(dramatic music)
Narrator: Each new era of space exploration
Is built on the courage of those who came before.
Malik: They pioneered a lot of that science.
Narrator: Unpredictable technology,
Unproven designs,
And situations that tested our limits.
Kluger: It was clear
That something unprecedented was happening.
Narrator: Now, witness space exploration's
Most dramatic moments.
(explosion booming)
The heart-pounding missions.
And gut-wrenching tragedies.
Man: We've got a fire in the cockpit.
Massimino: Bad things are gonna happen every once in a while.
Narrator: Of the space pioneers
Who reached for the stars.
Barry: They knew that the margins for error
Were extremely small.
(dramatic music)
Narrator: December 20th, 2019.
Kennedy space center, florida.
Man: Go atlas.
Go centaur.
Go starliner.
Man: Nine, eight, seven.
Narrator: Boeing's starliner cst-100
Prepares to blast off on a critical unmanned test flight.
Man: And liftoff.
The rise of starliner, a new era in human spaceflight.
Man: We've cleared the tower.
Narrator: If all goes well,
It will be a major step toward restoring
Nasa's human spaceflight capability,
Something it hasn't had
Since it retired the space shuttle eight years earlier.
Man: Mach one als 5 is now supersonic.
Narrator: The next -generation spaceship
Will rocket into low earth orbit,
Docking with the international space station
200 miles above the earth.
Man: We see a good indication of jettison
Of both solid rocket boosters.
Controllers are maneuvering starliner
For this orbital insertion burn.
Narrator: 30 minutes into the mission,
A computer glitch causes a major problem.
Starliner burns through its fuel
Before it reaches the station.
The spacecraft cannot dock.
Tv anchor: It was the vessel's first critical test mission,
But things did not go as planned.
Narrator: Two days later, the spacecraft lands safely.
Man: And we see three main chutes as starliner descends.
Narrator: But the failed mission is a major setback
For the multi-billion dollar program.
Malik: There's a cliche
In the space industry that space is hard.
And while it sounds a bit trite, it's actually true.
You can address every foreseeable error
But there's always gonna be something
That you don't know.
Narrator: The starliner mishap is one of many
In the latest race for space exploration.
Man: The main engine is at 108%.
Narrator: Most of the flights have been unmanned.
But in October 2014,
Two virgin galactic pilots test a prototype
Of the world's first's commercial space plane.
Woman: Three, two, one, release, release, release.
Narrator: As one of them engages the rocket
That will push them to the edge of the earth's atmosphere,
Disaster strikes.
Announcer: Spaceship two exploded during a test flight
Over california's mojave desert.
One of the two crew members was killed.
Malik: Errors do happen and they're very painful,
Especially when it's an accident with people.
Barry: While nasa and other space agencies
Make it look easy,
If everything doesn't work perfectly,
There's a big risk there that somebody's gonna get hurt.
Narrator: Those who go first take bigger risks
And face bigger dangers.
Perhaps no one knew that better than the men
Who pioneered the world's very first space plane: The x-15.
Long, sleek and hypersonic,
The north american x-15 makes its debut in October 1958.
The experimental research project belongs to nasa,
The air force, and north american aviation.
Its purpose: To explore the very edge of space.
Teitel: The x-15 program actually predates the space age.
The idea was to start exploring hypersonic space.
Aircraft were going supersonic,
They were going mach 2, mach 2.5,
But nothing was really going
At space-equivalent speeds of like mach 25.
So, there was some question of like,
"well, what's gonna happen
"when we start going really, really fast?"
Barry: Engineers were looking at what kind of materials
Can you use at extreme high speeds?
How do you control a spacecraft or aircraft
At those kinds of speeds?
And so that was the realm that the x-15 was aimed at.
Narrator: The x -15 is 50 feet long,
Almost all of which is taken up by its fuel tank.
Fully fueled, it weighs almost 38,000 pounds.
Teitel: It was basically a rocket
With a cockpit on the top.
This thing burned through its fuel
To propel the spacecraft to ridiculous speeds and heights.
Narrator: The x-15's pilots are an exclusive club
Of just 12 daring members,
Including future astronaut neil armstrong.
Barry: They had to be able to think quickly
About where they are,
What's going on and what the most likely problem
Is that they're facing at the moment
And what could kill them next.
