Narrator: In space, there are few second changes.
When something breaks--
Pilot: Alpha warning.
Narrator: The wrong fix can be deadly.
Kluger: You could actually have a spacecraft snap.
Narrator: Equipment failures,
(radio chattering)
Mid-flight disasters,
(dramatic music)
And last-ditch efforts--
Pilot: So this is gonna be a very tight maneuver.
Narrator: 250 miles above the earth.
Teitel: There's no one they can call in to make a repair.
Narrator: Witness some
Of the most unexpected accidents in spaceflight.
Foale: I think, "oh, maybe this is it.
"this is where I'm going to die."
Narrator: And meet the astronauts
Who had to fix them on the fly.
Parazynski: We had never trained to do anything like this.
Woman: Be careful.
(dramatic music)
Narrator: October 30th, 2007.
The international space station.
Astronauts scott parazynski and douglas wheelock
Of mission sts-120 gear up for spacewalk number three.
Their plan, to relocate
One of the station's three sets of solar arrays.
Each one is crucial to supporting life in space.
Parazynski: The lifeblood of the international space station
Is the sun's energy.
If we didn't have access to that power,
All the life support systems would not be able to function.
So we really needed
All of our solar panels working perfectly.
Narrator: Moving the panel is a major challenge.
It's compressed for easy transport
But spreads 16 feet wide by 35 feet long.
Parazynski: In earth terms, it weighs about 40,000 pounds.
So it's gotta be maneuvered with great precision.
Narrator: Parazynski and wheelock position themselves
At the end of the station.
Man: Good motion, continue.
Parazynski: Continuing.
Once we got it out to the very tip of the space station,
We had to have accuracy of alignment
As well as position within an inch and a degree
To allow us to bolt this thing together.
Narrator: It takes seven long hours
To lock the array in place.
Parazynski and wheelock plug in the power.
Melroy: Deploy starting on my mark three, two, one, mark.
Narrator: They marvel as the panel
Slowly begins to unfurl.
Parazynski: It was gorgeous.
Kind of a hallelujah moment.
And we were actually already on our way inside the air lock
When all hell starts to break loose.
Narrator: As the panel's wings extend into space,
Commander pamela melroy spots a problem.
Melroy: Aborting.
Houston, alpha, we detected some damage
And we're zoomed in on it on camera 24 right now.
Mission control: We see it, examining.
Narrator: In the middle of the panel,
There's a massive tear.
Left as-is the tear is likely
To short circuit the whole array.
Even worse, it could expand
And make the entire structure unstable.
Mission control assesses the damage
Through a live video feed.
It's clear the crew will need to fix the tear.
The only question is how.
Parazynski: We realized that this was something
That had never been conjured up for our playbook.
We had never trained to deal with anything like this.
Narrator: Over the next three days mission control works
Around the clock trying to come up with a way
To fix the tear using just the tools
That the astronauts have on board.
Parazynski: Ultimately they focused on one
That had the greatest promise.
They said, "what if we built pieces of wire
"with tabs on either end and we could bridge the gap
"across the damaged portion of the solar panel?"
Narrator: Pilot george zamka
And commander peggy whitson call
On their inner macgyvers.
They assemble the device that they dub the cufflinks.
It's made from strips of aluminum, a hole-punch,
A bolt-connector, and 60 feet of wire.
It falls to parazynski and wheelock to make the big fix.
On day 12 of the mission, parazynski gets ready
For a spacewalk fraught with danger.
The path to the damaged array is an electrical mine field.
Any metal could attract a charge or a spark.
He hopes that non-conductive tape over his gloves
And tools will help keep him safe.
Parazynski: There was concern that there could be arching
Or direct current into my space suit,
Which is filled with 100% oxygen,
So that can cause a fire or an explosion.
Narrator: Parazynski also faces another danger.
He has to go farther from the airlock
Than any station spacewalker has ever traveled.
To get him there, mission control comes up
With a daring solution,
A 90-foot long super lift made
From the space station's robotic arm
And the space shuttle's boom.
The new maneuver has the astronauts on edge.
