Discovery_Largest Telescope
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00:00We live in a fast-paced world where everyday things are getting smaller and smaller, but
00:12it's still the really big things that power our world and keep us moving forward in a
00:18very big way.
00:22Coming up on Really Big Things.
00:23I'm going to fly some jets.
00:25I go to NASA and learn to fly the space shuttle at the world's largest vertical motion simulator.
00:31So I'm probably going to mess this up.
00:34I climb aboard a giant blast hole driller in Sweden and find myself in an explosive
00:39situation.
00:40No one told me I was that close to the edge.
00:47And later, I search the Arizona skies for new galaxies with the world's biggest binocular
00:51telescope.
00:52I can't count the hours I spent as a kid pretending to fly jets, the takeoff, the landing, soaring
01:10through the sky, the dogfights.
01:12I was the lead and my neighbor Duke Young was my wingman.
01:16And believe me, you could not mess with the toughest fighter pilots in Cavena, California.
01:21Sorry.
01:22Well, today, a little bit of that childhood dream comes true because I'm in Mountain View,
01:28California, at the NASA Ames Research Center, where the world's largest vertical motion
01:33simulator is housed.
01:34Now, the VMS, as they call it, is used to simulate real-time flight situations.
01:39It's going to be awesome.
01:40Hello, sir.
01:41Entry pass required?
01:42Use the sidewalk.
01:43Oh, sidewalk?
01:45NASA, coming in.
01:46Daddy's here to fly some jets.
01:47That's a confident man right there.
01:48I'm going to fly some jets.
01:49All right.
01:50So I'm checking this bad boy out for the first time.
01:51I'm meeting with Dean Giovannetti, the branch chief.
01:52Dean?
01:53Hi, Matt.
01:54Welcome.
01:55Come on up.
01:56I'm there.
01:57Do I need a hard hat?
01:58No.
01:59No concussions?
02:00No.
02:01Sweet, man.
02:02How are you doing?
02:03Very good.
02:04Good to see you.
02:05Nice to see you.
02:06Welcome to the VMS.
02:07Yeah, it is pretty big.
02:19It's about 10 stories tall and about 40 feet wide, and the simulator cab travels up and
02:25down in the entire volume.
02:27Why is it so big?
02:28A simulation typically starts with this cab being in the middle of this building.
02:33As you fly around, the simulator moves around
02:37to replicate those accelerations that you would feel
02:40if you were in the aircraft.
02:42Now, here's the trick, and this is where the size comes in.
02:45After you complete that turn, what we have to do
02:48is bring this machine back to its center position
02:52without you knowing about it.
02:54Why?
02:55Because that's not what you feel
02:56when you're flying a real aircraft.
02:58Gotcha.
02:59So I'm gonna feel like I'm 200 miles west
03:01when really I'm two feet to the east.
03:02That's right.
03:03Did you know I really want to fly that today?
03:05I think we can arrange a ride for you.
03:07What am I gonna be doing?
03:08I believe this is set up to simulate the space shuttle.
03:11So at the end of today, when it's all said and done,
03:13do you think I'd be able to fly a space shuttle?
03:15I think so.
03:16I'm excited.
03:17All right, I'm gonna go talk some more about this bad boy.
03:19Thanks, man.
03:20Good luck.
03:21♪♪
03:26Hi, you must be Matt.
03:27I am.
03:28This thing is awesome.
03:29What was your name?
03:30My name's Bruce Spill.
03:31Bruce, and what do you do here?
03:32I'm the shop manager.
03:33We provide all the mechanical and maintenance support
03:35for the VMS.
03:36We're in motion.
03:37Bring it back to dock, please.
03:38We're bringing it back to its dock position
03:43so that we can roll out the drawbridge
03:46and enter the simulator.
03:47Sweet.
03:48So I get to drive it?
03:49You get to drive it.
03:50Patience, big man.
03:51First, we got to show you about this machine
03:52and let you know what's going on
03:53before we get you in there.
03:54That makes sense.
03:55Okay, so obviously we're underneath the machine now,
03:57right?
03:58That's correct.
03:59You know, how does it move?
04:00Is this all hydraulic-based?
04:02First, we start with the base of the simulator cab,
04:05and then that is attached to what we call our gimbal system,
04:10which gives us pitch and roll.
04:14Pitch is nose up and nose down.
04:17Okay.
04:19Roll is wing to wing.
04:21It's mounted to this blue cone, which gives us our yaw.
04:25So pitch, roll, and yaw,
04:26are they the different motions you need to simulate flight?
04:29So planes could actually turn all those different ways.
04:32Absolutely.
04:33Like Top Gun.
04:34Yes, exactly.
04:35We got something else to look at?
04:36Yes, down here.
04:37Watch your head.
04:38Watch your head.
04:39You stop here for a minute, Matt.
