Mocr: Three, two, one.
(shuttle engine rumbling)
Narrator: A controlled explosion.
Mocr: Ignition and lift -off.
Narrator: Pushing tons of metal into the heavens.
Sot: Look at that rocket go.
Narrator: At thousands of miles an hour,
What could go wrong?
(shuttle engine explodes)
Massimino: The launch is the time where the chances
Of something happening bad are most probable.
Narrator: On a rocket launch,
Even the smallest design flaw can mean big trouble.
Barry: A rocket is a highly complicated device.
Narrator: Join us as we marvel
At spaceflight's most dangerous moment.
Teitel: One thing goes wrong
And the entire rocket stack can be compromised.
(space shuttle explodes)
Narrator: Witness the terrifying misfires.
(shuttle explodes)
Kluger: There was an explosion of some kind
That ripped the engine apart.
Narrator: And engine failures.
Fullerton: Mission control houston
We have a center engine down.
Narrator: That can quickly turn a countdown to glory
Into a countdown to disaster.
Weitekamp: You're looking at a loss of crew and vehicle.
(upbeat music)
(slow music)
Narrator: July, 1985, kennedy space center, florida.
(crawler engine roaring)
Nasa's space shuttle begins the three mile crawl
From the assembly building to the launch pad.
This marvel of american engineering is made up
Of three important parts.
(upbeat music)
The orbiter carries up to eight astronauts in its cabin,
(camera clicking)
And up to 50,000 pounds and a massive payload bay.
(camera clicking)
The orbiter is the only part that will make it to space.
On the sides,
Two of the most powerful rocket boosters ever built.
Each one is 149 feet tall,
(upbeat music)
With a combined 6 million pounds of thrust.
(shuttle engine roars)
The shuttle's last component,
(upbeat music)
Is a giant external fuel tank.
It's taller than the statue of liberty,
And wraps a million and a half pounds of propellants
In an aluminum skin,
Just a quarter of an inch thick.
In just a few days,
The shuttle will make its 19th trip to the heavens
With mission sts-51f.
(upbeat music)
Weitekamp: The primary mission of sts-51f
Was really scientific research.
When they got to orbit,
The crew was really ready
To get to work doing a whole series of experiments.
Malik: It was a mission to carry these experiments,
And also to measure what the environment
Around the space shuttle in orbit is like.
Narrator: Deep in a kennedy center workroom,
Dozens of engineers gather.
Reviewing the launch plan with alerts and anxious eyes.
(indistinct chatter)
(space shuttle engine humming)
Weitekamp: The space shuttle is considered one
Of the most dangerous crewed space vehicles ever assembled.
And so preparations for space shuttle missions
Are tremendously complex.
It has great potential for a disaster.
(air calmly whooshing)
(soft music)
Narrator: On July 29, the shuttle's seven-person crew
Eats one last lunch on earth,
Then boards the bus to their flight.
(soft music)
Three miles away from the launchpad,
Thousands gather in the nasa causeway
Here to cheer on nasa's 50th manned mission.
(soft music)
130 feet above the launchpad,
Astronauts dawn their helmets
And prepare to strap in for the bone-rattling ride.
Massimino: The scariest part of a spaceflight is the launch,
Being under powered flight,
Under the power of a rocket taking you to space.
Mocr: Minus five minutes,
Eight seconds and counting.
Massimino: That's the time where
The chances of something happening
Bad are most probable.
Mocr: Orbiter test conductor
Has given pilot ready to go,
To perform the auxiliary power unit.
(space shuttle engine rumbling)
Narrator: On the launch pad,
The shuttle's three main engines
Guzzle a swimming-pool's worth of liquid propellant
Every 25 seconds.
(space shuttle engine rumbling)
Massimino: The liquid engines run for six seconds
Before the solids light.
So you basically add six seconds
To decide if you wanted to go anywhere that day.
