(dramatic music)
Narrator: If you think getting to space is hard,
Just try getting back home.
Weitekamp: Re-entry is always risky.
Narrator: Unforgiving heat,
Unthinkable speed,
And landings on the edge of your seat.
Massimino: And you only have one chance at it.
Narrator: Join us
On a jaw dropping journey back to earth,
As we reveal terrifying close calls.
Barry: There is no margin for error.
Narrator: And devastating failures
Just moments from home.
Kluger: Space doesn't let you down safely.
(dramatic music)
Narrator: April 14, 1981.
Veteran astronauts john young
And pilot robert crippen
Soak in the view from nasa's brand new spacecraft,
The space shuttle columbia.
Young: Boy, the view hasn't changed any.
It's really something else.
Crippen: I tell you, ain't no way you can describe it.
It's hard to get my head
In the cockpit here and do my procedures.
Capcom: I can imagine.
Narrator: Crippen and young are
On the shuttle's maiden voyage.
The massive wing-shaped vehicle
Is unlike anything they've ever flown.
Barry: The space shuttle was an airplane
That flies into space and comes back again.
It can carry a huge cargo payload
And a crew of seven or more if you squeezed them in there.
Narrator: For two days, the astronauts have
Carefully evaluated the shuttle's systems.
Now, they prepare for its biggest test yet,
Re-entry into the earth's atmosphere.
Rocha: Entry from a space shuttle or any vehicle
Coming back from space at very, very high speeds
Is very challenging.
The heating becomes intense very, very quickly.
Narrator: Columbia relies on what nasa
Calls a thermal protection system.
More than 20,000 ceramic tiles protect
It from 3,000 degrees of searing heat.
Barry: To get home safely,
The thermal protection system is absolutely critical.
It has to work and it has to be there and effective.
Narrator: At edwards air force base,
Over 300,000 people await the shuttle's landing.
Halfway around the world, columbia begins re-entry.
Mocr: 10 seconds to los. We'll see you about mach 12.
Young: I'm looking forward to that.
Narrator: Mission control anxiously
Tracks the spacecraft's progress.
Capcom: Columbia, this is houston.
We're standing by.
Hello, columbia, houston's here.
How do you read?
Young: Hello there houston.
Loud and clear and we're doing mach 10.3 at 180 as.
Narrator: At 10:20 in the morning,
Space shuttle columbia lands safely.
Young: This is the world's greatest flying machine.
I'll tell you that!
That was super!
Narrator: But a post-flight inspection
Minutes later reveals an ugly surprise.
Barry: Low-and-behold, despite all the efforts
That they made before the launch,
There were quite a number of tiles that were not in place.
So, more effort was spent before
The next mission launched in finding out
Why did they come off because it was so critical
To the mission and survival of the crews.
Narrator: Engineers trace the tile loss
To a massive sound wave on liftoff.
Capcom: Seven, six, five, four.
We've gone for main engine start,
We have main engines start.
Narrator: Nasa beefs up its sound
Suppression on future launches.
But another problem arises, flying debris.
Rocha: The engines start up
And it's churning up a tornado of debris at the launchpad.
It would pepper the underside of the shuttle.
We would routinely see little pockmarks.
Narrator: Over the next seven years,
The new shuttles return with tears
In their all-important thermal shields.
Nasa pao: 75,000 feet.
46 nautical miles to touchdown.
Barry: Every mission there was always a tile
That would get damaged, or might fall off.
Capcom: And gear touchdown.
Barry: And so I think they get used to seeing
A certain level of damage.
And, at some point, that became the normal thing,
Even though it was probably more than you would like to see.
Narrator: Nasa regards the damage
As a matter of maintenance.
It's a risky practice that has dire consequences
For re-entries to come.
December 1988.
The space shuttle atlantis orbits
With five veteran astronauts.
They're on a top secret department of defense mission,
To deploy a covert military satellite.
Rocha: Mission 27 of the atlantis space shuttle orbiter
Was a classified mission.
