NASA Astronaut, John M. Grunsfeld

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope (HST) was transported into orbit by a space shuttle twenty years ago, in 1990. At the time, the Hubble - named after the astronomer Edwin Hubble - was the largest and most versatile of all telescopes taken into space by NASA. Since then, it has mesmerised us with breath taking images of our Milky Way and what lies beyond, in the neighbouring galaxies billions of light years away.

Today, the film Hubble 3D is a visual experience which will grasp at your heart, soul and imagination with its awe inspiring images. The IMAX camera’s ‘magic’ and the 3D glasses allow for - what some have said – the closest some of us will ever get to experience space travel, or something like it.

The Melbourne Museum’s IMAX – the world’s third largest screen - is currently screening Hubble 3D which premiered at this year’s Melbourne International Film Festival where it made a lasting impression on moviegoers, and continues to do so still.

Leonardo DiCaprio lent his voice to narrate Hubble 3D, Toni Myers Directed and Produced the film and James Neihouse, Director of Photography trained the Astronaut crew in cinematography, as they were the ones who actually shot the entire film, while in space.

NASA Astronaut, John M. Grunsfeld (Ph.D.) was at the Melbourne IMAX to promote the film; ArtsHub was privy to interview him during his brief visit. Grunsfeld, explained that along with the extensive Hubble maintenance training, he received training to be the on-board doctor, and then he also had to become acquainted with the IMAX camera, which was attached to the space shuttle and captured the entire process of maintaining the telescope, and the breathtaking view behind the astronauts.

“The training for the Hubble maintenance was three years long. Most of the tasks we trained for during those three years were for developing techniques, building new tools, removing the circuit board in the camera, putting in a new one... this is chronicled in the Hubble 3D film. I was even a doctor on board, so I had to train in real emergency rooms with real patients, in case of an emergency on board. If somebody gets sick, they can be taken home to Earth, but in case of a broken bone or a cut... a routine thing, I was trained like a doctor to take care of it.” Grunsfeld can notch up ‘Filmmaker’ to his extensive list of achievements.

John M. Grunsfeld (Ph.D.), was born in 1958, in the ‘Windy City’, Chicago, Illinois. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from M.I.T. in 1980; a Master of Science degree and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Physics from the University of Chicago in 1984 and 1988, respectively... but just like the majority of the Artists we profile on the ArtsHub website, John Grunsfeld also dreamed of some day becoming an astronaut.

“I got to see on television the Gemini and Apollo launches, and watching Walter Cronkite describing the activities of the astronauts, and at six or seven I decided to become an astronaut.

First, I really wanted to become a scientist. Becoming a scientist, then an astrophysics and building experiments to go into space, and in fact my first trip to Australia was to launch high altitude balloons, from Alice Springs to the edge of space and study X-Rays from space. Eventually I realised that it was not enough to send my experiments into space, so I wanted to go into space myself. I applied to the NASA astronaut and in 1992, I was selected by NASA to train and to become an astronaut. One of my classmates was Andy Thomas, the Australian Astronaut from Adelaide.”

Since Grunsfeld was so taken by the idea - as a child - of some day becoming an Astronaut, I wondered what his experience was when he finally found himself in space, looking down on Earth? “It’s the same sense of awe we have when we look up at the stars from Earth, maybe even more so. It’s just so incredible, that we live on this small rocky planet, surrounded by an incredibly thin atmosphere, barely held by the gravity of the planet; it really makes you wonder, why we make decisions, which continue to pollute the atmosphere. To see the great oceans and realise, that we have poisoned a major fraction of the ocean. That we are not paying attention to the warning signs, the changes in temperature... the earth is not healthy. Still, looking at the Earth from space one experiences a great sense of awe, of how beautiful this little island in space is, this ‘spaceship’ Earth we live on.”

As a great fan of SciFi films, I could not resist but ask Grunsfeld - being the only person I have ever met who has actually been in space - whether he believed in extra terrestrials, and if our planet has been visited by them? He explained that, belief is very different from scientific evidence. “We don’t have scientific evidence that aliens exists, yet. However, the numbers are so compelling; there are so many planets out there. The more we look, the more planets we discover around nearby stars; I think it’s a matter of time that we find a sized planet, and once we find it, we can start to ask: ‘does it have characteristics and the type of atmosphere, continents and clouds?’ Astronomy can answer those questions, and it’s about twenty or thirty years before we discover a planet like this, and then we can ask the question ‘is there life there?’ I do think that it is pretty unlikely that aliens have visited Earth and that we don’t know about it.

If you were an alien and you came from thousands of light years away, you travelled to Earth during a significant fraction of your lifetime - assuming that aliens lived for thousands of years, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to make it - and you finally make it to Earth... do you really go to Queensland and pick up a farmer and a cow, dissect them put them back and then leave? No, you come to Melbourne, you go to the Melbourne Museum you go to the Tim Burton exposition and then you go to see the Hubble IMAX 3D. That’s probably number one, actually.” (smile)

IMAX offers the most immersive movie experience in the world. Home to the world’s third largest screen, IMAX Melbourne Museum has become one of the world’s leading IMAX theatres, attracting over 4 million visitors and providing moviegoers with the ultimate movie experience through its revolutionary projection system, 15,000 watt digital audio system and customised theatre geometry.

Read the ArtsHub review of Hubble 3D here.