Parazynski: For the first time in my professional career
As an astronaut going out on a spacewalk I had real doubts.
I didn't know how the day was gonna go.
I'm ready, proceed.
Narrator: Inside the station, astronaut stephanie wilson
Carefully steers the robotic arm towards the array
With parazynski hanging on for dear life.
Parazynski: I was out the end
Of a fly fishing rod, if you will.
And it was a 45 minute long drive out to the work site.
And I had this god's eye view looking down,
Soaking in the views of our beautiful planet
And the enormity of the universe.
It's an absolutely spectacular view.
Narrator: At last, the arm slows
To a halt in front of the panel.
Parazynski: This is gonna be a very tight maneuver.
Another 10 centimeters.
Wheelock: That's about 10, right there.
Parazynski: Okay, let's stop here.
Melroy: You have some surgery to do, dr. Parazynski.
Parazynski: I think so!
Narrator: Parazynski must sew the cufflinks on
From a safe distance.
The arrays are a threat because of the electricity
But also because of their bite.
Parazynski: There are actually sharp edges on the solar panels
So it could actually cut my suit causing a leak.
Getting the hockey stick back out.
I had a tool about this long, I called it a hockey stick
And that was there to prevent any direct contact
With me or my spacesuit.
Right there is the small damaged line.
Melroy: I see the small damage.
Parazynski: Okay. Melroy: I see the large damage.
I concur that's the right cuff link.
Parazynski: I then have to straighten out the cufflinks
So that I can actually install this short aluminum tab
Through a hole that's in the solar panel.
The first half in.
Second's half in.
Narrator: The first cuff link is a perfect fit.
Melroy: Well done.
Wheelock: All right.
(dramatic music)
Narrator: One down, four to go.
The work is painstaking and slow.
Parazynski's job is made even more difficult
By movement in the panel.
Each encounter with the array
Momentarily increases his risk.
His only help is astronaut doug wheelock floating nearby.
Parazynski has to rely on his partner to keep him safe.
Parazynski: Doug wheelock, who was at the base of the array,
Had a really critical job.
If you were to push on the solar panel
It would float away from you harmlessly
For maybe six, eight feet,
But then it would accelerate back towards you
And wheels was there to spot for me to make sure
That we didn't ever have any direct contact
Between the solar panel and my spacesuit.
Wheelock: Looking good, man.
Narrator: At johnson space center in houston,
Mission control anxiously
Monitors the astronauts progress.
Parazynski: Both doug and I had cameras on our space suits
So they could actually see exactly what we're doing.
So all these people were leaning forward in their chairs,
You know, watching every aspect and giving us feedback.
Okay, I am ready to maneuver when you guys are.
Melroy: Yeah, you need an extra hand out there don't ya?
Parazynski: Yes, I do.
Narrator: Parazynski ties off another cuff link
And then another.
He has just one more to go when he hears one
Of his colleagues call out with alarm.
Melroy: Be careful.
Parazynski: Yeah, I see it.
Narrator: Parazynski looks up to see
The electrified array careening toward him, fast.
Perched on top of the international space station,
Astronaut scott parazynski works carefully
To repair a damaged solar panel.
The shuttle's crew anxiously watches him work,
All too aware that the slightest error could mean disaster.
Parazynski: I've got the first half in.
Second half in.
Narrator: Suddenly, the super-charged electrical hazard
Swings right toward him.
(doug yelps)
Melroy: Be careful.
Parazynski: Yeah, I see it.
I was ready with my hockey stick.
And the solar panel passed harmlessly
Above my head and beneath my boots.
Wheelock: Lookin' good, man.
Okay, going for number five.
Narrator: Finally, parazynski secures the last cufflink.
He's been out of the airlock for more than six hours.
The time has paid off.
The tear in the panel appears to be contained.
Melroy: And houston discovery, do you concur?
We think we're ready to pull back
To the viewing position and begin the solar array deploy.
Mission control: We are happy with the current config,
And we're ready for you to back off
And get ready for the deploy.
Tani: All right, deploy in two, one, mark.
(dramatic music)
Narrator: As the panels start to extend,
Parazynski: We've got deploy reached, two deploys reached.