04:42Let's take a look at...
04:43This is where we have DC motors
04:45that run the lateral carriage and the room.
04:48Let me show you how this thing moves.
04:49Hey, Pete, go ahead and jog lateral.
04:53Look at that thing go.
04:55How far does it go this way?
04:56A full 40 feet in lateral.
04:57Do you have a story?
04:58Like, has anyone ever puked on this thing?
05:00There's been a few.
05:01Really?
05:02The number one rule, though, is
05:03if you puke in the simulator, you clean it up.
05:06I would think so.
05:11Simulator's tilt and lateral movements are impressive,
05:13but the vertical lift is really amazing.
05:16Hold up a minute, Matt.
05:18Yeah.
05:19Right here, what we have here
05:20is I wanted to show you the vertical drive system.
05:22Hey, Pete, go ahead and jog it vertically.
05:27What these columns do,
05:28you've got two columns on the beam,
05:30and that's what drives the beam vertically.
05:33So there's an outer tube and an inner tube.
05:36The inner tube is filled with nitrogen,
05:38and that supports the mass of this machine
05:41so that the motors don't have to work so hard.
05:43What's up with those chains?
05:46Yeah, that's the catenary system,
05:47and that's what provides all of the electronic inputs
05:51and the hydraulics for the motion base,
05:54and it allows it to follow that cab wherever it goes.
05:58It's pretty much like an umbilical cord.
06:02Next, Bruce and I head down to the heart
06:04of the powerful vertical drive system.
06:06Nice.
06:07So we're in the pits now, huh?
06:08We're in the pit, VMS pit.
06:10This is where you've got eight vertical drive motors.
06:15They're 150 horsepower each,
06:17and that's what drives the vertical rack.
06:18We've got 600 horsies over here, 600 over here.
06:21That's right.
06:22Total of 1,200 taking us.
06:23That's right.
06:24And since the nitrogen is taking the load of this machine,
06:27it allows these motors to perform an extreme quickness.
06:29That's how you get the G-force?
06:30Right.
06:31Matt, here's the brakes.
06:32Okay.
06:33They're disc brakes,
06:34very similar to what's on your car.
06:35When we energize them,
06:36they actually open up
06:37and it allows the machine to work,
06:38and then for any reason that there was a failure,
06:39they would fail in the braked position.
06:40We don't want to use these brakes, right?
06:41Not if you don't have to.
06:42Have there ever been any, like, accidents
06:43that you've had to deal with
06:44that you've had to deal with?
06:45No.
06:46No.
06:47No.
06:48No.
06:49No.
06:50No.
06:51No.
06:52No.
06:53No.
06:54No.
06:55No.
06:56No.
06:57No.
06:58No.
06:59No.
07:00No.
07:01No.
07:02No.
07:03All right.
07:04Didn't you have any accidents?
07:05Anyone ever been hurt on a simulator?
07:06The VMS has a perfect safety record.
07:07See, again,
07:08all that stuff's about to change.
07:09I'm telling you.
07:10Yeah, we won't let you do that.
07:11Let's go.
07:12All right.
07:13So this is obviously
07:14where you keep all the other cabs, right?
07:15Yeah.
07:16This is our iCAB area.
07:17Different cabs are configured differently
07:18depending on what type of sim
07:19you're going to do.
07:20The red is the fighter.
07:21The blue,
07:22we use for vertical lift rotorcraft.
07:23The endcab can be set up
07:24for a helicopter and then three or four days later we've switched it over to be
07:28a lunar lander. How do you take this cab and transport it all the way over there?
07:33We lift it up with the overhead crane and put it on this portable cart and
07:39then motor it around to the open door of the VMS and then it's craned from there
07:45up onto the motion base. Nice. All right Matt here we are ready for your
07:50flight. This is your simulator that you're gonna fly Matt. This is what this
07:55is one of our advanced models. What is this? Believe it or not this is what they
08:01trained all the pilots back in World War II. Are you kidding me? No this is exactly
08:05a SingerLink simulator. It's a real historic piece. It was a state-of-the-art
08:09at the time. It's worked with bellows and when you got in there you were in a
08:13dark environment. They used to call them the blue canoe. Get in see how it fits.
08:16Are you kidding me? I'll get in this thing. This is not gonna be pretty. Most
08:21pilots weren't quite your size. Little horse jockeys probably fit well in this.
08:26I actually fit quite nice so I close the door. How do I look? All right so what I
08:31need I need to put a quarter in this thing some tokens to get it going.
08:34Fighter ace mentality. Fat guy in a little plane. It's all right we'll fix it.
08:42It's exactly what we didn't want to happen. Yeah it's okay it's a little bit
08:46turbulence. See how quick we respond to changes. Goose you got me? We're going down.