Only very restricted numbers of people
Were allowed to even know what was going on.
Capcom: Atlantis, houston.
Narrator: The day after the launch,
The crew wakes to an urgent alarm from mission control.
At johnson space center,
Ground controllers review the launch camera.
They spot something disturbing.
85 seconds into liftoff, a large piece of debris appears
To strike the orbiter's right wing.
Rocha: They advised the crew, you'd better take a look.
Narrator: The crew uses the shuttle's
Robotic arm to inspect its thermal shield.
It reveals a bone chilling scene.
There's damage to hundreds of atlantis' delicate tiles.
Rocha: What the crew saw was patches of white.
You're not supposed to see that.
If you see white,
That means it's no longer efficient in absorbing heat.
Narrator: No one has ever seen
This many cracked tiles before.
It doesn't bode well for a safe return.
Barry: If it's substantially damaged in the wrong spots,
There's potentially no way for you to get back to earth.
Any chink in the armor is potentially fatal.
Narrator: Ground controllers ask
To see footage of the damage.
But the mission is top secret.
An encrypted, low resolution video is all that's permitted.
Rocha: Their imagery was not very good.
It was from the robotic arm with
A camera that looked at it askance,
The lighting isn't good, it's at a shallow angle.
It's not great.
By the time you encrypt it
And send it to the ground, it's degraded.
Narrator: Engineers re-examine the images
And declare that the shuttle is safe to land.
Astronauts have no choice but to pray that they're right.
December 6th, 1988.
The astronauts of space shuttle atlantis
Prepare for re -entry back to earth
Knowing that the heat shield meant
To protect them is seriously damaged.
Barry: If the heat shield burns through,
Suddenly you've got 1000 degree temperature
Flowing into the capsule
And it's gonna kill anything that's in there.
Narrator: Astronauts brace themselves
For a dangerous re-entry.
Astronaut: Hey flight control, power off.
Step 10 and 11 are done.
Narrator: They see flaming hot gas outside the window
And hope the shuttle stays intact.
At edwards air force base,
Emergency vehicles stand on high alert.
At 3:30 pm, flight controllers behold a reassuring sight.
Atlantis plunges through the sky
And skids to a safe landing on the california runway.
Minutes later the ground crew discovers
The most extensive tile damage nasa has ever seen,
707 cracked tiles and one missing completely.
The astronauts have narrowly cheated death.
Rocha: We were lucky that the missing tile
Was over a thicker part of the skin.
Because right underneath was some kind of an antenna
Or some kind of component that was mounted there
And that's what saved it because it tolerated more heat.
Narrator: Returning a spacecraft safely back to earth
Is a challenge that started long before the shuttle.
It's troubled engineers for decades.
Their designs must overcome the heat
Generated by the returning spacecraft's speed.
Weitekamp: Orbital velocity is 17,500 miles an hour.
You need to go from that speed to essentially zero,
Coming through the atmosphere with
A tremendous amount of friction between
The actual molecules of the air and the spacecraft itself.
Massimino: The atmosphere is like a fluid
And it slows the spacecraft down.
That generates a lot of heat.
Thousands of degrees.
When you're dealing with stuff
That's that hot, that's dangerous.
Narrator: In the early 1960s,
Nasa borrows from designs developed by the military
And settles on what they believe is the perfect shape.
Massimino: The typical design is kind
Of shaped like a hershey's kiss.
You want the fat part of it taking the heat
And protecting the crew inside.
Narrator: Shape alone won't protect its precious cargo.
The capsule needs an extra safeguard.
Engineers coat the bottom with a specialized resin
That draws the heat away from the capsule.
Weitekamp: What you had was something that would
Burn away and begin to dissipate.
The physical parts of it would start
To come off the bottom of the spacecraft.
And in doing so, it would carry the heat
That had been absorbed away from the craft.
Narrator: For years,
The blunt-bottom capsule provides safe re-entry.
Until a new design pushes the limits even further.
April 1967.