Narrator: From the start of the program,
It isn't clear whether pilots are testing the space rocket
Or it is testing them.
June 8th, 1959.
Edwards air force base, california.
The new and unproven x-15
Is ready for its very first flight.
Nasa plans to test the space plane's handling capabilities
With a long unpowered glide back to earth.
Barry: The x-15 is effectively a rocket powered glider.
It runs for 90 seconds and then you're out of fuel
And the craft becomes a glider
And you come back and land.
Drawback of course is that if you misjudge the landing
You can't take off and fly around again and land,
You've got to get it right the first time.
Narrator: Piloting the spacecraft,
Legendary test pilot and aircraft engineer
Scott crossfield.
Teitel: Among some of his earliest claims to fame
He became the first pilot to fly at mach 2,
So twice the speed of sound.
Narrator: The ground crew
Straps crossfield's x-15 to its mothership,
A modified b-52 bomber.
Teitel: Because the x-15 needed to reserve all of its fuel,
It was actually air launched
From underneath the wing of a b-52.
Ground control: 003, edwards cleared for take off.
Teitel: Crossfield was sealed inside the cockpit of the x-15
For about an hour
As this bomber rose to the launch altitude.
Narrator: At 37,000 feet, crossfield gives the cue.
Crossfield: Release.
It's a clean break.
Narrator: The x-15 begins its downward glide.
Crossfield: Looks pretty good here, I'm at 36,000.
Narrator: The first part of the flight goes smoothly.
Crossfield: Clean submersion, good deal buddy,
I'm beginning to turn in.
Narrator: But as crossfield approaches the landing,
The x-15 starts bucking wildly.
Teitel: The nose of the aircraft was bouncing up and down
And the more he tried to correct it, the worse it got.
Narrator: The bouncing aircraft sinks
Toward the desert at 200 miles per hour.
Observers watch in horror,
Wondering if the x-15's first flight may be its last.
Ground control: Take it easy.
Narrator: Crossfield struggles
To ease the plane down to the lake bed.
Ground control: About 30 feet.
Just hold it steady and you'll set it right there.
Narrator: He skids for nearly 3/4 of a mile
Before coming to a stop.
Only the landing gear is damaged.
Crossfield himself emerges unscathed.
Teitel: The problem turned out
To be improperly set flight controls which, luckily,
Was something that could be fixed very easily.
Narrator: Five months later,
Crossfield is in the cockpit again,
This time, testing the x-15's powerful engine
On a fully-powered flight.
The plan is to make a straight climb
To the edge of space at 80,000 feet.
Crossfield: Clear to go?
Ground control: Roger.
Launch.
Narrator: Moments after free fall,
Crossfield lights his engine.
13 seconds later, a warning light.
The engine is on fire.
Crossfield: I've got a fire, scott.
I'm shutdown, the plane's shutdown.
Narrator: Crossfield's flight plan
Quickly changes to one of survival.
High over the mojave desert,
X-15 pilot scott crossfield is in trouble.
His engine fire quickly burns out
But he must make an emergency landing,
Forcing him to test the x-15's very bones.
Teitel: The x-15 was designed to land empty.
On this flight, however,
Crossfield had to land with a nearly full fuel tank.
The aircraft was twice as heavy as it should've been.
Narrator: Crossfield fights to get the plane
Into the right landing position.
Thousands of pounds of unspent fuel
Causes the x-15's fuselage to break just behind the cockpit.
Crossfield is unharmed.
Teitel: Pilots always said the safest place to be
In any issue with the x-15 was the cockpit.
It was your best defense against death.
Narrator: Over the next few years,
Pilots undertake dozens of tests
At increasingly ambitious altitudes and speeds.
Barry: As the program progresses,
The x-15 begins to be modified
And flown in regimes where it is so far
In the high reaches of the atmosphere
That it was effectively no atmosphere.
And it's really sort of like a spacecraft.
Narrator: In 1962,
Major robert white flies the plane to 59 miles,
Literally crossing the boundary into space
To become the air force's first winged astronaut.
White: Going up.
Massimino: If you can find a way to get yourself
50 miles above our planet, that is considered to be space
And you can get astronaut wings.
And that's what he did.
Narrator: In 1967, william knight sets a record
For the fastest ever piloted powered aircraft flight,
4,520 miles per hour, or mach 6.7,
A record that still stands today.