Within that six seconds if you shut off the fuel flow,
You would shut down the engine and abort the launch.
Narrator: Today, all systems seem to work,
Final countdown goes off as planned.
Mocr: Three, two, one,
Booster ignition.
(space shuttle engine rumbling)
Narrator: At zero, the solid rocket boosters ignite
And commit astronauts to a quick and dangerous journey.
(space shuttle engine rumbling)
Mocr: Lift off, we have lift off.
(space shuttle rumbling)
Massimino: Solid rockets
Are like two giant sticks of dynamite.
Those things burn for about two and a half minutes,
Once you light them,
You cannot turn them off and you know you're on your way.
(shuttle engine roars)
Narrator: To achieve orbit, the shuttle must accelerate
To nine times the speed of a bullet.
(shuttle engine rumbling)
It's speeding at 100 miles an hour
Before it even clears the tower.
Mocr: Tower clear (indistinct).
(crowd clapping and applauding)
(shuttle engine roaring) pao: Roger roars.
Narrator: In the control room,
Flight directors carefully monitor
The spacecraft's progress.
Mocr: (indistinct radio chatter)
Set column precursor to srp separation
Standing by for srp sep.
Narrator: The spacecraft continues to climb
On the thrust of its three main engines.
Suddenly, the astronauts hear an alarm.
(space shuttle alarm beeping)
Fullerton: Mission control, houston
We have a center engine down.
Mocr: We copy, standby.
Weitekamp: Within the first minutes of the launch,
They knew there were problems.
What they saw was that the center engine
Of the three space shuttle main engines
Was automatically shut down because it was overheating
(dramatic music)
Malik: That was a really big deal
Because it shut down an engine, in flight,
Something that nasa had never seen before
On a space shuttle.
(space shuttle engine rumbling)
Narrator: In houston, mission control scrambles
To understand the problem.
(dramatic music)
What seemed like a promising launch,
Is suddenly in trouble.
Mocr: Third stage performance, low.
Malik: The problem is that, the shuttle needs three engines
To fire all the way through to make its main orbit.
Narrator: Flight directors consider their options.
There's no possibility that the astronauts can eject.
(shuttle engine sensor beeping)
Weitekamp: The crew cabin is an integral part
Of the entire orbiter.
There's no way to jettison oneself as an astronaut
Away from the launch vehicle.
(dramatic music)
Narrator: With just two engines remaining,
The shuttle can't make it to the highest orbit
But should be able to limp into one
That's slightly lower.
To save the mission,
The flight director makes an unprecedented call.
Mocr: Houston, abort ato, abort ato.
Weitekamp: He made the call for abort to orbit,
Which meant committing,
Sending the vehicle upward rather than beginning
To turn it back towards the earth.
Mocr: (indistinct chatter)
(shuttle engine roaring)
Narrator: The flight team watches the shuttle climb
(shuttle engine rumbling) (shuttle sensor beeping)
But a minute later, (shuttle sensor beeping)
A sensor on a second engine also sounds an alarm.
(shuttle engine sensor beeping)
Fullerton: Control houston, we have a second engine down.
Mocr: We copy, standby.
(suspense music)
Narrator: Suddenly, mission control
Faces the possibility of not just one,
But two failed engines.
Weitekamp: That created a very new scenario in mission control.
Malik: The other sensor was tripping an alarm
That could shut the second engine down.
They can't have another engine go out
Or they're not gonna get into any orbit.
(upbeat music)
Narrator: In the control room,
Flight engineer jenny howard notices something strange.
The problem may be with the sensor,
Not the engine.
(shuttle engine roaring)
She doesn't have long to figure it out.
Mocr: The velocity now 15,700 feet per second.
Narrator: Howard's brave call,
"the astronauts must override the sensor
And let the engines keep burning."
(suspense music)
Weitekamp: They're really making that decision in a matter
Of seconds, about whether to keep the second engine firing
Even though it was showing some signs
From the sensor of overheating.