08:51Oh my gosh seriously that's all fun and games and stuff but I'm tired of
09:00breaking things. I want to fly a real simulator. All right it's time now let's
09:04go back to the real thing. Shaft in my crank. I'm feeling well. As anxious as I
09:10was to fly the simulator I still had one last step of preparation.
09:14Hello. How you doing? Good how are you? I'm Matt your pilot. Okay good. You gonna be the voice in my
09:19head today? Yes I will be. So the goal of this whole thing is for me to land
09:22safely? Correct. That's probably not gonna happen but we'll have a good time. All
09:27right so this is the control room correct? Right so this is usually where
09:30the researchers hang out so as soon as they do a run and maybe they didn't like
09:35the way they did the run or something happened that they weren't really sure
09:39we'll try it again and there's different parameters that they can take
09:42a look at. They had a flat tire you know. So I can actually land this thing the
09:47simulator too hard and have a flat tire? Right so when a pilot's looking he's got
09:51to remember what speed he's landing on. He's got to make sure the gear is down.
09:54I'd like to start if I could if it's okay with you like do an easy one just
09:58kind of get a feel for it. Right. Then maybe do like realistic where you throw
10:02little things at me and then I just want you to throw everything at me. Can you do
10:06that? Yes we can. So like what are the common crashes like crashing into a tree
10:09or the ground or missing? Just touching too hard if you touch too hard the gear
10:14will break. Sometimes depending on the weather conditions they land before the
10:18actual runway. I'm a competitor I think I'm gonna do good on the easy one I
10:22think I'll do an okay job on the second one and then the last one I'm just I'm
10:26gonna bring it home hard sister. I'm gonna do my best but I'm gonna have a
10:29blast. Who's gonna fly with me? Bo Bobco is an ex-astronaut actually. I'm gonna be flying with an astronaut?
10:34Yes you're gonna be flying with an astronaut. Sweet thank you very much.
10:37You're welcome. Bring it on Bo I'm coming in. Thank you. Okay. I've been waiting the
10:43entire day for this moment actually my entire life my childhood dream comes
10:47true now I'm very nervous very excited go time. Matt you ready to fly? I'm ready sir.
10:53Let's go. Alright. Yes. Are we ready? Ready buddy. My beautiful wife my
11:02beautiful baby. I don't fly without him. Put you right there. I'm like Cougar. You ever see
11:09Top Gun? Oh yeah. Remember when Cougar loses it at the end? Yeah. They might call me
11:14Cougar. In a few days when the astronauts train in the same module it'll be Monday
11:18through Friday for three weeks straight. A little more intense than what Bo and I
11:22will be doing. Alright I got the lights illuminating the runway I can see the
11:25runway off in the distance. Good. We're at 10k. 20 degrees. Alright I don't really
11:30understand the pedals. We're steering when you get on the ground. Geez I'm
11:33nervous I didn't think I'd be this nervous. Alright what's your call sign?
11:36Just call me Bo. Alright I'm big sexy. Okay. Cockpit's ready. Computer is ready.
11:43Operate. Are we in flight? Yeah we're in flight. Hey I heard you. So you see on the right
11:48hand side 7,000. Yes sir. 6,500. We're going fast we've already lost 4,000
11:53feet. Yes a mile. Here's 5,000 miles to go. Now be honest with me am I doing
11:58anything right now? You're not doing anything and shouldn't be doing anything. Now I'm
12:01flying it. Okay. Okay we start to come up. 2,000. I decluttered. Okay you can see the
12:07runway out there in front of us. I've decluttered and the only thing that went
12:10away is my runway view. Everything else is still there. That's fine that's fine. Now you can see
12:13that we're a little bit off here to the right. 260 we're at 100 feet. 100 feet Bo
12:18we're at 50. We're going too fast. It's too fast. Bo! There we go. That was a smooth
12:23landing for you. We're not we're not there. Here we are now. Wow this is so
12:26real. Aren't we too far to the right? Yes. So now you're steering with your feet
12:33right? Yes. Was that a smooth landing? Is that about as good as it can get? The
12:37landing was smooth I was off to the right. Okay I put my feet on the brakes.
12:40So we've gone through the first one. So this next one am I on my own? Yeah. I'm
12:45changing my call sign. I'm old Phantom Tiger now. Old Phantom Tiger is
12:50ready to go. Cockpit's ready. All right. 9,500. You're off to the right a little bit
12:55with your airplane symbol. Move it to the left a little bit so that you'll go
12:59over the diamond. I just can't find it Bo. Damn it. Tilt the stick to the left.
13:04Okay. Okay. It's a feeling. I don't have it. Don't over correct. Don't over correct.
13:09I don't have it. I'm going down Bo. We're at 3,500 feet. Yes. Stay with me. Stay with me
13:15babe. Okay now start the pre-flare. Here they come. Start the pre-flare. I'm
13:18drawing a blank. I don't remember what the pre-flare is. I don't know what I'm
13:21supposed to do. Oh God. They're saying you're low. All right. Now you're very low.
