ELLIE WHITE (VOICEOVER): Our story is a story of the universe-- NARRATOR: As strange and delicate structures arose of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

ELLIE WHITE (VOICEOVER): --every piece of every one of everything you love and everything you hate.

- What do you think you're going to be making of our world when you make this decision?

ELLIE WHITE (VOICEOVER): We speak for Earth, but also to that cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring.

[ambient music] ANNOUNCER: Support for Reel South is provided by the ETV Endowment.

Additional funding for this program is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts and by-- [atmospheric music] [birds chirping] [mooing] [clanking] [barking] - This is probably the best view from here.

You can just see it right down through there.

And it's the world's largest fully movable radio telescope.

They listen for-- I'm not sure what.

Maybe extraterrestrials?

[laughs] [distorted music] NARRATOR: This is the Mountain State, West Virginia, ringed by mountains and dotted by small farms, a peaceful place for an afternoon's drive.

[serene music] [sheep bleating] Then in 1957, roads of dirt were paved.

Foundations were laid.

Engineers, architects, carpenters-- a full force of men and machines-- brought a new future into the quiet valley.

[upbeat music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Only as strange and delicate structures arose did it become apparent that this was to be the home of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

[engine whirring] [birds chirping] - The everyday questions that occur here, probably somewhere else, would be, you know, the once-in-a-lifetime question, especially when we actually discover something or do something really amazing.

[atmospheric music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [background chatter] - I wasn't quite sure how this hoisting would work.

That's convenient.

- Yeah, it is convenient.

[laughter] KAREN O'NEIL: It's an interesting discrepancy that we have this incredibly advanced telescope, cutting-edge science and engineering going on in this fairly rural environment.

♪ ♪ [chatter] - This is the last bolt.

- But at the same time, if you think about the classic idea of a scientist, which is somebody who-- who sits around and contemplates and thinks about stuff-- that's the caricature you often hear about-- there's no better environment than this.

♪ ♪ [birds chirping] Working at this facility, it's a challenge for us because if we get too much radio noise out there from all these things that are transmitting, then there's no more telescope.

There's no more point in having a telescope here.

The reason the telescope exists is because we're in a radio-quiet zone.

It never would have been built here without it.

[atmospheric music] MICHAEL HOLSTINE: When you think of an observatory, you normally think of it sitting on top of a mountain.

But we needed the protection of the mountains because of radio interference.

NARRATOR: In this survey for peace and quiet, tests were conducted in over 30 select locations in five Eastern states.

Measurements showed that Deer Creek Valley was well-shielded from outside electrical noises.

After a long and intensive search.

the village of Green Bank in Deer Creek Valley was finally chosen.

MICHAEL HOLSTINE: In 1958, the federal government created the National Radio Quiet Zone, over 13,000 square miles, and specifically names the observatory here as one of its protections from any spurious electrical interference of any kind.

That's any electrical interference.

[blasting] KAREN O'NEIL: When you think about all that technology out there-- Wi-Fi, you've got the internet of things out there-- all of that provides noise to our radio signals.

[beeping] If that signal is only coming once or coming kind of intermittently, and if your cell phone or Wi-Fi is on at that time, we might miss it.

[beeping] [phone vibrating] [beeping] - Watch out.

Ah!

here comes the Boo!

The Boo.

Yes!

- [grunts] I fell on my bum-bum.

- It's amazing, isn't it, that we all survive walks with Willie.

I grew up, certainly, without cell phones.

They didn't exist.

And so I had a lot of freedom.

I had a lot of time to figure things out.

And I love the fact that my kids don't grow up holding on to these devices.

My kids aren't deprived.

We have computers at home.

They have access to all the stuff of their generation, but they don't have them in their pockets all the time.

- And it's like-- I like it because there's no signs of civilization.

[atmospheric music] - I'm going to go back to the house, make phone calls and all of that.

You guys be back in time for dinner, OK?

- OK. - Bye.

- Goodbye.

- Goodbye ♪ ♪ - Come on, Willie.