Narrator: If howard has gambled right,
The shuttle will make it safely to orbit.
If she's wrong,
The mission will turn tragic.
Weitekamp: It's a very calculated risk.
If the attempt to reach orbit doesn't work,
Then you're looking at a loss of crew and vehicle.
(shuttle engine rumbling)
(upbeat music)
Narrator: 28 miles above the earth,
Nasa shuttle mission 51f has lost one
Of its three main engines.
(shuttle engine sensor beeping)
Another appears to be failing.
(shuttle engine sensor beeping)
Malik: Having two engines out would've really been a bad day
For the astronauts.
It could lead to a potential catastrophic event.
(upbeat music)
Narrator: Flight controllers watch anxiously
As the 100 ton spacecraft strains
Against the bonds of earth.
(shuttle engine squeaking)
(shuttle engine ignites)
Mocr: Blasting out 5100 feet per second.
(tense music)
Narrator: If the second engine
Can last just 60 seconds more,
The spacecraft will make it to orbit.
If it fails,
The seven-person crew will be lost.
(tense music) (shuttle engine rumbling)
Finally, nine and a half minutes after launch,
The two surviving engines burn through
Their last of their fuel.
(soft music)
The shuttle jettisons its empty external fuel tank,
And coasts smoothly into its flight pattern.
Mocr: Going into orbit.
Astronaut: Rodger.
Narrator: Thanks to flight controller
Jenny howard steely nerves,
The mission can now go on almost as planned.
(flight directors applauding)
Weitekamp: The ground controller who made the daring decision
To trust the engine not the sensor,
For the second engine (flight directors applauding)
Really saved the mission. (flight directors applauding)
(soft music)
Malik: But they weren't able to reach as high of an orbit
As they were hoping for
Because they had lost that first engine.
But they were able to at least do some
Of their mission parameters, if not all of them,
At that lower orbit.
(soft music)
Astronaut: Down too looks good
Turning on to final.
Narrator: Eight days after launch,
The shuttle touches down at edwards air force base.
Mocr: Welcome home,
And congratulations to the whole crew on a beautiful flight.
(shuttle engine roaring)
Weitekamp: Sts-51f is considered a success.
(soft music)
It demonstrated that this rare abort mode
Would actually work.
It was the only time it was ever executed
In the entire space shuttle program.
(soft music)
Narrator: Technicians take the spacecraft
To the hangar for a post mission analysis.
They confirm howard's guess,
That the problem was with the sensors,
Not the engines.
Nasa modifies the design before it launches future flights.
Malik: Every rocket has an inherent risk,
So there is constant vigilance that needs to be kept.
(shuttle engine squealing)
(rockets explode)
(space shuttle engine rumbles)
Narrator: Sending rockets to space
Is an unforgiving business.
(rockets exploding)
Every launch is a long controlled explosion.
(rocket engine roaring)
It can turn into a fiery spectacle at the smallest error.
(rocket exploding)
(upbeat music)
Barry: Even at the highest levels of reliability,
There's so many parts and pieces
And there are so many things that have to go right.
The margin between safety and death
Is pretty small.
(rocket exploding)
Narrator: American robert goddard
Starts the age of rocketry in the 1920s,
Inventing the world's first liquid fueled rocket.
(upbeat music)
Next, come the deadly rocket driven missiles
Of world war ii.
(shuttle engine rumbling)
(upbeat music)
In the 1950s,
Scientists in both the united states
And the soviet union begin to focus
On another use for rockets,
(upbeat music)
Launching satellites into space.
Weitekamp: Space was very much a battlefield in the cold war.
(upbeat music)
Satellites could be used for scientific purposes
And they also could be used for intelligence gathering.
(audience clapping)
Narrator: In 1955, president eisenhower tries
To warn up the soviets.
(tense music)
He announces that the united states will develop a rocket
That can launch a satellite around the earth.
