(dramatic music)
Narrator: The way to space
Leads through harsh environments
Forcing astronauts to battle the elements at every turn.
Barry: Mother nature is not to be messed with.
Narrator: From violent storms below the atmosphere
To man-made storms above.
Polansky: It's a very unforgiving environment.
Narrator: Now, witness the true power of nature in space.
Malik: It was a near fatal dose of radiation.
Narrator: And on earth.
Teitel: This was a megastorm.
Narrator: And meet the astronauts who challenged
The weather in a place where weather usually wins.
Kelly: The space station
Would've just been basically vaporized.
(dramatic music)
Narrator: July 16, 2015.
The international space station.
From his perch in the station's cupola,
Astronaut scott kelly looks down on storms brewing below.
250 miles above the earth,
He and russian cosmonauts gennady padalka
And mikhail kornienko float safely above the fray.
Little did they know a very different kind of storm
Is brewing in earth's orbit
And it's headed right for them.
Mission control: Station, houston on two for scott.
Narrator: Early that morning a voice from mission control
Crackles to life over the station's radio.
Mission control: Station, houston on two for scott.
Kelly: We got a call from the control center.
Mission control:Go ahead on two, jay.
And they say they're privatizing the space to ground channel
So people on the ground can't hear it.
And I think this might be bad news.
Narrator: Privatizing is a word
No astronaut wants to hear.
Calls are only moved to a private line when things go bad.
The news today is dire.
Kelly: They say, "hey we've got this dead satellite
"that's coming at you."
And we're susceptible to being hit.
How about relative velocity?
Any idea?
Marschke: Closing velocity of 14 kilometers per second,
One-four.
Kelly: Copy.
Marschke: It's 14 kilometers per second closing speed.
That's what worst possible scenario.
That's essentially a head-on collision.
Narrator: The station's outer walls
Are made of four inch kevlar and ceramic fabric
Thick enough to stop small space trash
From breaching the hull.
But something the size of the satellite
Could mean instant death.
Massimino: We're traveling so fast in space,
17,500 miles an hour in orbit
That if you hit something going that fast,
You're gonna know about it.
Marschke: Something that's 10 centimeters or greater,
If that hits a pressurized module,
The likelihood we're talking about a catastrophic event.
Narrator: Normally, nasa has plenty of time
To adjust the station's location.
Marschke: More often than not
We'll have 12 hours or a day or two
Notification in which case we would maneuver the iss
To a different altitude to get out of the way
Of the piece of debris that's coming at us.
Narrator: But today the satellite
Is just three hours away.
Kelly: It was so late that the control center
Couldn't move the space station out of the way.
Marschke: They said, "it's gonna come inside our sphere fast.
"and if it's gonna hit the station,
"it's gonna be very bad, very bad."
Narrator: Astronauts have no choice
But to prepare for the worst.
Marschke: If there's not enough time, which was this case,
We're gonna shelter the crew in place.
Narrator: Sheltering in place is no casual matter.
This mission is just the fourth time
In the station's history that nasa has made the call.
Kelly: The theory behind sheltering in place
Is that if you have to leave
It's better to already be in your emergency lifeboat
Than in another part of the space station.
Narrator: That lifeboat is the soyuz escape ship.
It's parked at the end of the iss.
But before the astronauts can board,
They must secure the station for impact.
Marschke: The philosophy there is if a small piece of debris
Were to hit one of the pressurized modules,
Maybe we get lucky and only that module depressurizes.
Massimino: A depress, a leak, that would be really bad,
So you're very concerned about these things.
It can cause a lot of damage.
Narrator: Padalka and kornienko will close off
The russian modules.
Kelly must shut down the american section
Entirely on his own.
Marschke: He starts the farthest away from the soyuz
And he works himself all the way back
To the russian segment.
Narrator: He has just an hour to get it done.
Marschke: I know gennady was talking to moscow,
But we'll get you what we have at the moment
In preparation for you closing hatches.
Kelly: Copy.
Narrator: Kelly struggles to keep a cool head
As he moves through the station.
Kelly: You start focusing on your job
And try to separate your actions and where your head is
From the risk that this is potentially
The last thing I might ever do.
Narrator: His only consolation is that any impact
Will mean a swift end.
