James Webb Space Telescope: Krystal Puga and Scott Willoughby
09/13/18 • 45 min
$9 billion and a million miles away: we get a special behind-the-scenes tour of NASA’s most ambitious and risky project ever. The James Webb Space Telescope will let us to look billions of years back in time and look at exoplanets in other galaxies. It’s pushing the boundaries of what is technologically possible.
When you think of manufacturing, you probably imagine mass production, but this project is one-of-a-kind. And because it’s headed a million miles away into orbit past the moon, if something breaks, it can’t be fixed. As the vice president and program manager of the whole project, Scott Willoughby has one shot at getting it right.
I was curious: how can you take risks and innovate when you’re working on something so high stakes and under such big scrutiny? So I went to Northrop Grumman in El Segundo, the prime contractor, to find out. We start with a special behind-the-scenes tour of the telescope from systems engineer Krystal Puga. And then, Scott joins us as we talk about the risks and rewards and what’s next for the program. We also learn about Scott and Krystal’s backgrounds, which will probably surprise you!
Links and social handles:
The James Webb Space Telescope home page: https://jwst.nasa.gov/
“Seeing Beyond” video (14:02): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=073GwPbyFxE
NASA’s FAQ: https://jwst.nasa.gov/faq.html#howbig
Northrop Grumman’s site for the JWST: http://www.northropgrumman.com/MediaResources/MediaKits/JWST/Home.aspx
The JWST on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope
Instagram: @NASAWebb
Twitter: @NASAWebb
Northrop Grumman:
Twitter: @northropgrumman
Instagram: @northropgrumman
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/northrop-grumman-corporation/
#NorthropGrumman #Webb #JWST #JamesWebbSpaceTelescope #nasa
For more information, bios, and links, check out the show notes at http://makeitinla.org/jwst.
$9 billion and a million miles away: we get a special behind-the-scenes tour of NASA’s most ambitious and risky project ever. The James Webb Space Telescope will let us to look billions of years back in time and look at exoplanets in other galaxies. It’s pushing the boundaries of what is technologically possible.
When you think of manufacturing, you probably imagine mass production, but this project is one-of-a-kind. And because it’s headed a million miles away into orbit past the moon, if something breaks, it can’t be fixed. As the vice president and program manager of the whole project, Scott Willoughby has one shot at getting it right.
I was curious: how can you take risks and innovate when you’re working on something so high stakes and under such big scrutiny? So I went to Northrop Grumman in El Segundo, the prime contractor, to find out. We start with a special behind-the-scenes tour of the telescope from systems engineer Krystal Puga. And then, Scott joins us as we talk about the risks and rewards and what’s next for the program. We also learn about Scott and Krystal’s backgrounds, which will probably surprise you!
Links and social handles:
The James Webb Space Telescope home page: https://jwst.nasa.gov/
“Seeing Beyond” video (14:02): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=073GwPbyFxE
NASA’s FAQ: https://jwst.nasa.gov/faq.html#howbig
Northrop Grumman’s site for the JWST: http://www.northropgrumman.com/MediaResources/MediaKits/JWST/Home.aspx
The JWST on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope
Instagram: @NASAWebb
Twitter: @NASAWebb
Northrop Grumman:
Twitter: @northropgrumman
Instagram: @northropgrumman
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/northrop-grumman-corporation/
#NorthropGrumman #Webb #JWST #JamesWebbSpaceTelescope #nasa
For more information, bios, and links, check out the show notes at http://makeitinla.org/jwst.
Previous Episode
Hydroswarm: Preeti Battacharyya
An underwater roboticist is determined to map the 70% of our globe covered in water. Everyone’s talking about space these days, but the most promising uncharted frontier might be under the sea. And exploring our oceans is much harder than you think.
Preeti Battacharyya is a 30-year-old entrepreneur who fought tradition back in India and moved to the US. She received a PhD from MIT before launching her company, HydroSwarm. They’re building a network of autonomous underwater vehicles that can map the oceans and communicate with each other.
I was curious what is holding back ocean exploration. What are the challenges of building robots that can work under the sea? It turns out its way harder than rocket science! We learn the difference between ROVs and AUVs, and why they matter. We also learn about Preeti’s path from small town girl in Kolkata to an underwater roboticist with experience with particle accelerators and nuclear reactors starting an ambitious venture.
Links and social handles:
Website: http://hydroswarm.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/hydroswarm
Video of a hydrone: https://youtu.be/EYkz5mRsuqg
More on cyberclones: https://techcrunch.com/2016/01/09/virtual-reality-and-a-parallel-universe-of-cyberclones/
For more information, bios, and links, check out the show notes at http://makeitinla.org/hydroswarm.
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