(tense music)
The navy gets the contract
For an unproven rocket called vanguard.
(tense music)
Eisenhower expects the new satellite launching rocket
To set the standard for the space race.
(tense music)
Two years later,
America learns that it's been caught
With its antenna down
In front of the entire world.
(upbeat music)
In 1957, the press makes a shocking announcement.
The soviets have launched a sputnik rocket.
It carries the world's first artificial satellite.
(rocket engine roaring)
Weitekamp: It was a rudimentary satellite about the size
Of a beach ball that had the famous beep beep beep
That you could pick up with a radio on earth.
(tense music)
Narrator: Before america can recover its pride,
The soviet strike an even more serious blow,
Launching a satellite big enough
To carry an 11 pound dog.
(tense music)
Weitekamp: Sputnik 2 was the much bigger,
More powerful satellite and then sent a clear message
That the soviet union was moving in leaps and bounds
In their ability to lift payload off of the earth.
(tense music)
Narrator: The white house quickly responds.
(tense music)
Eisenhower announces plans to launch an american satellite,
Riding on the navy's new rocket, vanguard tv3.
Weitekamp: The expectations for tv3 were really just
A clean launch
That would put this satellite into orbit.
This would be a direct answer to the soviet union.
(upbeat music)
Narrator: December 6, 1957, cape canaveral,
Tv3 waits on a launch pad.
It carries a grapefruit -sized satellite,
Almost 60 times lighter than sputnik
And just a quarter of the size.
(upbeat music)
American press and dignitaries are there
To witness the historic event.
(upbeat music)
Weitekamp: The soviet launches had been secret
And only publicized after they had been successful.
(upbeat music)
The us was gonna make a statement
By demonstrating that the us space program
Was done out in the open.
Narrator: At 11:44, the first stage ignites
And slowly begins to rise.
(rocket engine roaring)
Weitekamp: Just a few seconds later it became very clear
That something was really wrong.
(rocket engine roaring)
Narrator: At cape canaveral,
Onlookers expect to see america's
Dazzling new satellite rise triumphantly.
But then. (rocket exploding)
Weitekamp: The launch vehicle blew up
Into a giant fireball.
(soft music playing) (fire blazing)
(soft music playing)
The tv3 satellite actually landed on the launch pad
And started beeping.
(soft music playing)
Narrator: Engineers trace the cause
To a problem with the rocket's fuel system,
It's an easy fix but the public disaster strikes america
At its very core.
(rocket blazing)
Weitekamp: Headlines were merciless.
The tv3 was called flopnik kaputnick,
Making the clear comparison with sputnik and its failure.
(upbeat music)
Narrator: Meanwhile, in the soviet union,
The russians have their own rocket problems.
(upbeat music)
October 24, 1960,
(upbeat music)
Baikonur test range, kazakhstan,
The soviet union is about to test
Its new rocket powered missile.
(upbeat music)
Barry: The soviet government's really keen
To actually have strategic missile capability
So that the soviets could then have a deterrent
Against the united states launching a nuclear strike.
(upbeat music)
Narrator: Chief marshal of artillery,
Mitrofan ivanovich nedelin
Works tirelessly on the project,
Compressing the schedule beyond
What's normally considered safe.
(tense music)
Malik: A lot of the testing regimes that needed to be done,
Were being done at the same time
As they were getting ready to launch.
(soft music)
Barry: Soviet leadership is calling down frequently.
"have you launched it yet?"
And so nedelin is under a lot of pressure.
(soft music)
Narrator: Nedelin and 250 of his workers
Wrap up a work day in front of the fully fueled rocket.
(suspense music)
When its suddenly has an electrical malfunction.
Barry: The second stage is operated on a timer,
They didn't turn the timer off.
So here is this rocket full of tons and tons
Of chemicals that will instantaneously ignite
Once they touch each other, and the whole thing blows up.