Kelly: If we would have been hit by something
Going that fast and of that size,
We would have never even known it.
Narrator: 20 minutes before impact
Kelly secures the last hatch.
Marschke: Station, houston on two.
Scott, that should close out step two.
And then obviously you'll take
Whatever actions are required.
Narrator: The three men quickly head to
The soyuz escape ship.
(ominous music)
Now they wait for the satellite to appear.
Kelly: I notice misha was looking out the window.
I say, "hey misha, this thing's going 35,000 miles an hour,
"which is faster than a bullet from a rifle,
"so you're not gonna see anything."
Narrator: In moscow, russian mission control
Readies the soyuz for emergency departure.
(speaking russian)
Narrator: In houston, flight controllers
Monitor the satellite's progress.
Mission control: Just under 3 minutes from now
Is the tca or time of closest approach.
Narrator: As the clock clicks closer to impact
The mood in mission control grows somber.
Marschke: Everybody in the room knows how serious it is.
Silently, you say a prayer for the crew
That things are gonna go well,
But you focus on your job.
Narrator: In the soyuz,
The astronauts brace for a head-on collision.
Mission control: We're just inside one minute
From the time of closest approach.
Kelly: You just think holy crap this could be it.
(dramatic music)
Narrator: Tucked in their soyuz escape ship,
The crew of the international space station
Prepares to be hit by a potentially lethal
Piece of space debris.
Kelly: When you're looking at your watch
And you see the seconds ticking away, it's pretty tense.
Narrator: In both houston and moscow,
Flight controllers are glued to a feed of the station.
At any moment the image could go dark.
Kelly: It gets to the closest point of approach
And then the control center comes up and says,
"gennady ivanovich, it is safe."
(speaking russian)
Marschke: Once that time passes we all breathe a sign of relief
And we tell the crew the time has passed.
Narrator: The crew emerges from the soyuz.
They live to see another day in space.
As the satellite rockets into the void,
Kelly realizes just how close the astronauts
Came to certain death.
Kelly: When it passed, it was within a mile, so pretty close.
Too close for comfort actually.
Narrator: Space flight forces astronauts
To confront the unexpected every day.
Both above the atmosphere and below.
Each environment offers its own unique set of hurdles.
In that late 1960s, nasa learns this the hard way.
When the earth's own atmosphere proved more dangerous
Than the vacuum of space.
(cheering)
July 20, 1969.
Mission control: Beautiful view.
Aldrin: Isn't that something?
Magnificent sight out here.
Narrator: Apollo 11 astronauts buzz aldrin
And neil armstrong take humankind's first steps
On an alien landscape.
Nearly 22 hours later the triumphant crew
Begins the three day journey home.
(dramatic music)
Plans called for the astronauts to land
1,000 miles off the coast of hawaii.
The uss hornet aircraft carrier
Is on its way to retrieve them.
Teitel: The splashdown site is planned almost from the moment
That the mission planning begins.
Based on the launch point
And the moment they leave the moon,
They can calculate exactly where
The mission will splash down.
Aldrin: Hey, charlie, what's the preliminary outlook
For the weather in our recovery area?
Narrator: Mission control expects clear skies
At the landing site.
Mission control: It looks pretty good
As far as I can tell.
There's a few clouds shown on the weather map
I'm looking at here, but nothing of significance.
Narrator: Little did they know mother nature
Has something brewing.
Hickam air force base, honolulu, hawaii.
Meteorologists in the c.I.A.'s corona program
Track an ultra-classified satellite called 417.
Teitel: These satellites tracked worldwide weather,
Specifically looking at weather over china
And the soviet union.
If the u.S. Air force knew ahead of time
When there would be a break in the clouds,
It could turn on the cameras on a corona satellite
And take pictures of missile establishments
In those countries.
Narrator: Three days before apollo 11's
Scheduled splashdown a captain in the corona program
Looks through 417's most recent photos.
What he sees makes his blood run cold.
Teitel: He saw a massive storm brewing over the area
That apollo 11 would be splashing down.
This wasn't just a storm or bad weather,
This was a mega storm.
If apollo 11 had to fall through it
And they deployed their parachutes,
They'd be ripped to shreds.