Teitel: These pilots were breaking speed records
And altitude records all over the place
And it was really starting to prove
That humans could pilot vehicles
In a near-space environment.
Narrator: For 190 flights, these space pioneers
Dared the x-15 to get the best of them.
On the 191st flight, they pushed too far.
November 15th, 1967.
Edwards air force base, california.
At 10:30 in the morning,
Test pilot mike adams takes off on his seventh x-15 flight.
Barry: He's testing out a new display
On the interior of the cockpit x-15 number three,
Which was one of the ones that was most modified
To change the displays to fly like a space vehicle.
Narrator: At 45,000 feet, adams drops.
Seconds later, he engages his engine
And finds himself piloting a rocket.
His x-15 maintains a fast, steep climb,
Blazing upward at 4,000 feet per second.
The engine gulps down nine tons of fuel in a 90-second burn,
Pushing beyond the earth's atmosphere.
Teitel: Regular flight controls didn't work.
He had to use really small jets that can manipulate
The spacecraft with tiny bursts of gas.
Narrator: At 230,000 feet up and 4,600 miles per hour,
Adams suddenly loses control of his x-15.
Teitel: He was actually having some faulty displays
About pitch information.
He ended up not realizing that his heading
Had gotten so far off
And that resulted in him falling into a spin.
Narrator: A minute after he starts his descent,
Adams realizes that he's in trouble.
He radios for help.
Flight controllers are stunned.
Teitel: The engineers on the ground only had some of the data
That was showing up in the cockpit,
So they were unaware of exactly
How bad the situation was getting.
Barry: At those sorts of speeds and those sorts of altitudes,
Things happen very fast
And it was very easy for the situation
To get out of control very quickly which is what happened.
Narrator: On the ground,
The control room loses contact with adams.
Teitel: At about 62,000 feet,
The forces on the body of the aircraft ripped it apart.
Barry: He was killed probably instantaneously
And then the remnants of the x-15
Were scattered across the desert floor.
Narrator: Investigators reach a grim conclusion:
Adams made the errors that caused his plane to spin.
Barry: The folks who were analyzing the accident
Thought that his ability to sort out
What the instruments were doing was compromised by vertigo.
And so they instituted a screening program
After that for the x-15 pilots.
Narrator: But in October 1968,
A little over a year after adams' death,
Nasa shuts down the x -15 program for good.
Barry: The x-15 was the vehicle that paved the way
In our understanding so that we could fly from orbit
Down to the earth or from the earth
Into space with a winged vehicle.
Narrator: 2,500 miles away in cape canaveral, florida,
Nasa's already begun exploring other ways
To get humans into space.
Weitekamp: Nasa, in other parts of its organization,
Is working on rocket engines
That are gonna send people through the atmosphere
Into space, and bring them safely back to earth.
Narrator: Project mercury also started in 1958,
The same year as the x-15.
The program was prompted by the soviet union's attempt
To claim space as its own.
Weitekamp: The sequence of events
In the very early space age
Really had the soviet union way out in front.
They launched the first satellite, sputnik,
In October of 1957.
Sputnik 2, which was much larger and carried laika,
The dog into space, went up within a month.
Narrator: 1961,
The soviets strike an even more serious blow.
Cosmonaut yuri gagarin becomes the first human
To orbit the earth on a 108-minute flight.
Nasa responds by launching
And landing astronaut alan shepard three weeks later
In america's first sub-orbital flight.
Shepard: This is freedom 7.
I've got go, 1.2 g.
Narrator: Shepard becomes a national hero.
But nasa knows that compared to the soviets,
They're still woefully far behind.
They quickly ready a second mission: Mercury-redstone 4,
Flown by test pilot and air force combat veteran,
Gus grissom.
Kluger: Grissom's mission was basically saying,
"let's run the same mission.
"let's make sure that first success was not a fluke.
"and let's know that we are absolutely ready
"for the next big step, which is to put a man in orbit."
Barry: It was also a tweaking of the spacecraft
So that it would be ready for orbital flight in the future.
Narrator: One of those tweaks is adding a window.
Previous designs had just two small portholes,
But grissom will have a view.
Kluger: The window made it easier for the astronaut to see
And it made it easier for the astronaut
To feel like a pilot as opposed to a submariner.