(rocket explodes)
(somber music)
Narrator: More than 100 engineers meet a fiery death,
(somber music)
Including nedelin.
(fire blazing)
Barry: It was a huge catastrophe.
Wiped out the top leadership
Of russian strategic rocket forces.
Narrator: The event becomes known
As the nedelin disaster.
(somber music)
The soviets keep it secret for decades.
(somber music)
Barry: For many years in the west,
We knew that something happened,
And that there'd been a number of casualties,
But we didn't know quite the scale of it.
(fire blazing)
Narrator: It's the worst rocket accident in history.
(somber music)
And a powerful warning
About the dangers of rushing new technology.
(somber music)
Malik: Space technology can be unforgiving if you push it
When it's not ready.
(upbeat music)
Narrator: Despite these disasters, by the early 1960s,
Engineers in both the united states and the soviet union
Are confident enough to put a man on top of a rocket.
(upbeat music)
The soviets use a vostok rocket
To send cosmonaut yuri gagarin around the earth.
(crowd clapping)
(upbeat music)
America chooses a redstone,
To send the astronauts of project mercury
On two short sub-orbital flights.
(upbeat music)
But as nasa approaches its goal of putting humans
Into a full earth orbit,
It trades the redstone for the more powerful atlas.
(rocket engine roaring)
A rocket that tends to blow up, a lot.
(rockets exploding)
Malik: They needed to maybe keep going back to the drawing board
To get it to a better rate of success.
(rocket exploding)
Narrator: Engineers persist.
In 1962, they take the plunge and use the atlas
To send the first american around the earth.
(upbeat music)
(crowd applauding)
Nasa follows that with three more successful missions.
(crowd clapping) (upbeat music)
In 1964, america begins the flights for project gemini.
(upbeat music)
The program that will test the techniques
To get to the moon.
Nasa's new two-person spacecraft
Needs to rest on the shoulders of a rocket
Even bigger than the atlas.
(suspense music)
They choose the mighty titan ii,
A rocket with more power and more risk.
(space shuttle engine rumbling)
Barry: The propellers that were used in the titan were designed
To be simple and to instantaneously combust
When they come in contact with each other.
So that can be really dangerous.
(rocket engine roars)
Narrator: The first few missions go smoothly.
America finally seems to be pulling ahead
Of the soviets in space.
Barry: Gemini really accelerates nasa from being constantly
On a rebound,
Reacting to soviet accomplishments in space
To us being the ones setting the records.
(rocket engine rumbling)
Narrator: But on the sixth gemini mission,
Problems with the titan threatened
To delay nasa's entire program.
(tense music)
October 25, 1965,
Cape kennedy, florida.
Astronauts wally schirra and tom stafford
Down a pre launch breakfast.
In just a few hours,
They'll suit up for gemini 6.
Kluger: The mission of gemini 6 was to rendezvous
And dock in space with an agena spacecraft.
If there was a way to achieve a rendezvous
With two vehicles in space,
The us would have checked a big big box off
On the milestone of things that it needed to achieve
On the way to the moon.
(soft music)
Narrator: Miles away from the launch complex,
Thousands of spectators
Anticipate two spectacular launches.
(suspense music)
Kluger: The agena was supposed to go up first,
And then one orbit later right
When it's come back around the cape,
Then off go wally and tom
And they go chasing them in space.
Narrator: On pad 14.
Technicians make the final preparations
For the unmanned agena.
(soft music)
Down the road on pad 19,
Gemini 6 waits for its crew.
(upbeat music)
There's 15 minutes of pre-launch checks.
(upbeat music)
Mocr: Set up on 324,
Ready for program sequence.
Astronaut: Okay (indistinct)
Narrator: At 10 in the morning,
The launch team sends the agena skyward.
(rocket engine rumbling)
Six minutes into the agena's flight,
(upbeat music)
Tracking software signals trouble.
Kluger: Its trajectory was off.
