Unknown: Cosmic Time Machine

While short, this documentary still thrills in its coverage of the lead-up to and subsequent launch of the James Webb Space Telescope. The historical context of space telescopes is handled well in Unknown: Cosmic Time Machine, as some of NASA's previous space telescope launches are briefly explained. This sets the stage for the stakes and monumental human effort put into the James Webb Space Telescope launch, with plenty of discussion devoted to the potential points of failure that the telescope might suffer. "Single-point failures" are explained, which are any single area of the telescope, its launch, subsequent deployment of parts, or travel to its destination that might fail, any one of which would cause the entire mission to fail. To note that this mission had the most single-point failures of all time (344, 225 of which resided in the telescope's sun shield alone) is stunning, especially considering the size and sheer scope of the machine.

Traveling a million miles away and at the speed of a mile per second, the telescope had to successfully launch, deploy its sun shield, deploy its primary mirrors, and align and refocus its telescope, all through computer codes and messages sent from mission control back on Earth. And this telescope allows us to see as far back in time as we have ever been able to, more than 13 billion years ago, for the first time ever, which is an incredible achievement. The images already sent back to us prove this, as we can now see what early formations of galaxies and stars looked like less than a billion years after the Big Bang itself.