When We Left Earth_5of6_The Shuttle
Transcript
00:00In 1969, a group of astronauts changed the world.
00:15They ride the biggest rocket ever built to the moon.
00:21It's the culmination of more than 10 years of space pioneering and the foundation for
00:27more than four decades of exploring worlds beyond our own.
00:34This is the story of our greatest adventure.
00:47Very first time I saw the shuttle sitting on the back of that 747, I thought, we have
00:52screwed up bad.
00:53This is never going to work.
00:57NASA prepares to test a radical new kind of spaceship.
01:04The first with wings.
01:08Rockets will launch it into orbit, but it lands like a plane.
01:12First, they have to find out if it can fly.
01:17We did something we called an approach and landing test.
01:20We modified a 747 so that it could carry the shuttle on top of it.
01:26Gemini and Apollo veteran John Young follows the new orbiter, studying its every move.
01:32I was a test pilot out there and I was flying the formation on the 747, the chase pilot.
01:39Go ahead.
01:40Okay, 30 seconds of the SRT minus one call.
01:43Okay.
01:44Go.
01:45Network?
01:46Go.
01:47Echo?
01:48Go.
01:50Houston is go for set.
01:51Have a great flight.
01:52Stand by.
01:53Sideways lurch, just like they said.
01:56They actually jettisoned the orbiter from it.
02:00Okay, she's flying good.
02:02250, starting flare.
02:05It's an awesome sight.
02:07Okay, 11 alpha, pushing over.
02:08The world's biggest spaceship glides through the sky over the California desert.
02:14Engines cause problems, more complexity right along the line.
02:17Why don't we design it from the very beginning to be an unpowered glider?
02:22The shuttle falls through the atmosphere at 1,000 feet every six seconds.
02:29It has only one chance to land.
02:33And it has no go-around capability.
02:36It's been related to flying like a brick because it comes down so fast and the wings don't
02:42generate all that much lift.
02:45The shuttle lands only 50 miles per hour faster than a 747.
02:50Okay, three down.
02:52Gear is down.
02:54Speed brakes are tracking.
02:57Touchdown at Edwards Air Force Base launches a new era in America's exploration of space.
03:07NASA is reinventing itself.
03:11A new spaceship is designed for more practical missions.
03:14Launching satellites, repairs, deliveries, and it has to fly over and over again.
03:21The space shuttle is a unique vehicle.
03:23It was designed to be reusable.
03:25We need a space plane that can take off from a spaceport and come and land on any runway.
03:31Great idea.
03:32So let's build a space plane.
03:35The mission of the shuttle was it had to retrieve items.
03:39We had to bring packages in that we could accomplish repair on.
03:44It was basically a multi-purpose spacecraft suited to a large number of tasks that we would fly repeatedly.
03:53It was designed to make spaceflight routine.
03:56Safe, reliable, on time, and wow.
04:02But the shuttle will have to stand up to the hostile environment of space,
04:08especially extremes of hot and cold.
04:12You don't know if you're going to burn up when you come back to the atmosphere.
04:18Like all spacecraft, it will have to withstand temperatures of more than 3,000 degrees during re-entry.
04:26The engineers came up with a system of tiles, thermal tiles, that blanket the whole entire orbiter.
04:32The tiles are what our thermal protection system primarily consists of on board the shuttle,
04:38are about the consistency of styrofoam, and they're glued on.
04:42So you'll have this massive surface area.
04:44The tiles not only got to reject all the heat, but they also got to be very light.
04:50They're very fragile.
04:52It's easy to damage them.
04:54It's easy to ding one, and depending on the size of the ding and where it is,
05:00it could be critical to the survival of the spaceship.
05:04You're on the glide slope. We see you on the glide slope.
05:0831,000 tiles cover the orbiter's aluminum shell.
05:12They're glued to a blanket of fireproof, allowing them to flex with the shuttle's frame.
05:18Early tests don't go well. Many tiles just fall off.
05:24They told me if you hit the wind leading edge with a baseball bat, it won't hurt it.
05:28They weren't exactly telling me the truth.
05:36Two solid rocket boosters with a combined 44 million horsepower
05:40will blast the shuttle into space.
05:43During a first stage of powered flight, when we're on the solid rockets, there is no steam.
05:48There was no way to shut them down, no way to throttle them.
05:51So if you had a problem with those, you rode it out until you could separate from the solids.
05:55A lot of people thought one solid rocket would ignite and they'd cartwheel out this way.
06:01For the shuttle's three main engines,
06:04NASA must develop rockets that are compact, efficient,
06:08and capable of lifting enormous payloads into orbit.
06:21Every time we'd turn around and discuss the engines,
06:25one of the engines would blow up and catch fire.
06:31I didn't realize it was going to be so hard to get there from where we're at,
06:35but it was a pretty tough road.
06:38I learned that when John was worried about something, I ought to be worried about it as well.
06:44NASA upgrades the rockets and develops a new superglue
06:49to keep the tiles from falling off.
06:55Four years after the first glide test,
06:58the shuttle is finally ready to fly into space.
07:04The orbiter is designed for a crew of seven.
07:07For the first high-risk mission, NASA is sending only two.
07:12I was with the then director of flight crew operations.
