The report doesn’t read like something you’d expect from an acclaimed astronomer.

“Hubble Space Telescope and Beyond: Exploration and the Search for Origins” largely eschews scientific jargon and instead speaks about searching for alien life and discovering the origins of our universe.

Colloquially known as “the Dressler report” for its lead author, Alan Dressler, the 1996 document is a work of equal parts scientific inquiry and romanticism, discoursing on the cosmic mysteries to be unlocked by the successor to that National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s revolutionary Hubble Space Telescope.

The report marked a moment for the next-generation space telescope: A dividing line between a time when the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST), as Webb was called at the time, was a collection of ideas developed inside the astronomy community for a decade or more, and the birth of a program that NASA would see through to its conclusion.

“For us, the fundamental questions were: Where did we come from and are we alone?" Dressler said, between sips of coffee at a sidewalk café in Pasadena.

“The Universe doesn't know itself except through us and creatures like us. So, the questions were 'Are there other places like this' and ‘are there other creatures like us?’ Maybe they aren't exactly like us but, of course, we were raised to expect life to look like this, so we better look for that first. And then the other question was, with our limited understanding of the origins of galaxies, ‘where did we come from?’"