Man: Yay!
Narrator: The cufflinks hold tight.
Man: That's great news! Beautiful
What an accomplishment.
(people clapping)
Parazynski: It was one of the greatest moments in my life.
Melroy: Nice teamwork.
Wheelock: Phenomenal!
Woman: Excellent work, guys, excellent!
Parazynski: When we heard that confirmation.
You could actually hear people cheering in mission control
And it was pretty special.
Narrator: 12 years later, the cufflinks installed
By sts-120 still hold the panels together providing power
For today's astronauts to do their work.
Parazynski: I think back to the repairs
And it's pretty wonderful
To know that they're still up there.
(dramatic music)
Narrator: When something breaks in space,
It's the astronauts that need to get hands-on with a fix.
In the early years of space travel,
This wasn't always the case.
Astronauts were once considered
Little more than spam in a can,
Just going along for the ride.
(dramatic music)
October 1958.
Nasa inaugurates america's
First human spaceflight program, project mercury.
Its goal, to put a man into orbit
And land him safely back on earth.
(upbeat music)
Engineers believe that the mercury spacecraft
Should be controlled from the ground, not the cockpit.
They design the capsule to be flown automatically.
Astronauts will be mere passengers, not pilots.
Barry: 'cause they were seen as test subjects.
Engineers tended to think that pilots were a pain,
And they needed to minimize
The amount of interference they had.
Narrator: President eisenhower has a different idea.
He demands that nasa use military test pilots
As the first men in space.
The first group of seven astronauts
Enters the program in April 1959.
They quickly take an active role in the spacecraft's design.
By 1963, nasa has added two new groups of astronauts.
They're part of project gemini,
The program that will test the techniques
To put a man on the moon.
All of these men are experienced pilots.
Most are also engineers.
A year into the program, two of those men find themselves
On a hair-raising mission that pushes their piloting skills
And their engineering prowess to the limit.
(bright music)
March 16, 1966.
Neil armstrong and dave scott suit up
For gemini 8 the program's sixth crewed mission.
It will send the men into space for the very first time.
The plan is to dock with an unmanned spacecraft
Called the agena target vehicle.
Kluger: The agena target vehicle was basically a cylinder.
It had a docking port at one end
And it had an engine at the other end.
It was used to test docking
Because that's how the command module
And the lunar module were going to fly to and from the moon.
Narrator: Armstrong and scott hope
To catch the agena mid-orbit.
Once connected, they'll begin a three-day mission
Docking and undocking with the agena.
It will be the first time
That two objects have ever docked in orbit, if it works.
On March 16th, the astronauts enter the spacecraft.
Five launch pads away, the agena gets its head start.
(dramatic music) (rocket whooshing)
An hour and 40 minutes later,
Armstrong and scott follow suit.
Man: Liftoff.
Narrator: Perched on top of a massive titan ii rocket,
They blast through the atmosphere in pursuit.
Once in orbit, the first stage of the spacecraft separates.
Inside, the astronauts power up the tracking radar.
Locating their target will be a difficult task.
Kluger: If you look at the three dimensional volumes
Surrounding the earth, that is a whole lot
Of cubic miles of space and you have two spacecraft
That are basically dust motes
That have to be able to find one another in orbit.
Narrator: Armstrong and scott search
For any sign of the agena's signal.
After nearly four hours in pursuit, success.
Man: Roger, do you have solid radar lock
With the agena, over?
Armstrong: That's affirmative, we have solid radar lock.
Just thinking about giving you a current range.
Capcom: Roger, thank you.
Sounds good.
Narrator: Armstrong fires up the directional thrusters
To match the agena's orbit.
(dramatic music)
With each movement, gemini 8 slowly maneuvers within range.
Not an easy task
When you're moving 10 times the speed of a bullet.
Kluger: You could actually have a spacecraft snap
If one suddenly turns one way
And the other torques another way.
Narrator: In houston, flight controllers wait
For word from the crew.
(tense suspenseful music)
Armstrong inches closer.
Bull's-eye.
The latches lock into place.
Docking complete.