- We're a bit too high up for our dams.

- See that giant pool of water-- that was us.

Wow.

We're an overachiever.

Willie, I walked straight into thorns.

♪ ♪ OK. ♪ ♪ Got it.

♪ ♪ - Ah!

[grunting] - Ow.

Yeah, high.

Yes.

[laughs] - So we have what's called an interference protection group.

He has a truck that's full of equipment that can detect fairly minute signals that he can scan for, like cell phones and even Wi-Fi.

If he finds a signal that is a problem to the astronomer, we can fix that.

- People, naturally-- when they see a truck with a dozen antennas on the roof, they naturally start looking at it, trying to figure out what it's all about.

[birds chirping] I'm monitoring a frequency that's used on cable TV system.

I'm looking for interference.

And normally, when I'm doing it, I leave the squelch open and listen to the noise.

I listen more than look, and hear things in the noise that don't show up on the screen, and just keep tabs on the environment, and see what's out there.

[vehicle zooming] MICHAEL HOLSTINE: Is this OK?

ANNE LI: Yeah, it's good.

OK, so I'm going to just have you introduce yourself to the mic first.

MICHAEL HOLSTINE: Sure.

My name is Michael Holstine, and I am the Business Manager for the Green Bank Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia.

ANNE LI: So, previously in Green Bank's history, you used to be 100% NSF-funded?

- Basically, this was a fully funded federal research facility through the National Science Foundation.

In 2012, the National Science Foundation formed a committee, and the Green Bank Telescope, unfortunately, fell below the line and was deemed by the committee as one that should be defunded.

It just seems the world as a whole has become more concerned with counting the beans than growing the beans.

If the Green Bank Observatory were to close, it would have a devastating effect to radio astronomy for this country.

This telescope is the most sensitive radio telescope in the world.

We contribute almost $30 million a year to the local and state economy.

It would be fairly devastating to the town and really would affect the state of West Virginia.

- I'm Ellie White.

I'm an 11th grader from Barboursville, West Virginia, homeschooled, and I'm really interested in science and technology.

- How did you feel when you first heard that Green Bank could close in the future?

- Well, obviously terrible.

- We're forming a grassroots activist group to help Green Bank Observatory, which is why we're here today.

ELLIE WHITE: In addition to losing all the wonderful opportunities for students, it would leave a huge hole here in West Virginia that couldn't be filled.

[atmospheric music] ♪ ♪ So, of course, I have lots of space stuff up in my room.

So I was never really a big science kid.

I thought I would be an artist.

But when I turned 13 and started reading all these books by Carl Sagan, Professor Brian Cox about these different amazing concepts, like particle physics, astrobiology, all this different stuff-- these books were written at a level for anyone to understand, and they were still extremely difficult.

It's like learning a language.

[atmospheric music] This book is really special for me-- Cosmos by Carl Sagan.

That's how I first got interested in astronomy.

I liked it so much I saw another one at a book fair and I just had to have two.

So [laughs] this one has a nice old book smell.

[atmospheric music] ELLIE WHITE (VOICEOVER): "We are a way for the universe to know itself," really stuck with me from that book.

It's all about asking questions and being curious.

And I just realized, OK, I want to do this.

So when I was 15, my family and I took a trip to the observatory, and I got to take a tour of the telescope control room.

And I was just so thrilled to listen to this scientist give this phenomenal tour that I actually worked up the courage to raise my hand and ask a question.

He gave me this super in-depth, fascinating answer and ended up giving me his business card and told me to contact him anytime.

And I was just like in nerd heaven at that point.

[laughs] And I've been working with him for almost two years now.

[background chatter] RICHARD PRESTAGE: Hi.

- Good morning.

- How are you?

- Good.

How are you?

- Come in.

Have a seat.

- All right.

So, back in April, Dr. Prestage and I Skyped and I asked him-- so hey, do you have any other projects going on right now that I could help with?

He said, well, we've been wanting to do this pointing analysis for a really long time to try and make the GBT point better.