13:25Let me take it. No I got it. I got it. Trust me Bo. Okay you're gonna land in the
13:29overrun. Pull it up. A little bit. A little bit. Sensitive. Sensitive. Come down. Yeah.
13:34Come down. What happened? We hit too hard. I failed? Well it didn't land right. How
13:41come I didn't feel it? It just won't let you do that. But what happened was you
13:45you have to do that pre-flare smoother and on the inner glide slope you know
13:49you have to bring the nose up. All right this one will be perfect. I'm changing my
13:52call sign the last one. Call sign now is big thing. And you think it's the call
13:56sign that's doing this right? It's the call sign. It's not me. I mean come on to
13:59be honest. So you want to do one more challenging one? God bless you. All right
14:04throw the book at me. Give us a 5,000. Yeah there we go. What is it?
14:11Is this clouds? Yes. Okay this one's gonna have a ceiling and nav offset and you're
14:16going to Zaragoza. Zaragoza is in Spain. Really? It's one of the emergency
14:21exits. Think computer's ready. Big thing is ready. Cockpit's ready. All right. You know work
14:27really hard to keep it all lined up. Gotcha. Why is this harder for me? Is she
14:31throwing something different at me? No. Okay here we're coming up for pre-flare. You can't see
14:35anything but you still got to do the pre-flare. All right there we go.
14:39Okay keep it rotating. Keep it rotating. Stay with me boo. Don't let me down. Okay put it up on
14:46the horizon. Put it on the horizon. Don't let me down sweet boo. There you go. Nose down.
14:52Nose down all the way. Yeah. Okay steer with you rudders. Don't hate us Stella.
14:57Don't hate. Just cuz I conquered your little mission here. Oh I didn't give you
15:03the whole thing. That was fun. Oh yeah it's always fun. Would you fly with me?
15:10Maybe not yet. You could be my wingman anytime. What an unbelievable experience
15:17to bring the space shuttle in for a landing. The fulfillment of a lifetime
15:21dream. Oh well all in a day's work for this TV astronaut. I've always
15:27appreciated them but today I got a newfound respect for our astronauts and
15:31pilots because that was very difficult. That's exactly what they do here at the
15:35world's largest vertical motion simulator. They take aerospace vehicles
15:39astronauts and pilots. They put them up there in real-time worst-case scenarios
15:43and they train them to overcome them. I want to thank my crew. Hey dream come
15:47true for me. Thank you very much. That was awesome. Thank you very much.
15:53Today I'm just outside of Gjallarbre, Sweden which is almost a hundred miles
15:58north of the Arctic Circle. Pretty cold. Smack dab in the middle of the Ikedic
16:03copper mine. Right here in front of me embedded in the rock surface is millions
16:08of tons of copper, silver and sometimes even gold. The question I have is how do
16:14they loosen it out of the rock to transport it out of here? As of now I
16:17don't know the answer to that question but I promise you I will find the big
16:21machine to show us how it's done. Ladies and gentlemen strap on your hardhats.
16:26I'm going in. Ikedic is one of Europe's largest and most modern open-pit copper
16:34mines. Stretching the length of 1.9 miles it's over 1,200 feet deep and more
16:40than a half a mile wide. Put into production in 1968 the mine has produced
16:45more than 440 million tons of copper ore. Mining operation starts with a drill
16:53pattern over a flat bedrock surface. 60 foot holes are drilled and then filled
17:00with explosives. After the ore is blasted they use electric shovels or
17:05wheel loaders to load the ore onto the trucks which take the ore to be crushed.
17:11The machine that drills through the bedrock is called the blast hole driller.
17:16This three million dollar big machine is the essential tool in the mining process.
17:23So this is the blast hole drill huh? Looks pretty sweet.
17:28See what kind of manpower I could offer. See how this bad boy works. I'm here to
17:33speak with the drill operator Christina Nielsen. One of the many Swedish women
17:38who work here at the mine. But how you doing I'm Matt. Christina. Christina. So
17:43what's your job here? I'm drilling the hole. And how deep do you have to drill?
17:47About 17-18 meters. With a rotary drive of approximately a hundred and ninety
17:54five horsepower the operator positions the drill rig to drill the hole at the
17:58correct spot using a continuous circular motion of the bit in order to break the
18:03rock at the bottom of the hole. So show me how does this thing work? Are you
18:07drilling right now? No I don't really know but I have to hoist up. You have to
18:13hoist up? Okay. We have to move to the next hole. The rotary drill creates holes
18:18according to the drill pattern. This usually consists of two to three hundred
18:22holes. And now we're gonna move to this hole. Okay so we're going to 134. Yeah. You
18:28want me to drive there? Yeah you can drive. Okay sweet. FYI everything is
18:33written in Swedish so I'm probably gonna mess this up. Okay so I want to go this
18:38way first? You have to turn it this side that way. Okay I got you. Yeah. One up one
18:44down? Yeah. This one down and this one up.