The soviet union and the united states
Are locked in a tense race to the moon.
Teitel: In the first half of the 1960s,
The soviet union hit all the significant firsts in space,
First satellite,
First human,
First spacewalk.
But after 1965, things switched into nasa's favor.
Narrator: The americans take the prize
For the first docking of two spaceships
And the longest mission to date.
They're feats the soviet government
Hopes to quickly outshine.
They build a new three man spacecraft, called soyuz.
Teitel: Soyuz was the first vehicle that
Allowed the soviet cosmonauts to actually
Have some control in space.
It was designed to actually start
Maneuvering to change its orbit.
Narrator: The spacecraft is ambitious and complex
But rushed.
Technicians report dozens of problems
And suggest delaying the launch.
Leadership doesn't agree.
Barry: Being a leader in space was so closely tied
To the political legitimacy
Of the communist party of the soviet union
That they had to have something to fly
That can beat the americans at something.
Narrator: April 22, 1967.
Moscow.
Rumors spread that the soviets will soon
Send soyuz on its maiden launch.
The first crewed mission
Of a soviet spacecraft in nearly two years.
Soviet officials desperately hope this will be the mission
That finally reclaims their supremacy in space.
They've got just the man for the job.
They choose 40 year-old vladimir komarov to command soyuz 1.
He's a former fighter pilot and flight test engineer.
Barry: Komarov gets brought in as someone
With a bit more experience in the flying game
Who knew the challenges of flying a more complex vehicle.
Teitel: There was a lot of pressure on him personally
To make the mission a success.
Narrator: April 23, 1967.
Baikonur cosmodrome launch complex, kazakhstan.
Soyuz 1 blasts off.
Its goal, to rendezvous with a second spacecraft
To be launched the next day.
Narrator: But before he even completes an orbit,
Komarov's mood grows grim.
Teitel: One of the two solar panels
On soyuz 1 failed to deploy
And that left a lack of electrical energy
In the spacecraft.
Komarov was having problems with all sorts of things
Including even maneuvering the spacecraft.
Narrator: Mission control watches
As komarov struggles to stabilize the soyuz.
Narrator: Sensors reveal that
He's draining too much fuel.
The soviets realize quickly that their much
Longed-for triumph has little chance of success.
Barry: It goes very quickly from,
Can we fly this mission and carry it out?
To, holy mackerel, how are we gonna
Get komarov home safely because they
Realized the vehicle was in big trouble.
Narrator: Mission control has no choice
But to abort the rendezvous mission.
Now, komarov has just one goal.
Narrator: To make it home alive.
Moscow, 1967.
Soviet engineers anxiously monitor the return of soyuz 1,
The aborted mission meant
To challenge america's dominance in space.
The capsule hurtles toward the russian steppe.
Engineers are confident that cosmonaut
Vladimir komarov will soon make a heroic landing.
But inside the capsule, things aren't going well.
Teitel: As soon as he deployed his parachutes,
Things got really bad.
He released the reserve parachute,
But that got tangled with the drogue parachute
Such that neither were able to slow him down.
He smashed into the earth at full speed.
Narrator: A day after his launch,
Komarov becomes the first fatality during a spaceflight.
Barry: It was a huge, huge blow.
It was a public relations disaster
For the soviet union and the soviet leadership
And it set back their program for several years.
Narrator: By 1968, it's clear the soviets
Are far behind their american competitors.
On July 20, 1969.
Armstrong: That's one small step for man.
Narrator: Nasa wins the ultimate prize, the moon.
Armstrong: One giant leap for mankind.
Narrator: Soviet leadership quickly switches gears.
Their new plan, to build the world's first space station.
Kluger: They said all right, we didn't do the flashy thing,
But we're gonna be better than anyone else on earth
At learning how to live in space, not just visit, live.
Narrator: In 1970,
The soviets begin building the station.
The modestly-sized marvel
Is just 13 feet wide and 66 feet long.
They name it salyut, meaning salute or fireworks.