- If the telescope is pointed to the horizon, it's just a rotation, and it doesn't have any effect on pointing at all.

If it's straight up, it's a tilt, so it's an elevation again-- ELLIE WHITE (VOICEOVER): To possibly influence how well the largest fully steerable telescope in the world works, I mean, you can't get more-- anything more exciting than that.

- So I've had similar discussions with WVU graduate students who just cannot grasp the concept.

And their eyes glaze over, and it's clear they don't understand what a Fourier transform does or what's a complex number.

You asked insightful questions and didn't need a dumbed-down answer.

You know, that's what I saw in you.

[atmospheric music] No, [indistinct] I remember it and heavier than I remember it.

Maybe it's not going to fit into your-- - [laughs] RICHARD PRESTAGE: --trunk.

- Oh, my goodness.

RICHARD PRESTAGE (VOICEOVER): That box has got a satellite TV dish in it.

It's in six segments.

And then you get a thing that you see in people's backyards, 10-feet diameter.

And those are surplus.

Nobody wants to buy those anymore.

But they work great as little radio telescopes.

And Ellie wants to build a radio telescope, so it's fine.

Take mine.

[laughs] Satellite dish.

DEANA WHITE: Wow.

The neighbors are going to love it.

[chatter] - If we can get it to work, and if we can get it to work cheaply enough, then we can get every high school in the country to build their own little radio telescope.

That's the point.

- You all have a project.

- Yeah.

[laughs] - So-- RICHARD PRESTAGE: Finish the pointing model first.

- All right.

[laughs] Yeah, of course.

- Good, OK. You need to send me a picture of what it looks like once it's built.

- Yeah.

[dramatic classical music] ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: Mad scientists on the silver screen struggle to harness an invisible ray from space.

But neither screenwriters nor real scientists suspected radio waves.

Discovery of these waves has revolutionized our concept of the universe and given birth to a new kind of astronomical observatory, the radio observatory.

ELLIE WHITE (VOICEOVER): So what is radio astronomy?

Radio astronomy is a field of astronomy that uses radio waves instead of visible light to study objects in space.

Our eyes allow us to see visible light.

But there's so much more information available throughout the electromagnetic spectrum at wavelengths that we can't detect as humans-- [electronic whirring] --but that we can detect with instruments that intercept and process those signals.

And that's what radio telescopes allow us to do.

They give us a unique window on the universe and allow us to make amazing discoveries that wouldn't be possible using optical telescopes alone.

[dramatic classical music] There are a number of big areas that the GBT studies.

One area focuses on pulsars, or neutron stars, which are the fast spinning remnants left behind after massive stars die in supernova explosions.

♪ ♪ The GBT also studies our cosmic origins, which involves everything from galaxy evolution to star formation to even collecting data from the early universe.

♪ ♪ And then there's SETI, which is to Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

[distant overlapping speech] The GBT searches for technosignatures, which are the telltale signs of advanced life beyond Earth.

[dramatic classical music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [water rushing] [birds chirping] - [sighs] [birds chirping] [engine rumbling] I worked at the observatory since '64.

Yeah, Green Bank's my home.

Yeah, see, a lot of the other engineers, they came from other places.

And I found most of them who are retired, they go back where they're from.

I'm not going to go back to New Jersey after living in a beautiful place like this.

My roots are deep here.

My mom and dad are buried here, and my wife is buried here.

My kids grew up here.

[overlapping speech] ♪ GROUP (SINGING): ♪ --in the morning ♪ ♪ They will sing ♪ WOMAN: Oh, hi, there.

How are you?

I haven't seen you forever.

- Hey, dear.

- Hi, George.

- Good to see you.

- It's good to see you, too.

- Now, remember, don't frown when you're saying, I'm smiling.

OK, let's do "Blowing in the Wind."

Everybody gets sleepy.

["blowing in the wind"] ♪ ♪ Together.