Narrator: Another difference: The hatch.
It's been a challenge
Since the first space capsules were designed.
Shepard's capsule opened with a simple latch.
Grissom's capsule has a lighter but more complicated design.
Barry: They put an explosive in there
To be able to blow the hatch off.
So if you needed to get out in a hurry,
They could remove the hatch in a hurry
With an explosive charge.
Narrator: July 21st, 1961.
Cape canaveral, florida.
A ground crew makes last minute checks
On the mercury-redstone 4, also known as the liberty bell.
At 7:20 a.M.,
The free world's second manned
Suborbital flight becomes airborne.
Capcom: Roger, your ip is right on, gus.
Right on. Grissom: Yep.
Narrator: Thanks to the new window,
Grissom becomes the first american
To directly view the earth from space.
Grissom: It's such a fascinating view out the window
You just can't help but look out that way.
Capcom: I understand.
Narrator: Six minutes after take-off,
Liberty bell 7 plunges back into the atmosphere.
The parachute deploys on schedule at 21,000 feet.
Grissom: Getting ready for impact here.
Barry: He splashes down in the atlantic ocean
Near the recovery forces
And everything seems to be perfectly normal.
Narrator: Two navy helicopters
Take off from the rescue ship.
They expect to see the capsule floating intact,
With grissom still inside.
Kluger: What they saw instead was the hatch already out.
The spacecraft starting to settle into the water,
And the astronaut out in the water without a life raft.
Narrator: Suddenly, the navy faces a serious emergency.
Liberty bell 7 takes on water and is sinking fast.
Barry: As the capsule filled with water,
It became quickly apparent that the helicopter's ability
To lift it was being compromised.
Narrator: The flooded capsule weighs over 5,000 pounds,
1,000 more than the chopper can lift.
Just a few yards away, grissom is in danger of drowning.
His spacesuit fills with water fast.
Kluger: He began buoyant.
And then he felt his buoyancy fading.
He felt himself weighing more,
And he felt himself coming down to the surface of the water.
Narrator: What seemed like a routine recovery
Is now a mission to rescue a multi-million dollar capsure
And a sinking astronaut.
Off the coast of florida, astronaut gus grissom
Struggles to stay afloat in the rough seas.
Barry: Treading water for a long time is one thing,
But treading water with a couple hundred pounds
Of extra water in your space suit, not so easy to do.
Narrator: One of the helicopters drops a lifeline
And plucks grissom out of the water.
The other struggles with the sinking capsule.
It's too much.
Kluger: You're supposed to bring home both
Astronaut and hardware,
Even though that hardware was never going to fly again.
It just didn't look good to lose your ship.
Narrator: Just four minutes after splashdown,
Grissom sets foot on a waiting carrier.
He's tired, rattled, and sore.
Barry: I think he pretty well understood
That he was likely to be severely questioned
And that there would be this patina of negativity
Associated with his mission.
Narrator: Grissom's flight is marred
By its disastrous ending.
Some say he panicked and activated the hatch too soon.
Barry: Even some of the engineers said that,
"he must've blown the hatch,
"it couldn't possibly have blown off by itself
"'cause we designed it too well."
The whole point of the mission
Was to prove that america was ready
To move into orbital flight and in fact what happens
Is we lose the space capsule and almost lose an astronaut.
Narrator: For the rest of his career,
Grissom claims the hatch exploded open
Completely on its own.
Nasa accepts his theory
And determines that the mission is a success.
Grissom goes on to command gemini 3,
Becoming the first man to fly in space twice.
Kluger: Nasa kept assigning gus grissom to tough missions,
Because he was a tough man.
Narrator: 1966.
Nasa is five years into its third human spaceflight program.
Project apollo is dedicated to landing human beings
On the moon and bringing them safely back to earth.
In March, nasa announces the crew
Of the program's first mission.
Astronauts roger chaffee and ed white
Will be led by the most experienced
Astronaut in america,
Gus grissom.
The three-man crew will be the first to test
Apollo's brand new command module in low earth orbit.
Teitel: Being chosen for the crew of apollo 1
Was a prestigious assignment because this was the mission
That was launching the lunar landing program.
This was the first step in nasa's final push to the moon.
Narrator: The launch is planned for September,
But as the date approaches,
The newly-designed command module isn't ready.