In April 1971, they launch it into space.
Kluger: I do think national pride was on the line.
And I do think there was no way around
The fact that they were stung by having lost the space race,
Especially since they had such an early lead.
Narrator: With the space station successfully deployed,
It's time to put it to use.
Cosmonauts georgy dobrovolsky, viktor patsayev,
And vladislav volkov prepare to access the station.
They'll get there on the soyuz 11 spaceship
And live on salyut for 30 days,
The longest time anyone's ever lived in space.
June 6th, 1971.
Soyuz 11 blasts off from the baikonur cosmodrome.
In just under four hours, it's docked with salyut 1.
The mission is off to a perfect start.
Kluger: They had three, smart, good,
Talented cosmonauts aboard salyut 1.
They said get it, we built it,
We sent our crew up,
And we are going to start our new chapter in space.
Narrator: After 23 days of living in a floating box,
Tensions among the soyuz trio start to rise.
Teitel: They were fighting and disagreeing with each other
And they were also starting to make some sloppy decisions
That were worrying engineers on the ground.
Teitel: The flight controllers said we have proven
The principle of living long term in low earth orbit.
Let's declare a victory and come home.
Narrator: June 30th, 1971.
In moscow, the soviets prepare
To celebrate their conquering heroes.
1,500 miles away in the kazakh steppe,
Soyuz 11's landing appears to go as planned.
But inside the capsule is a horrifying scene.
Kluger: When the recovery crew came out,
They opened the spacecraft.
Everyone was dead.
Narrator: It's the second soviet
Space tragedy in just four years.
The public is devastated.
Officials are cagey about admitting the cause of death
But slowly the truth comes out.
A ventilation valve opened prematurely 80 miles above earth
Causing the soyuz to depressurize.
The crew suffocated within seconds.
Teitel: This re-entry failure remains completely unique
Because it's the only time people have died in space.
Narrator: Soyuz 11's disastrous re-entry
Overshadows the salyut's success.
In america, nasa faces its own re-entry disaster.
This time, with citizens on the ground.
Nasa pao: Three, two, one, zero.
Narrator: May, 1973.
Nasa launches the 77-ton skylab,
Its answer to salyut 1.
Nasa pao: The skylab lifting off the pad now.
Narrator: Skylab is the largest
Spacecraft ever launched into space.
Nasa plans to keep it in orbit for years to come.
For now, there are just enough resources
For three manned missions.
Weitekamp: Skylab was sent up with the idea
Of having crews that would spend increasingly
Long durations of time there doing scientific research,
Doing earth observation.
Narrator: Eight months after it launches,
Skylab's final crew wraps up its mission
And shuts down the station.
Sot: It's been a real useful machine,
Hate to think we're the last guys to use it.
Sot: Yeah, yes.
Well, it certainly did a good job.
Served its purpose.
Narrator: Nasa's plan is to finish
Its brand new space shuttle
And use it to boost skylab further into space.
Barry: The expectation is that we'll move
The skylab into a fairly high orbit
And we'll have it up there for an indefinite period.
Narrator: For now, the space station is forgotten.
It orbits peacefully above the earth.
Five years later, the universe delivers a twist of fate
That has america watching skylab's every move.
In 1978, nasa makes a startling announcement,
Skylab's orbit is rapidly decaying.
Weitekamp: There was a storm of solar flares
And those affected the earth's atmosphere
In a way that it started to pull on the skylab
In a way that had not been anticipated.
Barry: It soon became evident that skylab's orbit
Was not gonna last long enough
For the space shuttle to come up and rescue it.
Narrator: As the public gets wind of the problem,
Nasa soon admits to an even bigger challenge,
They can't control when or where skylab
Will re-enter the atmosphere
Or predict where the space station will land.
Barry: It was a very big piece of material.
It had lots of very heavy parts
And you didn't want that landing some place
Where parts of it could come down
And hit something and hurt somebody.
Narrator: The american public goes into a frenzy.
There are skylab predictor kits.