(dramatic music)
Narrator: The mega storm means mega trouble.
Meteorologists call its cloud patterns screaming eagles.
For their sharp bird-like shapes.
The high altitude funnels tower to 50,000 feet
With fierce typhoon like winds.
Teitel: They recognized immediately
How dangerous this would be.
They had to tell nasa.
Narrator: The only problem?
The corona program is top secret.
Barry: The military weather people saw the storm coming,
But they weren't supposed to tell anybody about this
Because the data they had was classified.
So they couldn't just pick up the phone and call nasa.
Narrator: It's a dangerous situation.
High above the earth the three american astronauts
Begin the journey back home.
They're just hours from storm that threatens
To turn apollo 11 from triumph to tragedy.
Aldrin: Apollo 11, houston, do you copy? Over.
Narrator: The apollo 11 crew blazes back to earth
At 6,000 miles per hour.
At hickam air force base air force meteorologists
In a top secret spy program know something nasa doesn't.
Mother nature plans to greet the three american heroes
With a powerful storm.
Barry: There were folks in the military who were looking
At where the apollo 11 landing site was
And knew that there was a typhoon
Heading that way at about the time
The crew was gonna be there.
(dramatic music)
Narrator: Air force meteorologists have no choice
But to break rank.
Sitting on the classified intelligence
Could prove to be a national disaster.
Barry: They managed to find a way to discretely tell nasa,
That "we can't tell you how we know this,
"but there's this weather storm coming
"and you might want to move
"the splashdown site for apollo 11."
Narrator: The navy reluctantly agrees to the plan.
It's far too risky to turn a blind eye.
Teitel: Two men had just landed on the moon
For the very first time.
To have everything on the dangerous mission work perfectly
And then die in a regular storm on earth,
Would just be the worst way to end this mission.
Narrator: With just 24 hours remaining,
Mission control scrambles redirecting the hornet
To a splashdown site 250 miles away.
Barry: The question is could nasa adjust in enough time
To make sure the fleet was in the right spot.
Duke: Apollo 11, houston.
Some last minute updates here.
The weather is clobbering in at our targeted landing point,
So we're going to move you, over.
Collins: Roger.
Narrator: On July 24th,
Apollo 11 bursts through the atmosphere.
As its parachutes deploy,
The crew is met with clear skies and a calm sea.
President nixon waits onboard the u.S.S. Hornet
To welcome the astronauts back to earth.
Few people know just how close the crew came
To a watery grave.
(cheering and clapping)
The near-disaster provides a sobering lesson.
Nasa engineers may be able to challenge the laws of physics,
But nature will always be there to flex her muscles.
Barry: Mother nature is not to be messed with.
Weather can impinge on space operations
In lots and lots of different ways.
Narrator: In just four months the american
Space program will be tested by nature once more.
Only this time, nasa refuses to heed the warning signs.
November 14, 1969.
Pao: The prime crew for the mission
Finishing up their suit checks.
Narrator: The crew of apollo 12 heads for
Their launchpad under stormy skies.
Astronauts pete conrad, dick gordon, and alan bean
Hope to become the second crew to step foot on the moon.
Teitel: Even though nasa had already landed on the moon
With apollo 11, the stakes were still high.
The agency had to prove that it was not
Just a one trick pony.
(dramatic music)
Narrator: For the first time in nasa's history,
A thick layer of rain clouds hangs over the launch site.
Kluger: It was not a good day to fly to the moon.
It was rainy, the cloud cover was low.
It's by no means ideal.
Launch radio: This weather front
Does have some heavy rain
And a little bit of lightning has been noted.
We hope to have them off in time to avoid
Any difficulties with weather.
Kluger: They said spacecraft is going to be above
The cloud bank within a few seconds of flight.
So all it's going to do is get a little wet.
But once it's above the cloud bank,
You're out of danger and you're on your way to the moon.
Launch radio: 10, nine, eight, ignition sequence start,
Six, five, four, three, two, one.
Narrator: At 11:23 am.
Launch radio: Lift off, we have lift off!
Narrator: Apollo 12 launches right on time.
(rocket roaring)
The crowds cheer as the giant
Saturn v rocket blasts upwards.