Teitel: It seemed like every time one problem was solved,
A new one popped up.
Basically anything that could be a problem became a problem.
Narrator: One of the capsule's biggest changes
Is the hatch.
It's been re-designed after gus grissom's near-disaster
In mercury-redstone 4, giving it three layers of protection
To prevent it from opening accidentally.
Teitel: There were two hatches that made a pressure seal
Within the spacecraft itself,
And then a third hatch over the boost protective cover.
Narrator: January 27th, 1967.
White, chaffee, and grissom report for an exercise
Called a plugs-out test,
Making sure all of the command module's systems
Are ready for the upcoming launch.
At one p.M., the astronauts enter the command module.
Inside, they have just over 200 cubic feet.
The close-knit crew has been training hard for months
On little sleep.
Today, they're frustrated and irritable.
Kluger: From the moment
The astronauts got into that space craft,
I don't think anyone was in a good mood.
Capcom: Ready to begin check off of flight crew.
Grissom: Say again please.
Capcom: Ready to begin check off of flight crew.
Narrator: The plugs-out test is fraught with problems.
Capcom: Could you report the value?
Grissom: 650.
Capcom: 650?
I'm just barely reading you.
Teitel: They were in there for hours
And had to keep holding for issues with the microphone,
Issue with some smells in the spacecraft,
In the air circulation.
Capcom: Commander, could you slide down
A little in your couch?
We're not able to see you on the face plate.
Grissom: I'm down all the way.
Teitel: There seemed to be so many things
Stopping them from just finishing this test.
Grissom: How are we gonna get to the moon
If we can't talk between two or three buildings?
Narrator: Nearly five hours
After the astronauts enter the capsule,
The test is almost ready to start.
Capcom: Ecs tech, will you take a last look
Around the interior of the capsule
And then secure the test capsule hatch?
Grissom: Roger.
Capcom: Go ahead ecs.
The hatch door is secured.
Grissom: Roger.
Narrator: Just moments before they begin the final test,
Something goes terribly wrong.
At cape kennedy's launch pad 34,
Astronauts gus grissom, ed white, and roger chaffee
Are testing the new apollo 1 command module when...
Chaffee: We have a fire in the cockpit!
Kluger: It was clear that something terrible
And unprecedented was happening.
Chaffee: We have a bad fire!
Teitel: Inside the spacecraft,
One of the astronauts sees a spark of a fire.
And that quickly spreads
Throughout the entire spacecraft.
The crews that tried to get to the spacecraft
To free the astronauts can't get near enough,
Because the heat is so intense.
Narrator: Five minutes after the fire starts,
The launch team finally opens the capsule.
Teitel: It's obvious that the crew has not survived.
It was the worst disaster nasa had faced
In its short existence.
Narrator: The astronauts' deaths
Send shock waves across america.
Everyone knows that space flight is risky,
But some accuse nasa of pushing too hard to get to the moon.
Kluger: Nasa was speeding,
And when you speed, you get reckless.
And when you get reckless people die.
Narrator: Nasa quickly convenes a review board
To report on the tragedy.
Technicians work around the clock,
Looking at each and every part of the command module.
Teitel: The accident investigation board
Eventually found that there had been some exposed wiring
That was able to spark.
Narrator: Fed by flammable materials inside the cabin,
The blaze quickly spread.
Kluger: It's important to remember that the atmosphere
Was 100% pure oxygen
Which is gasoline to a spark.
Narrator: Another problem,
The newly-designed hatch took too long to open.
Kluger: This was a two or three-minute job.
It made sense in terms of strength,
The integrity of the hatch.
It made precisely zero sense
In terms of the safety of the crew.
Narrator: Nasa puts human spaceflight on hold
For 20 months while they make thousands of changes
To the spacecraft's design.
They replaced the nylon in the capsule
With fabric that won't catch fire.
And rework the hatch
To let the crew escape in under 10 seconds.
Massimino: Nasa, throughout its history
Has an excellent record of learning from mistakes
So that the next time they go up,
They're gonna be safer than they were before.
Narrator: Nasa's goal remains constant: Go to the moon.
To do that, they need a safe command module
And a lunar lander.
They practice on something called the lltv.
