much it would mean to science and the world if it went well. And they were right, so you can't help but get a little emotional with them when they hit a snag, or when they see the first successful images Hubble would send home.
As a fan of history, as someone who wants to see the human race succeed, I find a lot of joy in this documentary. As a fan of gaining knowledge, there's a lot I learned about the Hubble Space Telescope and the difficulties I didn't realize it had faced multiple times. As a lover of beautiful images, you get those too, because the natural world is amazing, and looking back in time to the birth of our universe is pretty fantastic. Bob, as a champion for American perseverance and his countrymen's inability to give up when maybe they should, found an epic story to love. So it's got a little bit for everyone, and if you're a fan of space, I cannot recommend this enough.
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