Ground control is ecstatic.
Nasa is one step closer to the moon.
Unfortunately, they can't celebrate for long.
Communications between nasa and gemini are
About to be cut short.
Kluger: At that point we didn't have the web
Of global communication satellites that allow spacecraft
To be in constant contact with the earth.
You would be in contact with the ground for 12, 13 minutes
And then you would move into a blackout.
Narrator: Moments after the docking, the blackout begins.
Gemini 8 cruises into the darkness on a high,
Blissfully unaware of what awaits them on the other side.
(suspenseful music)
The two linked spacecraft drift over the pacific ocean.
Armstrong powers up the agena's engines.
But something isn't right.
Teitel: Once docked with the agena,
The crew was supposed to use it and its engines
To make some maneuvers in orbit.
But instead what happens is the spacecraft
Just starts rolling.
(alarm blaring)
Narrator: Armstrong is caught off guard.
He quickly fires up one of the gemini's thrusters
To counteract the spin.
(quiet tense music)
But it's short lived.
The spin starts right back up.
(alarm blaring)
Kluger: The assumption was, the agena is firing.
And they said, "we got to bail on this thing."
Narrator: Scott quickly punches the undock button
Sending the agena into the void.
To his horror the spinning accelerates.
Teitel: Both astronauts felt like
They were going to pass out.
They could barely focus their eyes enough
On the control panel to see what they were doing.
Narrator: Suddenly, the connection
With ground control crackles back to life.
Armstrong: We've got serious problems here.
We're tumbling end over end up here.
We had to disengage from the agena.
Man: Okay, we got status, free indication here.
(dramatic music)
Narrator: Frantic, they search for a solution
And pray they're not too late.
(dramatic music)
160 miles above the earth,
The gemini 8 capsule spins wildly.
Astronauts neil armstrong and dave scott struggle
To regain control.
(men chattering)
Standard protocol isn't likely to save them.
Armstrong takes a gamble and goes off book.
Kluger: He had to engage the reentry system.
It was a special set of thrusters
That you use only when you're ready to come home.
Teitel: Armstrong knew the inside of that cockpit so well,
That even with his blurred vision, he was able to reach up
And shut down the gemini's thrust control rockets
That are firing and causing the spin.
(engines whooshing) (dramatic music)
Narrator: The punch of the re-entry thrusters
Lets the spacecraft push against the spin.
Finally, the gemini stabilizes.
Armstrong's quick fix and good instincts pay off.
From here, there's only one place they can go,
Back home.
Teitel: Because he used the reentry system,
Mission protocol says you have to come home.
The mission had to end right away.
(somber music)
Narrator: Nearly 11 hours after launch
The capsule splashes down
Successfully in the pacific ocean.
(helicopters whirring)
Armstrong and scott emerge safe and sound.
Nasa's first docking ends with its first emergency landing.
All the same, the mission is considered a complete success.
Kluger: It helped prove that astronauts on their own,
Without mission control being able to intervene,
Could resolve problems in real time.
(bright music)
Narrator: Little does nasa know,
Soon its astronauts will go
From rescuing small capsules to saving a space station.
(dramatic music)
May 1997.
It's been six years since the collapse of the soviet union.
But the crown jewel of its space program,
The mir space station, still orbits the earth.
The mir was designed to last only five years.
A decade later, it's already doubled its life expectancy.
(dramatic music)
Plagued by mold,
Aging equipment and fire.
Man: The fire was basically in this region here.
With the flame shooting across this way.
Narrator: The mir is beginning to feel its age.
British-born michael foale is
The lone nasa astronaut on board,
Visiting for five months on a program
To build a spirit of cooperation
Between the u.S. And russia.
Russian cosmonauts vasily tsibliev
And aleksandr lazutkin are his hosts.
Foale: So, I really felt that my job was just to be a good guest
And go and do the american and european experiments
And don't get in the way of the russian crew.
Narrator: Six weeks into foale's visit,
He notices commander tsibliev enable
The manual docking system.
Foale: I said, "what are you doing?"
I was kind of just generally really excited and interested.
I thought, "this looks cool.