Conrad: Roger, clear the tower.
I got a pitch and roll program,
And this baby is really going!
Cap com: Roger, pete.
Conrad: It's a lovely lift-off.
It's not bad at all.
Kluger: Suddenly everything went mad.
(thunder clapping)
Gordon: What the hell was that?
I lost a whole bunch of stuff, I don't know.
Conrad: Mark one roll.
Kluger: Everything on the instrument panel
Seemed to drop out.
Barry: About every warning light in the cockpit came on
Because just about everything was dead.
Conrad: Okay, we just lost the platform, gang.
I don't know what happened here.
We had everything in the world drop out.
Mission control: Roger.
Narrator: Mission control doesn't know what happened,
But they do know they're facing a major disaster.
Teitel: At this point, the crew's data in the spacecraft
Is complete gibberish,
And that's mirrored in mission control.
Narrator: 50 seconds after the first alert for trouble,
A young flight controller suddenly speaks up
From the middle of the room.
Barry: Fortunately a guy named john aaron,
Who's in charge of electrical systems,
Had seen something like that before
In a previous simulation.
Conrad: We got ac?
Bean: Yeah.
Conrad: Maybe just the indicator.
What do you got on the main bus?
Kluger: He remembered that there was a switch called
Signal conditioning equipment.
And the signal conditioning equipment
Was basically a rebooting system.
So he called the flight director and said,
"tell them to try sce to aux."
Aaron: Try sce to aux?
Griffin: Say again, sce to aux?
Teitel: It was something that no one had ever heard of.
Aaron: Sce to aux, sce to aux capcom.
Narrator: The time to abort is fast approaching.
Mission control gambles on aaron's call.
Mission control: Apollo 12, houston,
Try sce to auxiliary, over.
Conrad: Sce to auxiliary.
What the hell is that?
Mission control: Sce, sce to auxiliary.
(dramatic music)
Narrator: In the capsule, astronauts try to figure out
Which of the hundred switches on their console
Aaron wants them to flip.
Kluger: Conrad had no idea what it was.
Dick gordon had no idea what it was.
But the rookie, al bean, on whose instrument panel
Sce to aux was, said, "I know where it is."
Barry: Al bean reaches up, flips the switch sce to aux.
Boop, it reboots the electrical system,
All the things come back up.
Narrator: In mission control the data stream
Suddenly flips to normal.
Now fully powered,
Apollo 12 continues its journey onto the moon.
Conrad: Apollo, houston, go for staging.
Bean: Roger, go for staging.
Mission control: We copy, pete, you're looking good.
(dramatic music)
Narrator: 24 minutes into the flight,
Nasa realizes what nearly derailed the mission.
Two powerful bolts of lightening.
Kluger: You fly a 363 foot piece of metal up into the sky
With an exhaust trail that's going down to the ground
And you basically have a massive lightning rod
Loaded with six million pounds of explosive fuel.
Conrad: Coming down in five.
Bean: Look at that crater right where
It's supposed to be.
Narrator: Five days later the astronauts become
The second crew to land on the lunar surface.
Bean: Great landing pete, outstanding, man.
Teitel: The rest of apollo 12 went perfectly.
The mission was a stunning success.
John aaron's quick thinking
And quick recognizing of this wonky data,
Ultimately, saved the day.
Narrator: It's a powerful lesson for nasa.
You can't get to and from space without first
Braving the elements within the earth's atmosphere.
Teitel: One of the big takeaways from apollo 12
Was that you really can't ignore what's happening on earth,
When you're dealing in space.
Weather plays an important role in any mission.
(dramatic music)
Narrator: The next time nasa challenges mother nature,
Its luck runs out.
(dramatic music)
January 28, 1986.
The space shuttle challenger is ready to launch.
Students and teachers across the country
Tune in for one of nasa's biggest media events in years.
The seven-person crew includes
High school teacher christa mcauliffe,
Selected out of 11,000 candidates to be nasa's
First teacher in space and the first private citizen
To ever fly on a shuttle.
Rocha: Mcauliffe was going to talk to school kids live,
Televised classroom appearances from space.
Mcauliffe: And then, what I'll do is I'll just bring this up
And I'll go like that and that should make it move away.