18:52Very nice. Very nice. The cool thing about this machine is that it has a built-in
18:56GPS system that allows the operator to find the location of the next hole.
19:03The blast hole drill is powered by 6,000 volts of electricity. Fed to it by a
19:11cable that starts at the top of the mine a third of a mile away. Which probably
19:16makes it the largest extension cord in the world. Now both back? Yep that's right.
19:24Okay I can see everything just on this GPS system. Now granted I don't know if
19:29I'm running over a small varmint, a reindeer, a moose or possibly even
19:33driving off of a cliff. Okay we're almost there.
19:46Middle to the left.
19:52Okay that's good. That's good? Yeah we can start drilling here but first we have to
19:56send down the, that is in the level, the machine is level. You put this that way.
20:03To Utskunjuden. Utskunjuden. Before the drilling can begin, four hydraulic
20:09pedestals stabilize the big machine. You have to release the brake. The Hesbron?
20:14Yeah. And you feel when it reached the ground. The drill uses a three-cone bit
20:23with tungsten buttons protruding from the steel matrix. Okay now the bit on
20:28the ground. Okay. And then you have to start to rotate. Okay. And this. From
20:35Manster to Hager. Höger. Höger. Yeah.
20:43You can rotate a little faster.
20:53Good, good, good. Can we ever overheat? Did you ever see the movie Armageddon with
20:58Ben Affleck? Bruce Willis? No. Where they drill too deep and it blows up? No? No it can't happen here.
21:05Well where I was going with that is can we ever drill too much or too hard and break it?
21:09No. No? No. So you just drill and that's it we're drilling? Yeah we're drilling now. So we
21:15can talk about like the Dodgers or the Huskies? Yeah. I leave Christina to
21:21ponder my favorite sports teams for the hour it's gonna take her to drill the
21:24hole. Meanwhile I want to see an explosion. Coming up. Do you ever get
21:29nervous working around all this firepower? No. I do. I finally find my
21:34explosion. That was awesome. Then each of these mirrors collects a million times
21:39more light than the pupil of your eye. I discover how this big telescope sees
21:44deep into space.
21:51Well I finally made it to the blast field where I'm meeting Harry Johansson
21:58and Anna Kriegsman. What are you guys doing here?
22:01We're measuring the hole. You're measuring the hole because you're gonna blast it, you're
22:04gonna explode it? Yes. How deep is the hole? This hole is 16 and 5. So 16 meters so
22:11about 47 and 48 feet. So this is all touchscreen? Is this like your GPS? And
22:18then what? How does this work? Is there a bomb at the end of this? No. Every
22:23single hole in the field is measured and the ones that are found to be too short
22:26are revisited by the blast hole drill. First you put that down then what? We
22:31measure it if it's too short. We paint it red. How short is too short? About a half
22:38a meter. What are you doing now? You're measuring it? Yeah we measure all the holes and then we are going to get two
22:45boosters down in the hole. So you're gonna get two dynamite sticks and put them down there?
22:48When do you do that? Two. Can we do it now? Yeah, we can do it now.
22:55Dyno Prime 1.7. How does it blow up? We do it like this. This is the lighter to the hole bomb.
23:02Okay. So we put it in. You're gonna put the lighter in? Yeah.
23:07Like this. Kind of like tying your shoe right? Yeah. Oh wow. Now it's ready.
23:12Do you ever get nervous working around all this firepower? No. No? I do.
23:18Once the hole depth has been checked, two boosters primarily made of TNT are
23:23placed a half a meter apart above the bottom of the hole. The boosters are
23:28ignited by thin plastic tubes filled with powder that burn very fast when
23:32ignited by the trigger. The tubes are interconnected in the blast field
23:38staggering the sequence of explosions. The boosters ignite the one ton of
23:43liquid explosive that eventually fills the hole.
23:50Am I good? Yeah.
23:57No, I think I messed up. I think so too. I did, huh? You do it like this. Loser!
24:05Glad I could help. Thank you. Very glad I could help. So how long have you been
24:11working here? For one year. One year? Yeah. Your friend inside, she's been working here for three years.
24:17Yeah. What's better, doing this or up there? What do you like better? I think this is
24:23better because you can be outside. I think this is better too. Do you get to
24:27blow it up? Yes. How do you do it, like? You wish. Like this. Really? Yeah.
24:36Are you gonna blow it up today? Yeah. What time? Not this one, at the bottom. I'm gonna go to that one.
24:41Will you let me blow it up? Maybe. It's a...