GROUP (SINGING): ♪ How many years must a mountain exist ♪ ♪ Before they are sent to the sea ♪ ♪ Yes, and how many ♪ - I've got cancer throughout my whole urinary system.

Yeah, I have some symptoms.

It's not a painful thing, but it's a urinary problem that I got.

But, you know, I just decided-- I feel like the Lord's blessed me with a good life.

I really had-- I had a beautiful place to live.

I had a wonderful job.

And, you know, I just feel like whatever time I got left, willing, the Lord take me home, that's.

That's it.

GROUP (SINGING): ♪ The answer, my friend ♪ ♪ Is blowing in the wind ♪ ♪ The answer is blowing in the wind ♪ - That's a good one.

Haven't heard that for a while.

OK, let's do-- - This one-- we've got pictures here of the stuff your husband Gene took-- - Yeah.

- At the observatory.

- The one thing I remember-- when the observatory first came, it was so funny.

If we had a storm, the old-timers would say, the astronomy had caused it.

GEORGE BEHRENS: [laughs] - They said those big dishes brought in the storm.

[laughs] And remember, you couldn't have a microwave there for a while.

And an electric tooth-- They picked up an electric toothbrush, one time, that someone had.

- Oh, yeah?

- Yes, they did.

- I guess when I first came here back in '64, I thought, well, maybe by the time I retire we'd actually find something.

Actually, some of the receivers that I worked on and put together and designed-- and I always thought, well, maybe this is the one that's going to find extraterrestrial life, [laughs] but it never worked out.

- Mm-hmm.

- So what do you think about intelligent life?

Do you think there is such a thing?

- On other planets?

- Yeah, or-- yeah, well, there's-- yeah.

Or any place in the universe.

Do you think there's-- do you think there's life?

Human beings walking around?

You don't believe so?

- I don't believe in it.

- Yeah.

- Why don't you believe in it?

- Well, it's so far-fetched.

- It's hard for me to understand why God would make this whole universe and put human beings in just one place.

I mean, maybe he does have a reason for that.

There's nothing in the Bible that I know about that talks about, you know, people being in other places.

Yeah.

So anyway-- - OK.

So will you be over tonight for supper?

- It depends on what you're cooking.

Yeah, of course I'm coming over.

[laughs] - [laughs] So I'll see you tonight, OK?

- OK. - But don't come outside.

- Ah, I gotta go get that snow off there.

I don't want you walking on it.

[atmospheric music] ♪ ♪ Barb is a great lady, and she goes to the doctor with me.

And when I was real ill last summer, she stuck by me out-- that whole time out there.

She's been a real faithful companion, and I love her very much for just being as good as she's been to me.

♪ ♪ [honking] OK. ♪ ♪ [upbeat music] ♪ ♪ EDWARD AJHAR: Hello, and welcome to the public meeting on the Green Bank Observatory.

[background chatter] The proposed action is to substantially reduce NSF's contribution to the funding of the Green Bank Observatory.

I would like to now go on to the alternatives for future operations of the Green Bank Observatory.

Alternative A is described as collaboration with interested parties for continued science and education-focused operations with reduced NSF funding.

And the others are, B, collaboration with interested parties for operation as a technology and education park.

C is mothballing of facilities, and D is demolition and site restoration.

- We're going to have one speaker at a time.

We have quite a few people who would like to speak today, and these comments do go on the record.

- The first real experience at the GBT which I had, is where school kids actually get involved in active research with us people.

And I mean, I've seen how people's faces light up when they see something which only scientists are supposed to see.

- I can say with absolute confidence that because I'm a West Virginian, I'm a scientist, and I'm a scientist because of the GBT.

- I reject the idea that this facility needs to be closed down and shuttered.

I know we have here a body that represents the scientists and the intellect that we depend on to try to answer some of the most difficult, perplexing, and complex questions about our existence in the universe.

And I want to ask the National Science Foundation, what do you think you're going to be making of our world when you make this decision?

- Researchers in nearly every possible subfield of astronomy are making fantastic findings that bring us closer to a full understanding of our universe.