"well, we're gonna try manual docking
"with the progress cargo ship."
I said, "oh, really?
"well, have you practiced this before?"
And vasily said, "I have practiced it once with sasha
"beside me at baikonor before we launched."
Narrator: U.S. Crews train years
Before using new procedures.
To hear that his crewmate have trained once
For a key maneuver is not what foale expects.
Foale: I sort of remember saying to myself,
"what kind of mess is this?"
I thought, "this is not a good plan."
(dramatic music)
Narrator: June 25th, 1997.
The day begins with the crew
In good spirits ready for the docking.
Foale: Vasily's all spruced up.
Normally, we wear kind of these rather raggedy coveralls
But he had his tv suit on, looking good.
(dramatic music)
Narrator: Moscow mission control plans
To radio the crew shortly after docking.
An attempt at manual docking failed earlier in the year.
This time, the russians expect success.
(rocket whooshing)
The crew's target is a cargo ship called progress.
It delivers supplies to the mir from earth every few months.
Foale: The progress carries roughly
Three or four tons of cargo,
Quite impressive, weighs seven tons total.
Narrator: Progress is an umanned ship.
It doesn't need a crew to dock.
Barry: The progress was designed to approach the space station
And then its rendezvous and docking system would activate
And it would acquire radio signals with the space station
And it would maneuver itself to align itself up
With the docking port and automatically dock.
(dramatic music)
Narrator: Docking two massive spaceships
Without using radar is hard enough
But as foale watches his crewmate set up for the task,
He wonders if their equipment is even up for the job.
Using only a small television screen
To check the progress' position,
Tsibliev must take remote control
Of a fast-approaching cargo ship
And steer it into the mir by hand.
Foale: When you do manual flying
Without radar from that distance,
You have two very massive challenges.
The first one is things go in curves
When you go from that distance.
Second, you have to know how fast you're going
So that you can slow down
In enough time because breaking is limited.
(dramatic music)
Narrator: The russian crew begins the maneuver.
Foale watches anxiously nearby.
Foale: I'm looking through this very, very small grimy window
And I can't see the progress for anything.
And I'm assuming that it's still a long way away.
Then, I looked at the screen that vasily had
And I could see the solar arrays were big.
That means they're close.
I could also see the solar arrays were getting bigger.
That means we're fast.
Narrator: Progress rapidly approaches.
(dramatic music)
By the time tsibliev activates the braking thrusters
It's already too late.
(dramatic music)
240 miles above the earth,
Astronauts aboard the mir space station
Brace themselves for catastrophe.
Seconds later,
They feel a jolt as the mir collides
With a seven-ton unmanned cargo ship.
Foale: A couple of seconds went by and I thought,
"well, it hasn't broken yet."
And then, my ears started to pop, go psh.
And then the siren goes off.
(alarm blaring)
Narrator: The pop and the siren mean
The impact has punctured the station.
Foale soon notices a hissing sound too.
The pressurized air he relies on to breathe
Is leaking out into space.
Foale: And I think, "oh maybe this is it.
"maybe this is where I'm going to die."
Narrator: The astronauts' only hope is to locate the leak
In the mir's vast and confusing frame.
They have less than 30 minutes to seal the hole
Or risk a terrible death.
Foale: I'm feeling the heat of my body leave me
And go out the window, literally to space, I suddenly think,
"oh, this is a cold, hard, dangerous uncaring universe.
"and the only people
"who are gonna help us right now, are us.
"no one else."
Narrator: Tsibliev radios moscow to share the bad news.
Controllers on the ground order him to stay on the line
To report the falling pressure.
Lazutkin works feverishly to seal off the part
Of the station that he suspects has the leak.
Foale quickly joins in with the effort.
The two astronauts grab a nearby hatch,
And press it closed to seal off the damaged part of the mir.
Foale: It just sucked in.
And at that point, I waited to see
If my ears were gonna stop popping
And they seemed to stop popping.
I went, "oh, I guess we've stopped most of the leak."
(dramatic music)
Narrator: For the next five weeks,
Foale and the two russians struggle
With the aging space station.