24:47Aloha, my friend. Hello. That's hello in Swedish, right? Oh, yeah. What was your name?
24:58Perona. Perona? Yes. Nice. What are you doing here? We're loading the explosive.
25:04The charging of the hole is carried out by the explosives company. After the hole
25:09is filled, it's indicated by blue paint on a wooden peg above the hole.
25:17The liquid explosive that fills the holes, and looks a lot like white porridge, is called
25:21Titan. It's an emulsion of a mixture of solid ammonium nitrate pills and fuel
25:27oil.
25:29That's awesome. Shower it up. Let it roll. There you go. It requires a booster to
25:37ensure reliable detonation. It's non-corrosive and harmless by itself.
25:41Good news and bad news. Good news is the sun is even fired up about the
25:45explosion. It's starting to peak over the horizon. The bad news is it's
25:49attracted all these mosquitoes. Look at my jacket. It's unbelievable. I've never
25:54been in a mosquito mob like this. The other good news is the young lady we
25:57met earlier, Anna, this is her father. How are you doing, sir? Hello there. What's
26:01your name? Otto. Otto? Yes. And you're Anna's dad? Yes. What's your job here? I'm the
26:07blasting manager. The blasting manager? Yeah. Speaking of, we're standing in the
26:11middle of what the hole's gonna be blasted today, right? Yes, absolutely.
26:14Okay, the obvious. Why so many bugs? Well, it's north of Sweden.
26:20Normally weather, normally bugs. And you just let them crawl in your face like
26:24that? It doesn't bother you? Of course. Am I soft because it bothers me? So how does the
26:29whole procedure work here today? Is this ready to go? Not really. Okay, what do we
26:33need to do still? We still have to connect these wires or hoses, really. Okay.
26:38When I press the trigger, I'm gonna ignite a powder in the cord that's gonna
26:43travel at a speed of almost 7,000 feet per second. So some of them, I was
26:47watching Anna do it earlier, the farthest we got was the stick and the
26:52the red thing. What are these? These are just for loose material, don't go down to
26:59the hole. Okay, that makes sense. Before charging. So the rocks I was throwing
27:03down the holes earlier, is that bad? Not really. And then how long does the blast
27:08take? Is it boom and it's done? No, it's gonna take three, four seconds. Three, four
27:13seconds? Yeah. Now will it, I mean obviously it's in the ground so it's the
27:17ground's gonna come up, is it gonna blast out the side of the mountain or anything?
27:20No, you're not supposed to see so much. Okay, so it'll blast up, right? Like an
27:25earthquake. Like an earthquake? Will the ground shake? A little bit. So when we
27:30push the button, will all the ground explode at once or will it go in like
27:33layers, like when they blow up a hotel? One by one. One, like one hole by one hole?
27:38Yeah. So like firecrackers? 17 milliseconds between the holes. Why do
27:43you do it like that? Then less vibration. Less what? Vibrations. Less vibrations?
27:49Yes, in the village nearby. That makes sense. Since you're the blasting
27:53manager, you call the shots. Can I push the button and do the blast today? I
27:58suppose so. I love you. No problem. I'll see you at the blast. Thanks for letting
28:03me, uh, I'm excited. I'll fix it. Thank you. This is ridiculous. The copper
28:10produced here at the Itik mine is in high demand. The only way to remove the
28:14ore from the rock is to bury hundreds of tons of explosives into the deep holes
28:19created by the massive drill and then blast them out. The entire day has been
28:24building around this Big Bang and the time is finally here. I have the trigger
28:29right here in my hands. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all
28:33ages, this story will self-destruct in three, two, one.
28:50Once the bedrock has been blasted, the loose ore is loaded up into the trucks
28:55to be crushed. The process starts all over again. Oh my god, that was awesome.
29:04Oh my gosh, I just got blown up. For decades, astronomers have gravitated to
29:10Arizona for the clear dark skies, the dry climate, and the accessible high
29:15altitude areas. In fact, this region contains the largest number of
29:19observatories exploring the universe. The king of them all sits on top of Mount
29:25Graham just outside of Safford, Arizona. They call it the Large Binocular
29:29Telescope, also known as LBT. So up I'm gonna go, 30 miles and over 10,000 feet
29:36through 40 degree temperature change, twists and turns, uneven ground, and more
29:43switchbacks than I can count.
29:55The LBT took 10 years and cost 120 million dollars to build. Its commercial
30:06power bill alone can run $90,000 a month. Its location at 10,500 feet in
30:13elevation is so remote that maintenance workers have to travel 40 miles just to
30:18take out the trash. But all of that is a small price to pay for the potential to
30:22discover new planets, new galaxies, and just maybe new forms of life. So this is
30:28my first time inside and I'm actually gonna be able to get up close with the
30:33LBT. I'm very excited. And this must be John, my astronomer. Hi Matt, welcome to
30:38LBT. Thank you very much, sir. So this is LBT.