Many of the research topics being investigated with the GBT are in line with the NSF's own astronomical priorities, including education.

I've benefited from these programs myself, and that's led to a mentorship experience that has helped me find my passions.

The NSF is absolutely imperative to the future of the observatory and the many people and communities it impacts every day.

- The Chinese government is dumping money into basic research.

They're not trying to play catch-up.

They're trying to pass us, OK?

I was there two years ago, and I remember working in their facility and seeing this huge construction right next door.

And I'm like, what is all that?

And they're like oh, that's our new lab.

And then I come back here, you know, to look at options A, B, C, D, talking about shutting us.

So what the hell, right?

[laughter] Sorry.

You can scratch the, hell, part.

[laughter] Are we going to stop investing?

Are we going to abdicate our leadership role in the world?

OK, so let's keep America great and let's keep investing in the future, all right?

Thank you.

[applause] [atmospheric music] [footsteps fading] [clanking] DONNIE ERVINE (VOICEOVER): The whole thing doesn't make any sense.

The scope's only been finished maybe 10, 12 years?

And now they talk about closing it down?

So that seems like a complete waste of tax money.

[mooing] They're missing the point if they think they're just studying stars because they're shaping a lot of young minds.

[atmospheric music] [people chattering] - What region in the sky again?

- 3CAA4SR - They led a lot of people that I grew up with to get into the field of science and math.

- Okay, you should be able to start it up.

- Let's see what happens.

- The observatory gives us an industry that other rural areas don't have.

[drill whirring] They employ, you know, a little over 100 people.

[drill whirring] [blowtorch burning] And in a town our size, that's the whole chunk.

MAN: Had no idea-- so think how much money has been invested into that huge telescope.

- Yeah.

- It's almost 2 and 1/2 acres in size.

If they go shutting something like that down, I mean, what are you going to have, a dinosaur sitting out there?

- If they closed it down, they got, like, 2,000 acres there that's going to waste.

Yeah, if they closed that down, this neighborhood would really just dry up.

It would be-- wow.

- I have mixed feelings about the observatory.

I knew the people that lived on the farms.

I knew the people that owned the land.

I can remember my aunt and uncle-- I mean, they had been there, probably, many generations.

They hated to give that up.

That part, [laughs] you know, was hard to accept.

And now the observatory they want to maybe close down, maybe disassemble.

Those people would have lived there longer than 60 years.

They would have lived generations there.

But my late husband worked there, [laughs] and it paid our bills.

[laughs] [barking] ELLIE WHITE (VOICEOVER): The future of Green Bank is really important to the future of the state, the scientific community, and really, I think our understanding of the universe.

It's good?

It's also important to my future.

[lively chatter] [dinging] - Hi there.

I'd like to present Ellie with a few things if she'd come up here.

First, I'd like to present you a couple of certificates-- one for being a National Merit finalist.

[applause] I'm so proud to present to you-- well, I gotta get this out.

This is not very smooth.

[laughter] This is your graduation diploma, earned at home at Green Bank, and in the School of Life.

Congratulations [applause] - I can't thank you enough for opening these doors and for welcoming me into your-- welcoming me and my family into your great, beautiful community.

So thank you.

[applause] I do daydream a lot about what it would be like to work at Green Bank.

Of course, I've had just a little taste of it by doing the student research I've done and getting to meet the people who work there.

I can just imagine, like, you know, sitting in the control room, making my own observations with the telescope and trying to answer some big questions that I have.

Is there life out there?

[atmospheric music] ♪ ♪ The search for extraterrestrial intelligence is a really well-respected field of science now.

It wasn't always that way.

In fact, back in the '60s, when Frank Drake and Carl Sagan and only a few other scientists first kind of decided to get together and talk about it, they actually formed kind of a secret group called the Order of the Dolphin, of people who were interested in that field, because at the time, it was kind of a taboo subject.

People didn't talk about it for fear that they would be labeled, crazy.