Weitekamp: The lunar landing was going to be something
Unlike what had been done before,
And they needed to create something
That puts the pilot in the same kind of situation
That he would find himself
In actually trying to land on the moon.
And that's what the lltv was designed to do.
Narrator: The lltv, its official name
Is the lunar landing training vehicle.
Astronauts know it as the flying bedstead,
A spindly contraption balancing on a turbojet engine.
16 small thrusters hang on the frame
And control its every move.
Malik: The jet engine could cancel out
5/6 of earth's gravity
So that it would make it seem
As if the vehicle was kind of its weight on the moon.
Narrator: May 6th, 1968.
Ellington air force base, texas.
Astronaut neil armstrong prepares to fly
The lunar landing research vehicle.
The landing crew for the apollo 11 flight
Has not yet been chosen.
Before he can take a moon flight,
Armstrong must have 22 practice missions.
This mission is his 21st.
Malik: He took off kind of thinking
Everything was gonna go normal.
And he's done this before.
Narrator: Armstrong climbs to 1,000 feet.
Malik: He flies it up.
He knows it's gonna be maybe a 10-minute flight
And he was flying for about five minutes,
About half the duration
Of what the vehicle really can do for a given test.
Narrator: Armstrong hovers for a moment,
Then begins to simulate a lunar landing,
Balancing the aircraft by using the small rockets
That control his rate of descent.
Malik: He's about halfway through
When something starts to go wrong.
(dramatic music)
Narrator: At ellington air force base in texas,
Astronaut neil armstrong
Flies his lunar landing research vehicle
Just 200 feet above the ground.
Suddenly, it begins to tilt.
Armstrong has only a split second to decide what to do.
Malik: He can't save it,
And he knows that he has to get away from the situation.
And that's when he decides to eject.
Narrator: Armstrong shoots upward at 14 g's.
The lltv is a total loss.
Armstrong lands in a patch of weeds near the runway.
His only injury is a cut on his tongue.
Weitekamp: He went back to his desk and kept working.
The day wasn't over, and he had stuff he needed to do.
And even the other astronauts thought
He had absolute ice water in his veins
To be able to walk away from such a near death experience,
And go back to his desk and go back to work.
Narrator: An accident review board meticulously
Combs through the flight data.
There are four other test vehicles being used,
And they don't want to risk another pilot's life.
Malik: They found out that there was a loss of helium pressure
In the tanks for the vehicle.
And this is stuff that keeps the tanks pressurized
To make sure that the vehicle can keep its engine firing.
Narrator: Armstrong's instruments
Didn't recognize the problem in time for him to adjust.
Malik: After that, when they built the new one,
Then they put those gauges on so the astronauts could see
If they're gonna lose that pressure.
Narrator: Of the five lltvs that nasa built,
Only two survive testing intact.
A second crashes when an undetected wind shear
Pushes the contraption off balance.
A third crashes after an electrical system malfunction
Causes it to lose power.
Like armstrong, both of the pilots manage to escape alive,
Thanks to steely nerves and split-second decisions.
Just 14 months after his near-death flight,
Armstrong pilots a real lunar lander
In its first flight down to the moon.
His training flights ultimately pay off.
Weitekamp: As apollo 11 was coming in to land,
Neil armstrong looked ahead of him and saw that,
Instead of the nice smooth surface
That had been anticipated on their flight path,
He was flying actually to a field of boulders,
So he sped up, went a little bit long,
And found a nice flat place
To actually put the lunar lander down.
Armstrong: Tranquility base here.
The eagle has landed.
Malik: To touchdown flawlessly 240,000 miles away
From your home planet is a feat that he was able to do
Because of the training he did
To really just set all of that skill in stone
So that he's ready for those final moments.
Narrator: Landing on the moon
Was a triumph for humankind.
Today's space pioneers have their sights set
On even bigger challenges.
Trips to mars, colonies on the moon, growing food in space,
Each one with unknown rewards and unknown risks.
Malik: We're seeing a lot of competition now
To be the first to do something completely new.
To land at the south pole of the moon.
To land a woman on the moon.
Who's gonna be first for that?
Narrator: From the earliest day of space exploration
To humankind's latest endeavors,
Risk is always part of the equation.
Teitel: Space exploration
Is ultimately all about our curiosity.
It always comes with risk,
But we can't let risk stop us
From exploring what's out there.