Pao sot: Here comes the flight crew now.
(audience cheering and clapping)
Narrator: The astronauts are greeted by a blast
Of ice cold air as they walk to the launchpad.
Pao sot: Pilot mike smith followed by teacher
Christa mcauliffe, teacher in space.
Narrator: It's the coldest scheduled
Shuttle launch on record.
Rocha: The very cold temperatures,
Upper 20 degrees fahrenheit
And the present of ice and icicles brought grave concerns
To some people witnessing that.
Pao sot: The meeting has been going on to determine
What if any action is necessary because of the build up
Of icicles on the fixed service structure out on the pad.
Rocha: They were worried about the ice being dislodged
And becoming damaging projectiles.
Pao sot: As many people as possible are crowding into
The white room on the 195-foot level of the pad today
Because of the very cold temperatures out there.
Narrator: Nasa is anxious to get the crew in the air.
The launch is already six days behind schedule.
Pao sot: The vehicle is now isolated
From all ground propellant.
Barry: There had been numerous delays
Getting to launch for various reasons,
And management in particular wanted to get
The mission off the ground.
Pao sot: T minus 10.
Narrator: At 11:38 a.M.
Pao sot: Seven, six, we have main engine start.
Narrator: Challenger fires up its rockets.
Pao sot: And lift off, lift off of the 25th
Space shuttle mission and it has cleared the tower.
Challenger: Houston, to roger all programs.
Cap com: Roger roll challenger.
Mission control: Good roll program confirmed.
Challenger now heading down range.
Mission control: Three at 65.
Mission control: 65 fido.
Mission control: Confirms throttle.
Mission control: Thank you.
Mission control: Velocity 2,257 ft per second.
Altitude 4.3 nautical miles,
Downrange distance three nautical miles.
Cap com: Challenger, go with throttle up.
Challenger: Roger, go with throttle up.
Narrator: Just 72 seconds into the flight
(booming sound)
(ominous music)
Pao sot: Flight controllers here looking very carefully
At the situation, obviously a major malfunction.
Rocha: There was flame like a blowtorch.
The shuttle turned into the wind at supersonic speeds,
And at that force shattered like glass.
Just shattered apart.
Narrator: What should have been the challenger's
Finest hour has become a national disaster.
Millions around the world watch the tragedy unfold.
Rocha: For the next several minutes,
All we saw was the debris drop in the ocean.
Just plop, ka-plop, just geysers shooting up.
We just didn't know what happened.
It looked like an explosion.
But why, why would it do that?
We just didn't know.
Narrator: The cause is traced to a part
In the booster rocket called an o-ring.
Extreme cold weather caused it to decay.
Rocha: The o-rings are to keep the hot gasses inside
From leaking to the outside.
But cold made the o-rings stiff and brittle
So instead of being a compliant, adjustable seal,
It became a brittle, hard substance.
Therefore, its performance as a seal
Against hot gases failed.
(ominous music)
Barry: The exhaust gases blew a hole
In the side of the rocket motor
And shuttle challenger gets destroyed in the launch.
Narrator: Nasa responds to the report
By shutting down the space shuttle program
For almost three years.
Engineers make more than 100 changes
To the shuttle's design.
The failing rocket booster is reinforced
With additional o-ring seals
And an interior heating system.
Barry: Space lessons tend to be very painful.
They're expensive or are costly in human lives.
Narrator: Making the journey through
The earth's atmosphere will never be easy.
In space the environment only gets deadlier.
Barry: The weather in our atmosphere is one thing,
But there is actually weather in space
And there's an environment out there
We need to worry about in space operations.
Narrator: Our sun brings dangerous bursts
Of electromagnetic radiation in the form of solar storms.
Massimino: There's more radiation in space
Than there is on the ground.
The higher you go, the more radiation there is.
As you get further and further away from our planet,
Above the atmosphere, in higher altitudes,
You have more radiation exposure.
Narrator: Space radiation is one of
Nasa's biggest concerns.
The energy that a powerful solar storm unleashes
Can quickly turn deadly.
Pao sot: We have a go for main engine start.
Six, four, three.
Narrator: December 9, 2006.
Pao sot: We have booster ignition
And lift-off of the space shuttle discovery,
Lighting up the nighttime sky.