[birds chirping] But it's actually really not a crazy idea at all to think that, well, if we got this far and we're living on a planet that's orbiting a fairly normal star, then maybe the same thing has happened somewhere else in the universe.

Now it's kind of recognized that they're just as legitimate as, like, oceanography.

[dolphin clicks, squeaks] [dramatic music] [birds chirping] DAVE MACMAHON: Hey, Ellie.

Welcome.

ELLIE WHITE: Hi.

- So I guess we're going to show you around today, and we got our key cards so we can get into offices and up in the control room.

ELLIE WHITE (VOICEOVER): So Dave MacMahon and Matt Lebofsky, who work for UC Berkeley and their SETI research area, needed to come to Green Bank to make some updates to the Breakthrough Listen system.

- Watch the threshold.

Don't step on the threshold.

ELLIE WHITE (VOICEOVER): So they were kind enough to invite me to come and watch them.

And I'm actually going to get to do some observing tonight, so I'm really excited about that.

DAVE MACMAHON: Yeah, we're going to go manual mode on it.

MAN: Manual mode.

- Yeah.

- OK. - Cool.

DAVE MACMAHON: Yeah.

All right.

Yeah, so Breakthrough Listen is the world's largest SETI search to date, over 10 years, and we're four years into it.

[dramatic music] Breakthrough Listen is going to observe a million stars and hundreds galaxies and thousands of nearby stars to look for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence.

And this is where the data will actually come in from the network.

Comes into here.

If Green Bank shut down, that would be a monumental loss.

That would be really tragic.

I mean, Green Bank has an undeniable place in history for SETI science.

I mean, it is the sort of birthplace of modern SETI.

ELLIE WHITE: So what were you guys looking at with this observation?

What was your target?

DAVE MACMAHON: It's more of a diagnostic target, really-- The Voyager space probes.

ELLIE WHITE: Oh, OK, cool.

- So Voyager has actually left the solar system now.

But we can still detect it with GBT, actually, quite readily.

If you can't find Voyager, you're not going to find ET.

And so that's definitely a technological signal that is the farthest known technological signal from Earth, I guess you could say.

And that gives you confidence that your instrument is functioning with a degree of sensitivity.

And I guess, you know, not be the worst-case scenario.

But if you found something and you told everybody, oh, it's at, you know, x, y, z-coordinates and then they go look there and it's not there, then it's like, oh, ow, you know, something went wrong.

We got it wrong.

And so you want to get it right, because I think a SETI detection is not something you can get wrong very many times.

It's like-- you know, you can only cry wolf, like, zero times, I think, basically, with SETI, so.

ELLIE WHITE (VOICEOVER): It would be a really incredible shift of perspective if we were to find that there was somebody else out there who was either at our level of advancement.

Or if they were beyond, it would be even more impressive because we could maybe learn, how did they survive?

How did they survive developing technology that is powerful enough to do a lot of damage?

- Do we know what that one peak is-- the trace right here?

ELLIE WHITE (VOICEOVER): On the flip side of that, if we don't find anything, if Earthlings are the only advanced life forms in the universe, which seems pretty unlikely, statistically speaking, but it's a possibility, then what would that mean?

That would mean that it's extremely important for us to preserve ourselves, to preserve our planet, to preserve our existence as a species, to look out beyond ourselves and to try and figure out, how do we get past our differences and just make the most that we can of our time here?

[atmospheric music] [birds chirping] - [whistles] Come on.

Sooki.

All farmers have something.

Sooki.

My granddad always said, Sooki cow.

Sooki.

Woo!

[mooing] [dog barking] Yeah, let's get them some treats.

I'm just a hobby farm.

It's very common to be a hobby farmer in our area.

And I have had some that I just didn't sell.

I just let them stay here until they died because we were pretty tight.

The connection to the past, I feel, is family and how long my family's been in the area.

I work some of the same land that three or four generations of my family did, and that's one of the main reasons I'm still here.

[clicks tongue] Tell them you're almost a pest.

And where are you going?

