You're listening to Comedy Central. Gregory Robinson. Mr Robinson's welcome to the Daily Show. I'm glad to be here, excited to have you here because this is one of the biggest stories. You know, everyone saw it on social media. There was a picture of like it seemed like the universe everything, and then it was like, here's the old one, here's the new one. And then we all had to act like we knew why that was important. But you're actually the person behind why it happened and howard how
it got together. So let's start with this for everybody. Everybody to be on the same page. Mostly me, um, why is this jump in telescope technology so impressive and why is it so importance? So we compared were compared to Hubble, which was state of the art thirty years ago, and Web gives us a much bigger mirror at six and a half meters versus two point four for Hubble.
And the infra rear technology. If you think about looking like night vision, you can see heat through something, so it gives us infray capability, so we can look through the dust and clouds and gulk of space and look much further back. Of course, our science and instruments are a lot more complex too, So the clarity is a
lot better and the depth is a lot better. What I know is really confusing sometimes we're talking about anything in space, is that sometimes they say things in terms of time, and sometimes they say things in terms of distance, and it gets it. You know, they'll be like, we're seeing something from thirteen billion years ago. I'm like, I'm sorry, what, what? What does that even mean? Well? Sometimes I say what as well? So we're looking at a light traveling d
eight six thousand miles per second? I could imagine that. So we're looking at light something that happened billions of years ago and it's just reaching us now. So it's it's the time distance travel of light and that's actually what we're looking at. And so we can see what happened a really long time ago somewhere else out there. What do we use this information for? Like, will it tell us that aliens like left along time now they're already here? Does it does it tell us where we're
gonna go after we destroy Earth? What is it telling us? Well? You know, and after physics and astronomy, we're always looking to answer questions, where do we come from how do we fit into this universe or we alone, which is another one we're looking for. So it helps inform us
on how we fit into the universe. And as far as light travel, I remember growing up in the country and shout in the flashlight up in the sky and said, I wonder how how long has taken it to get to certain points, which is the same kind of thing. It's light travel, that's what you're looking for. It's interesting you say that growing up in the country, because I've read your story and you have one of the most
fascinating journeys I've ever come across. Because you grew up your parents were air croppers in rural Virginia, all right, You went to a segregated school, you didn't have the education that you wanted to, and then here you are, the man who was brought in to basically get this ten billion dollar telescope up and run. It was failing before you stepped in. They called you and they're like, we need to do this, and you did it. What is that meaning? Temeform? And how did you get into
this world? So? Uh, A couple of things. One is um that education and the segregated schools was excellent. We had some of the best teachers in the world. Many of them were far more educated than the teachers and other schools because they couldn't get jobs in industry like they can today. So we had great teachers who really innurtured us and cared about us. So my beginnings were very strong, and so of course I lived through the Apollo time. I was a little kid then, which excited me,
but that still didn't get my interests in space. So I was in college and and friends of mine actually did internships at at NASA, and they made it sound sound so interesting. And a few years later I've started my Korean industry. But a few years later actually joined NASA. And uh, four and a half years ago there were some issues. Um My boss asked me to try to get her over goal on. Now I will say a lot of the work was already done, already completed, So
thanks to the team for that. And this team is an incredibly, incredibly smart team of people. If you could imagine that, NASA so smart is never shortage and NASA and certainly not for this team. And then this team is not just NASA's our whole industrial base. UH. Plus the European Space Agency and Canadian Space Agency to about our big partners. Let me ask you a question. I believe that you're retiring soon. Yes, I'm retiring soon when life comes at me fast, because I mean, you've been
around for so long. You've been you've been doing such a great job, so that's what's going to miss you. But because you're retiring, I feel like you could you could probably tell me a few things you wouldn't be allowed. It's like, you know when when you're leaving, like, so have you have you taken any pictures and then seeing something that you like they don't tell us about, like you know what I I like. Let me put it this way.
In New York, if you have like a superpowered telescope and you shine at another person's apartment, you might see some things. And I'm wondering if you've seen some things out there, But then you don't tell us all these all the pictures you can just wink. If I'm close, you can well. I think your telescope in New York example, you probably see something you've already seen before. I think in our case, we have a certainty things we haven't seen before, but a lot clearer and we will we
will learn things that we can never even imagine. So as we answer questions, we also will create new questions for the future. What are we using the answers to these questions to do? You know, I understand there is some importance to it, but how does it help what happens on Earth? Or what are people hoping we will learn from these telescopes and what they're revealing. Where one,
we learn a lot about physics. And if you think about it, if you go back many many years, uh, and you think of the physics textbooks, Um, we have information today that wasn't there then. And if you think about just a hundred years ago, we thought that was just one galaxy in the whole universe ours and uh Hubble uh Hubble telescope plaimed after him, discovered more galaxies. So we know a lot more about who we are, where we are, where we come from. And so that's
on the astrophysics stamp side. But other science missions tell us a lot about the Earth, our interaction with the Sun impact, so the Earth as a system, with our own solar system. I see. So now that you have the James Webb telescope, I mean Hubble was until a few months ago, you know, was everybody's bay in space, you know, and then I just felt a little you know, I felt a little sad on Hubble's behalf. Everyone's just like, man, I look at ship Hubble's pictures. What happens to Hubble now?
So Hubble has been operating more than thirty years um and again it was the state of the art. It's going to continue operating. Okay, okay, there are still things, uh we benefit from Hubble. So we're still looking forward to a long time operation. Is there something Hubble can do that that the Web telescope can't do? Uh? Not at the level we're talking about, not at all. And just three months well two or three months ago, m Hubble discovered a star that was nine hundred million years
after the Big Bang. So wrap that around your head. Nine hundred million years UM after the Big Bank now and and space. That's still a long time. But when you're talking billions, that's looking back quite a bit. That is really fascinating. I mean, I mean, I just love the idea that you know, you're part of this mission. You get this telescope, you know, you have to shoot it up into space and then you start taking the pictures.
Who whose job is it to stitch the pictures together and to get to unblur the pictures because when you when you take the picture, it's I've heard it base. It looks like nothing. That's what I've been told. It's just it just looks like somebody has shown you a picture of night and then somebody sits there and they go like, oh no, I see something, like who's doing that?
And how do you do it? And how do you know that you're Actually it's like so the scientists actually they know what they're looking at um and so they do some what we call processing to make the pictures look more presentable to human eye. You can say, you can, I'm one of those humans do know. So so the scientists process that, they use the science instruments, and then they have some post processing beyond the instruments to make
it look like what we've seen recently. But they actually know what they're looking at when they received they so they get it. They just they make it simpler for us. Absolutely. So I would love to know where your journey goes from here. I mean, you've been part of NASA for such a long time. You've been part of the biggest you know, discovery or invention that humans have ever created. We're too from here, you retire and then and then
what do you do? So so certainly web is done from a development standpoint, So now it's the scientist job for the next twenty plus years. I know they would do well. Um, So it's um, it's just that time for me. I'm not running from a to anything. It's just time. Um. But if, as often say, don't let the good looks fool you. I'm still a young man. But but but I'm getting up there, so so I still plan to do some some other things, still exploring
what I'm gonna do when I grow up. I'm looking for Thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you. Watch the Daily Show weeknights and eleven Central Armed Comedy Central, and stream full episodes anytime I'm on Paramount Plus. This has been a Comedy Central podcast