30:47First of all, how big is it? It's a binocular telescope, means it has two
30:51mirrors. Each of those mirrors is 8.4 meters in diameter or 333 inches across.
30:56And when you say mirrors, where are the mirrors? The mirrors are right here. This is a mirror?
31:01Yeah. So if I looked into it I'd see myself looking back? Indeed. So how do the
31:08mirror come into play? So astronomers are looking for two things in life. The first
31:11things astronomers want is a big collecting area so they can get the light
31:15from some very faint fuzzy object on the other side of the universe. Okay. So each
31:20of these mirrors collects a million times more light than the pupil of your
31:25eye on a dark night. All this is is one really big digital camera. So what's the
31:31difference between your camera up there and that camera right there? Alright, so
31:36that camera looks like it has a lens that's about 80 millimeters across. So
31:41this one is 8,000 millimeters across. Really? So there's a factor of a few
31:48hundred thousand more sensitivity. So since this camera makes me at 10 pounds,
31:54will your camera make me look like I'm 600,000 pounds? It's not that kind of
31:59sensitivity, but we can see you if you're a lot farther away. Okay, that was
32:02close. So tell me more about these mirrors. I mean, what makes them so
32:06special? They're big, but the challenge to making a big mirror is not making it
32:11too heavy. This mirror has a honeycomb structure underneath in the glass. If
32:15that mirror was solid glass, it would weigh 60 tons. But then we'd have to make
32:19the telescope four times bigger in order to support all the weight. So the inside
32:24of this is hollow, so this mirror only weighs 18 tons. Only 18 tons? Only 18. It's a
32:29lightweight mirror. Why is this one so special? What can this do that no other
32:36telescope can do? Okay, we talked about the first thing astronomers want, which
32:40is collecting area. The next thing astronomers want is resolution, sharpness
32:45of the image. Like HD of TV? Exactly. Okay. So the reason that we put these two
32:51mirrors side-by-side on the same mounting is so that we can take the
32:55light from both of them, bring it together here in the center of the
32:58telescope, and then form an image that's using the light from both sides. Can you
33:02ever run into something that's too big for your mirrors? Back to HD, you can
33:06never have a TV that's too good. Okay, so I actually feel like I'm starting to get
33:09there a little bit. You look up at the sky, all the images come on the mirror.
33:14From the mirror it goes into... Prime focus camera. Prime focus camera. The prime
33:19focus camera feeds the signal to the computer. Exactly. I see a million objects.
33:24I mean, can you show me, like up close and personal, what all these things are?
33:27Because, I mean, we've just covered two parts of millions of things on this thing.
33:32Yeah, okay. So I think the next thing to do is we can go downstairs and look at how
33:36the telescope moves. This structure here, this big curve structure, is the bearing
33:46for the elevation motion. So this whole 600 tons of telescope above us is
33:51floating on a 60 micron thick layer of high-pressure oil that's about the
33:56thickness of a hair, and the whole telescope floats on that. That doesn't
34:01seem like a lot of oil. It's not a lot of oil, and this big curve structure here is
34:06machined so it's so precise that it won't rub as it slides across that thin
34:11layer of oil. How do you guys, how could you possibly get that precise? You've got to
34:16have lots of friends that are engineers. And then tucked in there underneath is
34:21the motor. That motor, even though it's very big, is only a three horsepower
34:24motor. In fact, if we took off the motor and released the brakes, we could move it
34:28by hand with just the two of us pushing on it. What about these huge power cores
34:32that I'm seeing? What are those for? So there's power coming onto the telescope,
34:36then the big ducts are ventilation air. The honeycomb structure of the mirror,
34:41besides keeping it lightweight, also lets us blow air inside and keep it at
34:46ambient temperature. What's ambient temperature? The temperature that the
34:49outside air is. If the telescope is warmer than outside and we open the dome,
34:53then we get lots of convection currents coming up off the mirror, just like you
34:57see convection off a hot asphalt highway in the summertime. So that'll
35:02blur our image. So we want all the steel structure, all the mirror, everything in
35:06this room to be exactly the same temperature as outside air when we're
35:10working at night. Okay, moving on. All right, let's go around the front.
35:19All right, so this center structure of the telescope is a lot of big pipes that
35:23brace the two sides to make it stiff. So these are all the bones holding the
35:28mirror exactly still? Exactly. And because we have this big mass that has such a
35:33high precision motion, we have these big water tanks here that we use to make
35:38fine adjustments in the balance. Like a submarine. Yeah. It's actually a pretty
35:42amazing thing because you have 600 tons of a telescope and you move it with the
35:48little oil and a little bit of water. Exactly. It's a pretty amazing thing.
