We are given the opportunity to carry some music on board, tapes to play in a pocket stereo player. And there’s a song called the Southern Cross by Cosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Horizon: Riding the Stack, Frederick Hauck, shuttle commander, BBC 1987
Morton Thiokol, Utah. The first in a series of tests at the redesigned solid rocket. Horizon: The Diary of Discovery, BBC 1988
They are using a dummy to test a new escape system. ibid.
A revolution in astronomy ... This is the Hubble Space Telescope. Horizon: The Sharpest Show of the Universe, BBC 1990
The cost will now be several billion dollars. ibid.
Two stars: the space telescope will distinguish them clearly. ibid.
Is there anyone out there? ibid.
Marshall’s design called for the finest mirrors ever made. ibid.
The [Hubble] telescope’s computer has very little memory. ibid.
NASA Goddard will have control over an expected fifteen years of operation. ibid.
The [Hubble] telescope will tell us how far away such object are; just how far back in time, and so measure the age of the universe. ibid.
Five instruments, and by the end of 1985 all the instruments have been installed. ibid.
The improved camera won’t be ready until 1993. ibid.
NASA’s promise – a window on the universe; it turns out our view is blurred. Horizon: Small Problem with the Mirror, BBC 1991
Hot dark matter makes the clusters of galaxies far too big to match the observable universe. It was bad news. The other alternatives weren’t as attractive as the already observed neutrinos. So if hot dark matter wasn’t the answer, what was? 1984 was the year of cold dark matter. Horizon: Of Big Bangs, Stick Men and Galactic Holes, BBC 1991
The Cosmic Background Explorer – Cobi – sent up by NASA a few months before Space Telescope was launched. Its mission to search for the earliest signs of structure in the echoes of the Big Bang. Horizon: Here Be Monsters, BBC 1993
It was soon after the telescope was launched that NASA admitted to a blunder. Ten years before by a simple mistake with a measuring instrument the mirror had been ground to the wrong prescription. Horizon: Hubble’s Vision, BBC 1994
Science is often not the tiny progress towards truth that people think. The past frontiers of science are strewn with half-formed ideas and temporary lash-ups of equipment. These graduate students are Phds and they are building apparatus that could lead to a revolution in our understanding of science ... To pick up radiation from the edges of space. Horizon: Whispers of Creation, BBC 1994
The history of the universe is written by cosmologists. And one of these biggest question marks at the moment is what happened just after the Big Bang? ibid.
For the cosmologists Cobi signalled a revolution. ibid.
The idea is that at the beginning there was just a soup of mass and energy existing at a single point. Then sub-atomic particles separated out from the energy. There was now a universe with tiny irregularities of mass called quantum fluctuations. Scientists believe that somehow these fluctuations grew to become the ripples on the background radiation. And it was those ripples that allowed gravity to get to work to form the galaxies. ibid.
Jerry Linenger was the fourth American astronaut to join the Russians on Mir ... Mir has been lived in almost continuously since she was launched in 1986. Horizon: Mir Mortals, BBC 1998
In billions of years’ time if you look out into the night sky you may see nothing. Absolute darkness. A new discovery about the fate of the universe has sent scientists in turmoil and challenged our understanding of the fundamental laws of physics. Horizon: From Here to Infinity, BBC 1999
There had to be some unknown and mysterious energy out there in the cosmos pushing everything apart, fighting against Gravity. What could this powerful energy be? Why had it never been seen before? What generates it, and where was it hiding? The theorists’ extraordinary conclusion was that this unknown energy came from the very vacuum of space. ibid.
In March 2000 two astronomers made an extraordinary discovery. One that is set to overturn our understanding of how the universe formed. What they discovered was a very simple relationship – a relationship between the galaxy we live in and the most destructive force in the universe – a supermassive black hole; it set the world of cosmology alight. Horizon: Super-Massive Black Holes, BBC 2000
Supermassive black holes could exist in two states: when it’s feeding, a giant black hole creates a bright burning gas disc around it. And then for some reason it stops feeding, leaving a dark deadly core lurking menacingly in the centre of the galaxy. ibid.
Perhaps black holes are an essential part of what galaxies are and how they work. ibid.
The size of the black hole in the end depends on how fast the stars are moving in the newly formed galaxy around it ... All giant black holes and their galaxies are connected from birth. ibid.
If our black hole has started feeding again, could this affect the Earth? ibid.
On 16th January 2003 the crew of the Space Shuttle Columbia waved goodbye to their families for the final time. For the seven astronauts it was a day of a lifetime’s dream fulfilled. Horizon: The Last Flight of Space Shuttle Columbia, BBC 2003
The Space Shuttle Project was in deep trouble. Many were beginning to suspect it was just a white elephant. ibid.
All that changed in 1986: ever since the Challenger disaster all those money-making projects had dried up. ibid.
At 8:44 a.m. Columbia re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere. Still everything appeared normal ... There was an unusual reading from one of the Shuttle’s many sensors ... At 9:16 the truth dawned on Mission Control – the space shuttle had been lost ... All seven on board had been killed ... What had gone wrong? ibid.
When temperatures were at their highest disaster had struck. ibid.
This video shows a piece of orange insulating foam falling off the fuel tank eighty-one seconds into the flight. ibid.
A growing number of people believe that those astronauts did not need to die. And that despite the damage they could have been brought back to Earth alive. ibid.
It’s over forty years since man first went into space. And most of us are still waiting our turn. But now a diverse group of rocket men believe the era of space tourism is here. These men are testing rockets, building space-ships, promising ordinary people the ride of a lifetime. Is a return ticket to space about to become a reality? Horizon: Space Tourists, BBC 2006
A remarkable chapter in space flight is coming to an end as the space shuttle awaits its final launch. Since the early 1980s the space shuttle has been the pinnacle of manned space flight technology. The Space Shuttle: A Horizon Guide, BBC 2011
How will the space shuttle be remembered? As a great adventure in human space exploration, or as a fatally flawed white elephant? ibid.
The space shuttle was a symbol of the very best of American ingenuity. ibid.
It was too cold, and in one of the joints both O-rings failed. ibid.
In 1990 the [Hubble] telescope was deployed into space. Instead of the pin-sharp pictures they were expecting they got these – smudges barely better than ground-based satellites could produce ... Once again Nasa was under attack. ibid.
Nasa was relying on the shuttle and its crew ... The astronauts had carried out every task to perfection. ibid.
Hubble was saved, and the Shuttle was back in the nation’s good books. ibid.
By 1993 the US had spent an alarming $8 billion on countless designs without a single piece of hardware. ibid.
In the sixth week of Linenger’s stay a fire broke out. ibid.
The Shuttle made sixteen trips to the Space Station but it was slow going. ibid.
This video shows a piece of orange insulating foam falling off the fuel tank eighty-one seconds into the flight. ibid.
Some felt that NASA could have saved Columbia and its crew. ibid.
Its flawed compromised design means there are just too many things that can go wrong ... But what a ride the Shuttle has given us. ibid.
The Shuttle has shown us what we are capable of. ibid.
220 miles above the Earth on 12th March 2009 ... the Space Station ... got an unusual message ... Some orbital debris ... The space junk was travelling at the same speed in the opposite direction. Horizon: The Trouble with Space Junk, BBC 2015
Satellites are virtually defenceless against high-speed orbital debris. And they’re crucial to modern life on Earth. ibid.
A remarkable chapter in space flight ended when the Space Shuttle launched for the final time. Since the early 1980s the Shuttle has been the pinnacle’s of man’s space-flight technology. The Horizon Guide to Space Shuttles, BBC 2017
The successes have been overshadowed by tragedies. ibid.