(upbeat music)
Then its trajectory stopped climbing.
And then the single discrete image
Of one vehicle moving upward,
Turned into several scattered images
Of many pieces of a vehicle moving downward.
So there was an explosion of some kind
That ripped the agena apart.
(rocket exploding)
At that point, they knew they had no mission.
(tense music)
Narrator: 50 minutes later,
The astronauts' launch is officially canceled.
(soft music)
What should have been a major milestone for america's path
Toward a lunar landing,
Comes to not.
Barry: Now the question is,
"what you gonna rendezvous and dock with?"
Because there wasn't another
Backup agena vehicle immediately available.
Narrator: Nasa doesn't have the luxury of dwelling
On a failure.
It's still in a race to the moon.
Within days, top brass announce
An even more ambitious plan;
Two spacecraft will kiss instead of dock.
Both of them will be manned.
Kluger: What they came up with
Was something that was pretty darn brilliant.
(upbeat music)
They said, "let's launch gemini 7
And then a few days into their mission,
Let tom and wally go up,
And instead of simply docking
With an unmanned agena,
Let them rendezvous with gemini 7."
Barry: Nasa realizes they won't be able to dock
'cause there isn't a docking mechanism on a gemini capsule,
But we could at least practice to rendezvous maneuver.
(upbeat music)
Narrator: The daring plan quickly gained support.
(rocket engine rumbling)
On December fourth
Gemini 7 lifts off from cape kennedy air force station.
Mocr: Rkaa kilometer solid.
Gemini 7: Roger rkv
(upbeat music)
Narrator: Eight days later,
Stafford and schirra make their way to the tower.
(upbeat music)
They strap into their seats
For launch attempt number two.
(slow music)
(calm air whooshing)
Mocr: Four, three, two, one, zero.
Narrator: The rocket emits its trademark
High pitch scream.
(rocket engine rumbling)
Mocr: Ignition ignite.
Kluger: The engines light,
(space shuttle engine rumbling)
You got the smoke and you got the excitement
Of a lift off about to happen
And then nothing.
(space shuttle engine dying)
Sot: No lift off, engines have shut down.
(rocket engine rumbling)
Narrator: In the capsule,
Schirra notes the liftoff clock with alarm.
It warns him that the rocket has already lifted off
From the ground.
(suspense music)
Kluger: Wally knew "if your rocket
Lifts even a few inches off the pad,
And then settles back down.
The concussion of that rocket settling back down
Is going to 'cause the rocket to explode.
And you are going to die."
(upbeat music)
Narrator: In the firing room at cape kennedy,
Flight controllers wait to see
If gemini 6's titan ii rocket will explode.
(upbeat music)
The two astronauts inside must decide if they should eject.
(upbeat music)
Kluger: They had one way out,
And that was for a wally to pull a d ring.
And that d ring would have exploded the doors
With a force greater than a dozen gs.
(upbeat music)
Wally schirra despite what the instruments told him,
Did not feel that rocket rise
And then bump down.
And he said, "I know what the instruments are telling me
But I also know what every piloting instinct I have
Is telling me
And I'm not touching that abort ring."
(tense music)
Narrator: It's a split second gamble.
Command center quickly checks the data.
Confirmed, gemini 6a never left the ground.
(upbeat music)
Kluger: Next thing they heard was schirra telling them
That the pressure was going down inside the fuel tanks.
(soft music)
Schirra: I'm watching the fuel pressure
Lower very carefully.
Kluger: That was exactly what's supposed to happen
If the engine shut down
And the rocket does not rise off the ground at all.
Wally had made the exact right choice.
(soft music)
Narrator: Schirra's split second decision
May have saved his life and stafford's.
But the mission's second launch failure
Threatens to derail the rendezvous with gemini 7.
Kluger: There was a limit to how long
They could keep gemini 7 up there.
If gemini 6 could not get back off the ground
Before the end of the gemini 7 mission,
You would not have your rendezvous in space.