Sot: Get a skylab helmet here.
Official skylab helmet.
Narrator: Hats, insurance, and even skylab repellent.
America demands answers
And the ones that nasa has to offer are not reassuring.
Brokaw: What are the chances, for example,
That someone will be killed as it falls out of the orbit?
Smith: There's one chance in 150
That any one person will be injured or killed.
Narrator: It's a public relations disaster
The likes of which nasa has never before seen.
July 11th, 1979.
62 miles above earth's surface,
The largest machine ever launched into space
Prepares to fall.
Deep inside nasa control rooms,
Engineers track skylab's re-entry.
They can't control where the space station will re-enter.
But they can try to slow the station down
By angling it against the atmosphere's drag.
If it works, skylab will fall into the indian ocean.
If not, all bets are off.
In the early morning hours of July 12th,
The space station crashes through the atmosphere.
Barry: Most of skylab landed in the indian ocean,
But pieces of it came down with a fair amount
Of velocity and force into the australian landmass.
Narrator: No one is hit.
But it's a close call with a major lesson.
Weitekamp: I think the lesson learned for nasa on re-entry
Is really thinking ahead against
The hopes of what if everything went right
To eventually what if everything goes wrong.
Massimino: If you're gonna launch something into space,
You're responsible for it,
And you're responsible that
It stays together so it won't hurt anybody.
Narrator: Two years later,
The shuttle that couldn't save skylab finally
Soars into the pages of history.
By the end of 2002, nasa has five of the orbiters.
All together, they've flown 106 missions.
In January 2003, one is on a rare science mission.
It's called sts-107,
Made up of columbia and its seven-person crew.
The astronauts of sts-107
Work in space for almost two full weeks.
A day before returning home,
They wrap up their mission with a moment of silence,
Remembering the tragic deaths of two previous nasa crews.
Husband: We remember and honor the crews
Of apollo 1 and challenger,
They made the ultimate sacrifice giving their lives
In service to their country and for all mankind.
(somber music)
Narrator: On February 1st,
The crew prepares for re-entry.
Husband: All right, check lh attitude.
Narrator: In houston, mission controllers
Track the shuttle's quick descent.
Husband: Okay houston we'll get to 304 at five minutes.
Mocr: Rick, we're ready for ops 304.
Barry: The shuttle was heavily instrumented
And sent a lot of data down,
And at mission control they're always
On their toes watching for what might be a problem.
Narrator: The shuttle streaks through
The air at 18 times the speed of sound.
23 minutes to landing.
Suddenly, a warning from the mechanical
And maintenance engineer alerts the room.
Mcc-mmacs: Flight, mmacs.
Mcc-flight: Go ahead, mmacs.
Mcc-mmacs: Fyi, I've just lost four separate
Temperature transducers on the left side of the vehicle.
Narrator: Four minutes later,
He announces another problem.
Mcc-mmacs: We've also lost the nose gear down talkback
And the right main gear down talkback.
Rocha: I said, what does that mean?
They said, it means the landing gear is unlocked.
I said, what the hell?
I was getting increasingly worried.
Mcc-flight: Everything look good to you?
Control and rates and everything is nominal right?
Mcc-gnc: I don't see anything out of the ordinary.
Mcc-flight: Okay.
Barry: If it had been a normal thing like they
Were off heading or off speed or something like that,
That was something that they were used to correcting
Or being able to deal with.
But a whole series of sort of small,
Seemingly unconnected system failures, were disturbing.
Narrator: Mission control tries
To check in with the crew.
Mcc-capcom: And columbia, houston,
We see your tire pressure messages
And we did not copy your last.
Husband: Roger.
Narrator: Their brief connection is suddenly lost.
Barry: The systems guys are seeing
These strange things happening,
Then the radio contact drops out
And it dawned on mission control pretty quickly
That there was something very bad going on.
Narrator: February 1st, 2003.
Mission control desperately tries
To contact the space shuttle columbia
As it blazes through the atmosphere.
