Flew to Maryland on Tuesday; departure from Boston was delayed two hours, and then we sat on the runway 30 minutes waiting for a gate at Baltimore.  I've lost count of the number of trips to Goddard and Houston over the past two years, but I do know I've never traveled so intensively in my life.  Arriving last night, I realized that the BWI airport is now so familiar to me that I recognize on sight certain TSA security screeners and car rental agents.  Wow - that's not a good sign...
 
This morning NASA Headquarters will be releasing the first images from the new Hubble.  It's interesting; watching the astronauts and engineers prepare and practice over the past two years, I've gotten so immersed in the process that sometimes I almost forget the ultimate goal.
 
All that time and effort practicing the spacewalks...  all those ingenious tools...  all the support people inspecting each and every one of the shuttle's 24,000 heat tiles, and attending to a million other details.  (Last night I had trouble falling asleep; I pulled out a media reference guide and read the shuttle weather launch rules - two solid pages devoted to weather requirements for launch, including temperature, wind, precipitation, lightning, and ten different rules about types of clouds).
 
And, of course, all the incredible power of the launch itself, shaking the ground, the buildings, my feet and chest from three miles away.  All that power, all these people and work and time and money, all of it for one ultimate purpose: the science to be gained from the images.
 
Trying to put the entire endeavor in perspective, it's kind of inspiring to think that we, as a nation or just as humans, will make this kind of extraordinary effort for no other reason than simply to know.  It's easy to get swept up in the details - they're so extraordinary and the techno stuff is just plain fun, for me at least.  But today I'm struck by the larger purpose: billions of dollars, tens of thousands of people, years (in some cases, lifetimes) of work, all focused on answering one really basic but profound question: what's out there?

 

Publicist Note: Rush DeNooyer is a producer for NOVA's upcoming Hubble's Amazing Rescue premiering Tuesday, October 13th at 8PM ET/PT on PBS (please check local listings). Tomorrow, Rush will be blogging from the NASA press conference where new photos taken by Hubble will be unveiled.  You can read Rush's notes that chronicle his experience filming the Hubble Mission at Follow the Hubble Repair. 


It's a little over three months since the mission ended; I haven't blogged since Memorial Day when I got back home to the small Maine town where I live and started trying to put the whole experience in perspective.
 
For the astronauts and engineers, the mission peaked in late May when the shuttle Atlantis brought everyone home safely, with all repairs complete.  For our NOVA team, the mission is peaking over the next few weeks, as we race to finish editing the film, adding music and animation, and creating the ending to the story.  Naturally, the ending won't be complete without the first images from the new Hubble.
 
So today I fly to Maryland, and Wednesday morning Goddard cinematographer Mike McClare and I will go to NASA Headquarters in Washington for a press conference - the eagerly awaited unveiling of the first images from the rejuvenated Hubble.
 
Actually, early this summer they released a sneak preview when a comet unexpectedly slammed into Jupiter and left a huge visible scar.  But other than that, the scientists at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore have been very secretive, as they've been calibrating all the new and repaired instruments.  No images will be seen until tomorrow.
 
I've pumped my sources at the Institute for information though - and they're telling me that all the repairs seem to have worked.  And they expect people to be blown away by all the things the new Hubble will reveal over the coming months.  I guess the analogy is if you had the same digital camera you bought in 1993, and then replaced it with a brand new one - in the case of one new instrument (Wide Field Camera 3), that's the kind of improvement we may see.
 
On Thursday, we'll film some specialized close-ups of some of the unique tools that Goddard engineers designed for this mission.  And then on Friday, we're filming with Dr. Matt Mountain (Director of STScI) to have him explain for us what the new images reveal, what their significance is, and what future hopes he has for this "brand new" 20-year-old space telescope. 
 
The press conference is midday on Wednesday, and I hope to be able to write directly from there - stay tuned!