(tense music)
Narrator: Three days after the second failed launch,
Schirra and stafford get the go ahead
For one last desperate try.
(soft music)
Mocr: Five, four, three, two, one.
(space shuttle engine rumbling)
Steering looks good from here gemini 6.
(rocket rumbling)
Narrator: High above cape canaveral,
The astronauts of gemini 7 looked down at the launch pad,
Waiting anxiously to see if the lift off works.
(soft music)
Kluger: They heard that gemini 6 have lifted off.
(somber music)
And at long last,
Tom stafford and wally schirra were on their way to space.
(somber music)
Narrator: Three orbits later,
Gemini 6 finds the gemini 7 capsule.
(somber music)
Mocr sot: Gemini 6 how you doing up there?
Gemini 6: Very good.
Narrator: Schirra brings gemini 6
To within a foot of gemini 7.
Mocr sot:Hello gemini 6, this is 7,
How do you read?
Gemini 6: Reading loud and clear.
Narrator: The spaceships fly nose-to-nose
For nearly four hours.
(soft music)
The world's first rendezvous in space
Is a rousing success.
(soft music)
Schirra: Rodger, boy we did it.
Mocr sot: Rodger, congratulations.
(flight directors clap) (soft music)
Narrator: The titan ii rocket makes it possible
For 20 astronauts to fine-tune the techniques
Of human spaceflight.
(upbeat music)
Next, nasa turns its focus to landing astronauts
On the moon.
To do that,
America will rely
On the largest most powerful rocket ever built,
The mighty saturn v.
Narrator: The rocket's design goes from sketchpad
To launchpad in just six years.
It's an incredible feat for a rocket with more
Than five and a half million parts.
Teitel: It was a far more complicated
And sophisticated rocket
Than previous ones.
One thing goes wrong
And the entire rocket stack can be compromised.
Narrator: Normally a new piece of equipment
Goes through years of rigorous testing.
But it's 1967
And nasa is in a rush.
Kluger: And the russians were still very much
In the space race.
The cia and other intelligence services knew
That the soviets were working on a heavy lift rocket,
Just like the saturn v.
And they were trying to get men to the moon,
Just like we were.
Teitel: Nasa was starting to fall
A little bit behind schedule.
To this point, nasa only tested stages of the saturn v.
(upbeat music)
Narrator: To stay ahead of the soviets,
Nasa takes a bold gamble.
They schedule what they call an all-up test.
(upbeat music)
On the very first run through of the unmanned rocket,
Every stage will be live.
(upbeat music)
Kluger: An all-up test means you're not doing anything
A piece at a time, you are building this rocket
And you are launching it as if three human beings
Were in the command module at the top of the rocket.
Narrator: On the morning of November 9,
(rocket rumbling)
A brand new rocket soars into the sky
With astonishing force.
(upbeat music)
(space shuttle engine rumbling)
Cronkite: Oh, its terrific its split glass windows
(indistinct) in our hands.
Look at that rocket go!
(upbeat music)
Kluger: It was just the sweetest mission
You ever wanted to see.
It was the biggest rocket we'd ever flown.
It did exactly what it was supposed to do.
It did it safely.
It did it well.
(upbeat music)
Narrator: Engineers celebrate.
(upbeat music)
America's space program seems to be on track.
Nasa quickly schedules one more unmanned flight, apollo 6.
Kluger: Nasa said, "we're gonna see
If we can get another perfect flight out of it
Because if we can, we can fly people on it."
(upbeat music)
Narrator: April 4th, 1968,
The unmanned saturn v
Takes off with a mighty thunder from launch pad 39.
Mocr sot: General program started, 38:28
All five f-1 engines firing and looking good.
Narrator: Then, just 110 seconds
Into apollo vi's flight,
Mocr sot: Coming up on a point
Of maximum aerodynamic pressure
On the vehicle.
Now we're standing by.
