Unknown: Cosmic Time Machine | Shai Gal
To mark the Sieff Institute’s 90th anniversary, join us in the screening of this fascinating film, which follows the preparations for the launch of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope in late 2021. The ambitious and expensive mission of the telescope’s design, construction, launch and operation, all of which took 25 years, cost approximately 10 billion dollars and employed ten thousand employees, went ahead successfully and without any mishaps. Moments before the launch, Dr. Zurbuchen, the Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA and the main initiator of this colossal project, prepared for the worst. And on his way to what could have been the bottom, from the room where he wrote the defeat speech, to the control room where the air becomes thicker and heavier with tension, to the test facilities and the launch site, he took Shai Gal ‒ journalist and Doco director ‒ with him, who made a movie out of it all.
Greetings and opening remarks before the screening by the President of the Weizmann Institute of Science - Professor Alon Chen.
Stage Talk Following the screening, a conversation with Shai Gal, the director of the film, and with Professor Eli Waxman – an astrophysicist at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Principal Investigator of the ULTRASAT mission and one of the fathers of the first Israeli space telescope, planned for launch in 2025 – about the human element, decision making and responsibility, and managing monumental, ground-breaking scientific projects.
USA 2023 | 64 minutes | English, Hebrew subtitles
Entry is free (with advance booking)