Mcc-capcom: Columbia, houston, uhf comm check.
Rocha: It's routine to lose communication
With the crew during entry
Because of the plasma field.
That's like an electrical shield
Not letting communication in or out.
We know when that starts and we know when it ends.
Mcc-capcom: Columbia, houston, uhf comm check.
Rocha: The part that was distressing
Was that period was over
And they're not answering at all.
Narrator: 15 minutes before the shuttle
Is scheduled to land,
Police in east texas receive reports of strange lights,
Loud explosions, and falling debris.
Mission control anxiously awaits.
The landing time comes and goes.
Mcc-flight: Fido, when are you expecting tracking?
Mcc-fdo: One minute ago, flight.
Narrator: Finally, a call confirms their fears,
The shuttle and its crew are lost.
Massimino: When we lost columbia,
The whole organization was devastated.
But I think the people in the control room,
The engineers who prepared the space shuttle
Felt it even worse because they truly felt responsible.
Narrator: Days later, an investigation team examines
The digitally-enhanced film of columbia's launch.
The footage shows a piece of foam striking
Through columbia's left wing 81 seconds into launch.
But the wings are reinforced by rock hard panels.
Could a one and a half pound piece of foam
Possibly be the cause of this disaster?
Barry: I remember people saying,
Well, even if the foam did hit
The re-enforced carbon -carbon on sts-107,
It wouldn't have done that damage.
It's a piece of foam.
Narrator: July, 2003.
Southwest research institute, san antonio texas.
Nasa prepares to replicate the strike using
A lightweight piece of foam and a mockup of the wing.
They carefully load the foam into a nitrogen gas cannon.
Test captain: Five, four, three, two, one, zero.
Narrator: The result, a gaping 16 inch hole.
What happened to columbia is finally clear.
A hole in the carbon panel allowed
Superheated gas to sneak in to its left wing.
Barry: That was like a blowtorch.
And it just cut right through the interior of the wing.
And as that happened, it weakened the wing,
And during the re-entry process it eventually tore off,
And the shuttle goes into a spin
And comes apart into thousands of pieces.
Narrator: It's the worst disaster
Nasa has seen in 25 years.
The accident investigation board wants
To make sure it never happens again.
They suggest 29 safety recommendations,
Including better inspections before and during flight.
Rocha: We had more imaging assets,
Some radar, ground radar, ground imaging, sharper images.
And before the landing the shuttle
Would do a pirouette end over end
To look at every square centimeter,
Every nook and cranny.
Narrator: Nasa reviews the wear and tear
Of the aging shuttle fleet.
They decide it's time for a new vehicle
And new spaceflight goal.
Barry: The bush administration decided that
The purpose of the human space flight program
Is to send humans to the moon and onto mars.
Narrator: In February 2004,
President bush makes a tough call
For the remaining three shuttles.
Bush: In 2010, the space shuttle,
After nearly 30 years of duty,
Will be retired from service.
Narrator: The shuttles fly for seven more years.
Capcom: Landing gear down and locked.
Narrator: In 2011, the last one is retired.
Capcom: The space shuttle pulls
Into port for the last time.
Narrator: Despite two tragic accidents
That failed to bring astronauts home,
The shuttle flew 135 incredible missions
And inspired daring scientific exploration
That will impact our world for generations to come.
Barry: Space is really hard.
It's rocket science,
You're dealing with margins
Of error that are extremely small,
And even the littlest thing,
A couple pound piece of foam, can be deadly.
(dramatic music)
Narrator: Bringing astronauts back to earth safely
Is a high-stakes business.
But the lessons nasa has learned through its failures
Have paved the way for future success.
In 2019, america's re-entry efforts reach a major milestone.
The first time a united states
Crew-capable space capsule makes a touchdown on land.
Fink: Three parachutes, six airbags,
And a beautiful soft landing.
Can't wait to try it out.
Narrator: Proving that no matter how high we climb,
Or how far we go,
We'll always need a way back home.
(dramatic music)