Teitel: And they experienced what is called the pogo effect.
(upbeat music)
There's a lot of shaking on the rocket
And basically the engine surges
And pushes back against the incoming fuel.
(upbeat music)
Narrator: Within seconds,
Panels begin to fall from the rocket.
(upbeat music)
If the pogo continues,
It could shake apollo vi to disaster.
In houston, mission control monitors
It's crucial saturn v test flight.
Damaging vibrations on the rockets first stage
Are soon followed by something worse,
Two engines on the second stage rocket
Shut down just moments into flight.
Kluger: You have a spacecraft
That has almost shaken itself to bits halfway to space
And then the rest of the way to space is trying
To hobble there on one fewer engine than it needs.
Narrator: Flight controllers quickly adjust.
They use the saturn's onboard guiding system
To help the spaceship stumble towards a more stable path.
Teitel: Mission control had to get a little bit creative
In figuring out how to salvage the mission.
Nasa decided to use
The command module's service propulsion system engine
To actually push it up into a higher orbit.
(upbeat music)
Narrator: Nearly 10 hours after the launch,
Apollo vi's command module
Splashes down in the pacific ocean.
(soft music)
Nasa may have salvaged the mission,
But they considered the saturn v test flight
A disaster.
Kluger: That was a rocket that had misbehaved, badly
In what was supposed to be its last flight
Before human beings were trusted to board it.
Had astronauts been on board,
There is some question about whether
Pogoing would have been survivable.
(upbeat music)
Narrator: Hundreds of dedicated engineers
Set their minds
To solve the problem.
They fix wiring errors,
Redesigned fuel lines,
And retune the engines to prevent vibrations.
Kluger: The fix was so elegant that nasa convinced itself,
"we can fly this thing.
And the next time we launch a saturn v,
People will be aboard it."
Narrator: Just eight months after
The saturn v troubled second flight,
The risky rocket launches one
Of human kind's most historic missions.
(space shuttle engine roaring)
Teitel: Eight months later,
A full saturn v launched apollo 8 and its crew
To the moon.
(space shuttle engine rumbling)
Narrator: Over the next five years,
The saturn v makes it possible for 12 human beings
To walk on the moon's surface.
In 1973, it has its swans on,
Ferrying skylab into orbit.
Mocr: Skylab, lifting off of air now
Moving up.
Skylab is through with the tower.
(upbeat music)
Narrator: It's a dramatic ending for the most famous
And powerful rocket
The world has ever launched.
(crowd applauding)
(upbeat music)
For the next 46 years,
Engineers all over the world try to build rockets
To launch their own spacecraft.
(upbeat music)
Barry: We actually trained people from various countries,
And then if those engineers brought those technologies
To their home countries,
So united states has been actively encouraging
The proliferation
Of space technologies around the world.
(rumbling)
Narrator: Yet even today,
Getting off the ground is a constant challenge.
(rocket engine explodes)
Mocr: Two, one.
In america,
Private companies like blue origin and spacex
Strive to launch humankind
Into a new age of space exploration.
Mocr: ...Which led to a failure of the mission.
Narrator: Setbacks go with the territory.
Announcer: We are collecting data.
Malik: Spacex's first four launches failed
Because the rockets are just hard to perfect.
Brand new vehicles have more unknowns especially
On their early test flights.
Mocr: One, zero, ignition.
Narrator: On may 30, 2020
Mocr: (indistinct) god speed
Spacex launches the falcon 9.
(upbeat music)
It's the first time humans have reached space
From american soil, in nearly a decade.
(upbeat music)
Soon, private space companies hope
To launch rockets carrying up to 100 passengers
All the way to mars.
Massimino: We're designing new rockets
That will be taking people to the space station and beyond.
(upbeat music)
Narrator: Each successful launch
Propels more than a rocket.
It sends the spirit of humanity soaring
(upbeat music)
On the greatest adventure ever conceived.