One of the things that makes this place so special is the fact that the observatory is here and we're looking into the past with the observatory.

But at the same time, if it wasn't for the telescope, we'd be in the past.

I know that in the back of my mind, whenever I look up-- that they're spending so much time looking out there, trying to find stuff all the time.

And we have no idea what's out there.

It really influences the way you think.

[birds chirping] GEORGE BEHRENS (VOICEOVER): When my mom died, I bought a plot for four people.

And so my dad is buried there.

My wife, Mary Sue, is buried there.

I'll be buried there when I pass on.

[birds chirping] I was doing pretty well, and about three or four weeks ago, I started having a real pain in my stomach.

An oncologist said, you'll have to have radiation, so I felt I'll gamble and see how it goes.

[atmospheric music] ♪ ♪ That and I would just tell what's going on with the kids, and.

I could tell her about having a great grandchild coming up in July.

[birds chirping] There's a quotation from the Bible, Revelations.

And that tells about how the heaven and the Earth pass away, and there'll be a-- a new heaven and Earth.

No more tears and pain, and there'll be peace.

And it was written by John.

And these were the visions he had that the heavens and the sky would disappear.

And it will, eventually.

Things will go away.

They keep changing.

We can look at the heaven, and we see, always, stars continually to change and evolve.

And that's going to happen with our planetary system eventually, someday.

So I can't see any contradiction between science and what it says in the Bible.

[birds chirping] Everything does change.

[atmospheric music] [birds calling] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ I'm so proud of each and every one of you.

Where-- KARL BEHRENS: She's right over here, dad.

- [indistinct] - Barbara?

I think my dad wanted to say something to you.

♪ ♪ Something I got to tell you.

The other way around.

I miss you-- I miss you very much.

I miss you very much.

[cries] - Don't cry.

Don't cry.

- [cries] - I'm not going let you [indistinct].

- [whispers] - [cries] ♪ ♪ [sobs] ♪ ♪ [sobs] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [rattling] - Oh, yeah.

We're starting now.

We're starting now.

[rattling] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ KARL BEHRENS: My dad was from New York City, but when he came here and got a job at the observatory, he was just amazed by how beautiful it was here.

And he was like, oh, boy, I really love it here, and basically fell in love with the state.

This was actually a song he wanted me to play at his funeral.

So-- [JOHN DENVER, "TAKE ME HOME, COUNTRY ROADS"] ♪ Almost heaven ♪ ♪ West Virginia ♪ ♪ Blue Ridge Mountains ♪ ♪ Shenandoah River ♪ ♪ Life is old there ♪ ♪ Much older than the trees ♪ ♪ Younger than the mountains ♪ ♪ Blowing like a breeze ♪ ♪ Country roads ♪ ♪ Take me home to the place I belong ♪ ♪ West Virginia mountain mama ♪ ♪ Take me home ♪ ♪ Country roads ♪ [atmospheric music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ WOMAN: Do you want to copy us?

[overlapping speech] ♪ ♪ - I'll take that.

All right.

- OK. - I just want to take just a moment to remind you guys why we're all here.

I think we're at the point where Green Bank can now say that we have a-- not just a future.

We have a fantastic future ahead of us.

Thank you, guys.

- Green Bank Observatory Director Karen O'Neil announced Tuesday that the observatory will continue to operate as one of the premier radio telescope observatories in the world.

WOMAN: I'm going to be giving you your tour today.

ELLIE WHITE: NSF now issues its record of decision, selecting alternative A, collaboration with interested parties for continued science and education-focused operations.

OK. [background chatter] - I'm wondering if my brain has too much knowledge in it.

- [laughs] So this is great news for the next five years or so, but after that, it's hard to say what comes next.

So we need to celebrate the good news now, but also recognize that this isn't the end of the story, and we need to work hard to make sure that this resource never goes away.

TEACHER: This is Miss Ellie.

Ellie White, and she's from Marshall University.

And I've been telling them how cool of an experience this is going to be, because I don't think any other kids in the entire world have what she has made here.