Finally, they get word from the ground,
It's time for the two cosmonauts to be replaced.
Foale will stay on the station
And work with the next russian crew.
(dramatic music)
Two months later, it's time for foale to leave too.
The mir manages to limp through five more missions.
In 2001, the russians decommission it.
Barry: It was a constant problem
Of chasing one problem after another.
At some point you wonder,
Is it really worth spending the money to keep this going?
Narrator: As the mir makes its grand exit,
The newest chapter in space exploration
Is already being built in its place.
(dramatic music)
In the early 1990s,
The international community begins work
On the jointly-owned modular international space station.
Piece by piece a new structure takes shape,
But not without growing pains.
February 7th 2001.
The crew of sts-98 atlantis prepares
For the 21st century's first human spaceflight launch.
Sts-98 is like nasa's big grand opening
For the international space station,
They're delivering their flagship laboratory,.
Man: Go for main engine start.
Four, three--
Narrator: The crew takes off from kennedy space center,
Man: And liftoff of space shuttle atlantis
With destiny, the science laboratory for the 21st century.
Narrator: With the weight of nasa's future
Resting heavily on their shoulders.
Malik: Everything had to go right
Because all the other modules
That nasa wanted to set up were going to extend
Away from this module.
(dramatic music)
Narrator: February 10th.
Man: Contact and capture confirmed.
Narrator: Three days after launch,
Atlantis is docked with the station.
Onboard the shuttle,
The crew gets ready for the big install.
Marsha ivins will control the shuttle's robotic arm.
Robert curbeam and tom jones will do the space walk
To hook up destiny.
Mark polansky gets them suited up.
Polansky: My job was to be a little bit of a choreographer
And a director for the folks outside
To help them along their way and run through procedures.
Narrator: Curbeam and jones head out of the airlock.
Jones: Hey, I think it's a great day
To go and do a spacewalk!
Narrator: Ivins must lift destiny
Out of the shuttle's payload bay.
Polansky: It was a really big, big module.
And they probably had about that much room
On either side of the lab to the wall of the shuttle.
Ivins: Okay, how much room did I give myself there?
Polansky: Maybe a quarter inch.
Ivins: I'm gonna give it a bit more.
Polansky: Marsha had to be really, really, really careful
That as she pulled this thing,
She did not impart any kind of a force
That would either take it sideways to the wall
Where it would hit before she could correct it.
That would've been disastrous.
Narrator: Ivins steers 32,000 pound destiny
Out into space,
Flips it 180 degrees
And eases it towards the station.
Malik: And then the two astronauts
Were out there spacewalking
To hookup all of the little plugs,
The cooling lines, the power systems.
Narrator: It falls to curbeam
To connect the coolant lines.
Curbeam: Come and do the fluids.
Narrator: These supply the module
With pure liquid ammonia,
A crucial element in maintaining it's temperature.
As he watches the astronauts work,
Polansky's attention is caught by something odd.
Polansky: The next thing I heard,
Was somebody making the comment that it was snowing outside.
Well, we don't have weather up there,
So that got us a one of those,
"wait a second, did he say it was snowing outside?"
And just looking out the window
I was able to see what looked like snow.
Narrator: An icy jet of ammonia sprays out
Of the coolant line and onto curbeam.
Curbeam: I got a little bit of ammonia
Coming out of there, some ice crystals.
I'm getting a lot of ice.
I got ammonia all over the place.
Narrator: A coolant leak could be a major disaster.
Without the ammonia to cool its systems,
Nasa's brand new research laboratory won't work.
Inside the shuttle, the crew anxiously looks on.
Polansky: You sit there and you go, oh my god.
The coolant in this line has half the coolant
Of the entire laboratory.
So if we leak out all of this ammonia,
That would make that section pretty much dead.
(dramatic music) (computer beeping)
Narrator: Over 200 miles from earth,
The destiny laboratory loses ammonia coolant fast.
If the crew can't plug the leak soon,
They'll deliver a billion dollar lemon.
Polansky: Houston atlantis do you copy?
We're having a hard time getting f1 off with the leak on f3.