36:02Okay, so now I'm entering the control room, which is where all the astronomers
36:06spend their days and nights compiling the data that they get from the
36:09telescope. In other words, this is where all the smartest scientists in the world
36:14hang out. I should fit in just fine. Dr. Richard Green. Hey, Ryan. Hi, I'm Dr. Matt Rogers.
36:20Very glad to meet you. How's it going? Good. How's it going with you? I'm doing fantastic. I've met a lot of really cool people.
36:27They've taught me a lot. I've seen some awesome things. What are you looking at
36:30here? I'm looking at the first light image that we took with this telescope
36:36and it's fantastic. It's like a science appetizer. It's telling us what's
36:41gonna happen in the future here. Really? So this is looking at a supercharged
36:45galaxy like our own Milky Way. So what's exciting about this galaxy to us is that
36:53this has this big black stripe in the middle that you can see. That's dust.
36:58Dust makes cold dense clouds and that's where baby stars are born. What do you
37:04think is gonna happen 10 years from now? What are we gonna know and see? Is it just
37:07gonna be outrageous? We can't even fathom it right now? That's been the
37:11experience with other telescopes. Somebody comes and discovers something
37:15completely unexpected that blows you away, that changes your whole idea about
37:21time and space in the universe. For astronomers that's magic. So this, the
37:27theory is we could look deep enough and see what happened before we were here? Oh
37:31for sure. The light, the light that has left its object before the solar system
37:37was born, when we look back to the days of the early universe, it's our time
37:42machine. So you're gonna actually see and record what happened a hundred million
37:46years ago? We're going to see and record what happened nine and ten billion years
37:52ago. So if we're looking back you could actually see how it ended up but you
37:56can't look at like time frames of life right? We want to try because we can make
38:02these slices in time by reconstructing the third dimension from the start of
38:06the universe. So we slice up the universe into time slices. I'm going
38:13back into time. You are. Dr. Green are you there? Wow that's some deep stuff. It is
38:20and that's what excites us about this place is it not only is such a great
38:26technical achievement but it really allows us to explore the limits of our
38:31physical imaginations and try to understand the universe we've been
38:34placed in. Fantastic. I wish I would have taken your class. Appreciate it. I would
38:39have got a C-plus. C? Not a D-minus. All right doctor I'm gonna go check out some more
38:43stuff. Sounds good. Thank you.
38:57This evening the families of the employees are invited to get an
39:01exclusive look at the long binocular telescope. So it takes approximately six
39:06minutes for the doors to open. Behind us is for ventilation obviously it's
39:10beautiful but the real scene is up here because that's where the telescope faces
39:14to obviously see the stars and get all the light. This is beautiful or what my
39:18friend? Yeah. Holy beard how are you? Look at that thing. So what are you expecting
39:23to see from this because you got to be excited about the LBT. Yeah I like I hope
39:30that we'll find another earth because that would just be so cool.
39:34Excuse me. Yeah. Hi what's your name? Dolores. Dolores I'm Matt. Hi Matt. How excited are you
39:39about the world's largest telescope? It's phenomenal. It's the last one that they're
39:43gonna put it on a mountain in the continental United States. Sir what's
39:46your name? Richard Brina. Richard I'm Matt Rogers with Discovery Channel. I'm doing
39:50good I'm excited really excited about three things the the LBT. Yes. Your hat
39:55and your mustache. What do you expect that we'll find from this machine? Gosh I
40:03don't know. Ponder with me. Wow. What do you got? Not a thing. Just awestruck really.
40:15I'm glad we had this talk. Thank you. Thank you very much. If you told me the
40:20doors would open and I would be looking at sheer beauty like this I wouldn't
40:23have believed you. In all my 28 years that is the most beautiful scene I've ever seen.
40:28Unbelievable. Star of light, star of right. First star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might. Have this wish I wish tonight.
40:42You know it's pretty humbling as well as inspiring to be in the presence of such
40:47forward thinking and groundbreaking science. That's exactly what they've
40:51created here at Mount Graham. And with the LBT size and advanced technology
40:55astronomers will be able to explore a deeper and clearer view of the cosmos
40:59that has ever been seen. One of the astronomers I met here told me an
41:03interesting quote by Galileo. All truths are easy to understand once they're
41:08discovered. The point is to discover them. I guess big observations realize big
41:15ideas.
41:17Okay it's unbelievable there's like bugs infested everywhere. Oh my god this is
41:27not good. Dolores, you mean the world to me. We're going down. My god we're going down.
41:36Punch out, punch out. We're going down. I broke the steering wheel. My right tire is flat so what does
41:43that mean for me when I'm in the air? Now is it a bad thing that I'm coming in a
41:46little sideways? Straighten out. I gotta straighten out. Oh I don't feel safe. Give
41:49me my barf bag Bo.