And we were talking, really, like, this morning how important this is, about getting these things out, especially because we live in Appalachia.

So how many of you guys have heard of the Green Bank Observatory?

Almost all of you.

All of you.

That's great.

- I want to be an astrophysicist and hopefully go to MIT.

ELLIE WHITE: How cool.

- Fingers crossed.

[laughs] - We are from Appalachia, and a lot of people look down on us and think that people here are uneducated and things like that.

And I want to help break that-- you know, that stereotype.

- And as a result of talking with Dr. Richard Prestage, he gave me some projects to do.

He actually let me do research as a high school student.

TEACHER (VOICEOVER): And I wanted to bring Ellie into my classroom to let them know that we have these awesome resources here in West Virginia that a lot of people don't think about.

- And it's really important because scientists-- there's a lot of work to do, and scientists can't do all of it, because there aren't a ton of scientists.

So Richard here is going to talk about why that's important, for students to do citizen science.

- You know, people play music.

People do art.

People, even if they're not famous artists, like to explore these different fields.

And why not do the same thing with science?

- Yeah.

- So tell us about what you made over there and how it works.

- So this is a great thing about radio astronomy.

It can be done with stuff that you dig up out of your backyard.

It doesn't weigh very much.

It's light, but it's really not very different from the Green Bank Telescope.

So-- - If we put all this stuff together, we're going to have that.

Do you think they could build it in, like, 10 minutes?

- Oh, yeah.

- I have a strong one, so you're taking-- [overlapping speech] - I got these on the side.

- Small.

- Here.

- Hey, can I have that other side, please?

- May I have the other side.

BOY: I think this goes backwards.

[overlapping speech] GIRL: No, stick it on the bottom.

Remember, these are the bottom.

BOY: Yeah.

GIRL: We need-- [overlapping speech] GIRL: I need a little-- TEACHER: So I'm going to go over there and see if we can find the copper wire and these little zip ties.

- 37 and 1/2.

- OK, I think we can put it back on there.

ELLIE WHITE: We all have different context.

- So I'm really proud of you guys.

You did a very good job.

Now-- so Ellie created that curriculum over there.

So the next step in this is to actually get this thing moving and going and collecting data and then sending it to you.

- How many lessons are we going to do?

Because hopefully, there's a lot.

TEACHER: Oh-- so that means they're excited about it.

Hopefully, there's a lot.

[soft music] BARBARA CRIST (VOICEOVER): I come at least once a week.

I think it's nice to visit, but I want to thank you.

[soft music] [bells clanging] Doing real well since the weather changed.

George loved to sit out here and watch them or just sit here.

He delighted in showing me things.

He enjoyed explaining different things about the scopes and their operation.

And he worked here when Dr. Drake sent his messages out, [laughs] and he believed it.

[soft music] ♪ ♪ FARMER: So do you believe in aliens?

Extraterrestrial life?

- I don't know.

What about you?

- Yeah, I think they're out there, somewhere.

I don't think they've been here yet.

WOMAN: I just see it for what it is.

It's a big satellite.

- We should get better TV with a dish that big.

- [laughs] [atmospheric music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - There?

♪ ♪ ELLIE WHITE: "Our story is a story of the universe.

Every piece of everyone-- of everything you love and everything you hate, of the thing you hold most precious was assembled by the forces of nature in the first few minutes of the life of the universe, transformed in the hearts of stars or created in their fiery deaths."

[zooming] These are the words of the well-known particle physicist and science communicator, Professor Brian Cox.

Both Professor Cox and Dr. Sagan, with this famous quote "we are made of star stuff," share a message that resonates with people the world over.

And the message they share is that as Earthlings, we are truly connected to the universe and to each other.

[uplifting music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ And in the vastness of space, our existence is both significant and meaningful.

It seems appropriate to end with a few words from Carl Sagan.

"We speak for Earth.

Our obligation to survive and flourish is owed not just to ourselves, but also to that cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring."

[uplifting music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [atmospheric music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