Narrator: The crew of mission sts-116
Takes off from kennedy space center.
Malik: Just before the flight,
There were a few powerful x-class solar storms.
X is like the most powerful type of storm.
An x-class storm aimed directly at the earth or satellites,
Can shut them down.
It can endanger astronauts if it's powerful enough.
Narrator: Three days later the shuttle is docked
With the international space station.
The crew prepares for the mission's first space walk,
Carefully timed to avoid a possible flare.
After nearly seven hours outside the station,
Astronauts robert curbeam and christer fuglesang
Head back to the airlock.
They return to an urgent alert from mission control.
Nasa's space weather team has spotted a major solar flare.
It's a critical level x-3 meaning it can stretch out
Into space at lengths many times the diameter of earth.
Each burst is capable of producing as much energy
As 10 billion hydrogen bombs.
Mission control notes the flare with concern.
The astronauts' health could be on the line.
Too much solar radiation can cause neurological disease,
Genetic mutation, cancer or worse.
Malik: If astronauts receive massive amounts
Of radiation exposure in space, it can be fatal.
Narrator: Flight controllers order the crew
To take shelter in a protected part of the ship.
Polansky: If we know that
There's some activity that's coming,
There are areas of the station where crew members
Tend to go ahead and stow things like water bags,
Which actually either deflect
Or absorb some of the radiation.
Massimino: You're not going to be totally protected,
But they don't want to give you any doses
That would increase your chances of getting cancer.
So they do protect you, but it's not an easy thing to do.
Narrator: Overnight the station takes the full impact
As the solar storm rages.
Astronauts can only hope that the station
Will keep them safe.
While the crew of sts-116 sleeps,
The international space station
And the space shuttle discovery
Get pummeled by powerful solar flares.
In the morning, astronauts seem safe,
But the station's systems are not.
Polansky: Anytime that you have highly radioactive impacts,
Any type of an electronic system
Has the ability to be compromised.
Narrator: A solar storm normally limits its mischief
To destroying computers or tablets.
This storm has taken out something much bigger.
Malik: The space station started acting a little funny.
During this solar event,
Nasa realized that the space stations' computers
Were having trouble keeping orientation.
Narrator: Engineers quickly try to diagnose the problem.
It appears that the storm has damaged the system
That keeps the space station stable.
Nasa must devise a plan to get the station back on track
Or risk burning through precious fuel
Trying to keep it properly placed.
Polansky: If you only have so much propellant,
You don't want to go ahead
And waste it to boost the attitude
Because maybe you've got another resupply mission coming up
In two months and guess what?
They have a problem and that extra gas
You were counting on coming, it's not coming.
Narrator: Now, astronauts must re-align the space station
Using the space shuttle discovery.
It's a delicate procedure that requires extreme precision.
Polansky: The station itself is actually really fragile.
When you fire something,
You could damage the station in the process.
Narrator: The day after the solar bombardment,
Commander mark polansky fires up discovery's thrusters.
Every burst will place them in a new spin.
Any miscalculation could put the iss on the wrong course.
Too much thrust might damage the station.
Slowly, the station repositions.
The shuttle's maneuvering is right on the money.
By the next day nasa has the station's
Attitude control back online.
Now the crew can enjoy the positive side of a solar storm,
The aurora borealis.
Malik: The x classes can really amp up those
Northern lights displays.
Those are ones that we look forward to
Because they can cause these dazzling light displays.
They can really supercharge the auroras.
Narrator: The aurora is a constant reminder
Of the built-in shield that the earth's magnetic field
Protects us with every day.
Spaceflight is filled with uncertainties.
As humankind ventures deeper into space,
Astronauts will need even more
Protection from solar weather.
Massimino: On places like the moon,
You really don't have any protection.
The same for a place like mars.
Narrator: From launch to reentry,
Astronauts battle the unexpected at every turn.
All while enduring the earth's
Most unforgiving environments.
Polansky: On a daily basis, all of the environmental impacts
From being in space,
Whether it's solar or orbital debris
Or temperature extremes,
Every day all of them have an impact.
Narrator: As astronauts continue to brave the elements,
It will be up to nasa to stay one step ahead of the curve.