Man: Stand by we're discussing the next steps
That we need to do.
Narrator: It's up to astronaut robert curbeam
To stop the fast-moving flow.
Curbeam: We gotta get that m1 closed off.
Narrator: Curbeam lunges for the shut-off bar,
Hoping he's not too late.
Polansky: Beamer needed to get it just to the right place
Where he'd get to go ahead and move it
To the rest of the way to lock the line off.
You just pulled the bail?
Curbeam: Yeah, and that stopped the leak.
Narrator: He's just in time
To stop the flow to the leaking valve.
The last of the ammonia drifts off into space.
Polansky: That was a major relief,
But the residual though is that
We do have ammonia crystals
That have gotten on his suit.
Narrator: Ammonia freezes in the vacuum of space
But as a vapor it's highly toxic.
Polansky: The ammonia itself is toxic
If you were to breathe it in normal atmosphere.
The ammonia vapor will burn the lining
Of your mouth, your throat.
It could burn your lungs.
It's gonna do severe damage or cause death.
Narrator: For now, curbeam is protected by his suit.
But one step in the space station risks exposing the crew.
Even the smallest drop could prove deadly.
Polansky: We were concerned that if he carried the crystals
On his suit as he comes back into the airlock
To what extent might there be ammonia vapors
That we're all gonna be exposed to in the shuttle?
Because in space, you can't open the window
To go ahead and vent all the excess air out there.
Narrator: Curbeam has two choices.
Find a way to decontaminate in space,
Or risk exposing his crew
To the potentially deadly chemical.
Until they can come up with a fix, he's stranded.
At mission control, the team scrambles for a solution.
They need a way to decontaminate curbeam
Without having him entering the station.
Astronauts may not have many tools to work with,
But they do have one thing, the sun.
Man: Beamer, we'd kind of like you to hang out.
Find a nice sunny spot and hang out.
Polansly: The first thing
That we were told to do was to have tom
And beamer spend some extra time outside in space.
We called it a bake out.
Malik: The heat from the sun
Hitting the ammonia will allow it
To kind of just gas off.
If you can imagine like kind of like you're sunbathing
For a bit, except you're letting all of the crystals
Of ammonia that have stuck to your suit just evaporate away.
Narrator: Time passes in slow motion.
Curbeam bakes in a solar sun bath around the earth.
After 6 1/2 hours outside,
Curbeam and jones open the airlock
Still not certain if curbeam's suit has been purged
Of the toxic chemical.
Before they risk exposing the other astronauts,
They take just one more step.
Polansky: I went into the airlock with a damp towel
And wiped him down
So that it would be absorbed in the towel.
And then we wrapped that up in a bag and threw it away
In a portion of the shuttle
Where it was gonna come back down to the earth.
(dramatic music)
Narrator: With the astronauts safely back in the module,
The ground team basks in the mission's success.
Malik: While they weren't really expecting
To have to have an ammonia leak,
They were ready with the procedures and react to it.
(dramatic music)
Narrator: Destiny increases
The crew's living space by 41%,
Officially making the iss the biggest station in history.
Malik: This is kind of their first big step
To building a whole u.S. Segment
Of the international space station to building out
What is now the size of a five bedroom house.
All of that grew from having this lab successfully in place.
(dramatic music)
Narrator: In 2014, making emergency fixes
In space got a little easier.
The international space station completed the first phase
Of a new 3d printing experiment by making a tool
With a design file transmitted
From the ground to the printer.
The tool was a ratchet wrench.
But no matter what ingenious devices nasa comes up with,
It's the men and women that use them
Who really make the difference.
Malik: There's always gonna be a need for quick thinking
And human ingenuity in space.
Narrator: Through humankind's attempts to conquer space,
Space has always fought back.
But with quick-thinking and a whole lot of training,
Astronauts and mission control
Have made some truly incredible fixes.
Man: I think we'll be okay.
Teitel: Things can go wrong in space pretty quickly,
And get pretty dangerous really fast,
They can fix anything on the fly.
Narrator: Wherever space exploration takes us next,
Astronauts will stay prepared for the next big fix.