07:17He approached me and says,
07:19Kripp, how would you like to fly the first one?
07:22It will be Bob Krippen's first flight into space.
07:29I was doing hand springs at that point.
07:33When Commander John Young first learns NASA will build a shuttle,
07:37it's years earlier and he's a long way from home.
07:41This looks like a good time for some good news here.
07:44The space budget yesterday, 277 to 60,
07:47which includes a vote for the shuttle.
07:49I was on the moon.
07:51The country needs that shuttle, my bad.
07:54Yeah. Yeah, I was on the moon.
07:58John Young was the chief of the astronaut office,
08:01walked on the moon on Apollo 16.
08:03He was the obvious choice to be commander of the first flight.
08:07John was the right guy to fly this first shuttle mission.
08:14The shuttle is bolted to the solid rocket boosters
08:17and external fuel tank, and ready to fly.
08:22When it comes out on the mobile launch platform,
08:25when the crawler takes it out to the pad,
08:27it's an awesome sight.
08:29It's beautiful, but not in a streamlined sort of way.
08:34The same crawler that carried the giant Saturn V rockets
08:37for the first time on the moon
08:39will be used to launch the shuttle into space.
08:43The giant Saturn V rockets for the moon missions
08:46takes the shuttle to the same launch complex.
08:49It looks to me like it's just all kinds of muscle,
08:52because it's got all these engines and solid rockets.
09:00Every other NASA project has flown unmanned test flights first.
09:07Not this time.
09:09Well, this was everything up on the first mission.
09:12It's never been done before.
09:14And these two idiots go on top of it.
09:18We didn't have any idea about probability risk assessment
09:21when the shuttle was first launched.
09:23Anybody who thinks they can statistically predict
09:26when something with two million moving parts is going to fail
09:29is sort of smoking something they shouldn't be, probably.
09:42For the first time in six years,
09:45NASA starts a countdown to launch astronauts into space.
09:50You wake up in the morning, have a nice breakfast.
09:53They wire you up so they can monitor your heartbeat.
09:57Walk you out to this little bus that we have,
10:00and there's usually a little press out there,
10:03and you get to wave at them.
10:05And you climb on the little bus,
10:07and they take you out to the launch pad.
10:10They take you out to the launch pad.
10:13From my standpoint, this was really a mission in which I prayed a lot.
10:21I really had some concerns because there were so many unknowns.
10:25We had never flown a spacecraft manned for the first time before.
10:32Go at 40, Capcom.
10:33Columbia, Houston, you're go at 40.
10:35Half a million people come to the Cape
10:37to watch John Young and Bob Crippen
10:39fly their first shuttle into space.
10:41If you see anything you don't understand
10:43when we're going down here,
10:45we got seven hold points.
10:47You remember where they are.
10:49Seven minutes.
10:50We got one at five minutes.
10:52We got one at four.
10:54Then two more.
10:56It was a very complicated vehicle,
10:58and I really thought that we'd do lots of countdowns
11:02before we actually lifted off.
11:05Fifteen, ten, liftoff.
11:07Pick up in about a minute and a half here.
11:09DPS.
11:10We'll go.
11:11Guidance.
11:12Go.
11:13FIDO.
11:14Go.
11:15And it was only when the count got inside of a minute
11:18that I turned to John and I said,
11:20I think we might do it.
11:21That's when my heart rate went up to about 130.
11:23John was a nice, calm 90.
11:26I didn't ever ask him if he was nervous.
11:29I never thought of that.
11:32Should I have thought of that?
11:34Transmitting AB on.
11:40T-minus 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4.
11:46We've gone for main engine start.
11:50Once the solid rocket boosters ignite,
11:53they can't be cut off.
11:55The shuttle is committed to flight.
11:58The main engine start,
12:01you know it's alive.
12:02And the solids really tell you that.
12:05You know you're headed somewhere
12:06because it's a nice kick in the pants.
12:10I can see the tower going by.
12:13By the time you've cleared above the tower,
12:16you're going already over 100 miles an hour.
12:20Columbia, Houston.
12:21We have 40 seconds to LOS.
12:23Configure LOS.
12:24You're looking good burning over the hill.
12:25We'll see you at Madrid.
12:26I've likened it to driving my old truck
12:28down a washboard country road.
12:30It's kind of like this.
12:31I don't think comfort is what you're looking for
12:33when you're going uphill.
12:34You're looking to get there.
12:44The sound went away.
12:47I realized that I was going to die.
12:49I was going to die.
12:50I was going to die.
12:51I was going to die.
12:52I was going to die.
12:53I was going to die.
12:54I was going to die.
12:56I really thought that all the engines had quit.
13:03I figured that once we made it to orbit
13:05without anything blowing up and catching fire,
13:07we were home safe.
13:10Checklists start floating.
13:11Trash starts floating.
13:12We get debris coming out of here.
13:16So it's obviously we were weightless.
13:21Looking out the window.
13:22Shuttle's got great windows.
13:24There's the Earth.
13:32Crippen and Young fly the shuttle through space
13:34for more than two days.
13:36They orbit the Earth 36 times.
13:39If you would please, Mr. Vice President,
13:41go ahead.
13:42How's Kripp's heart beat doing?
13:44Ha, ha, ha.
13:46Well, that's a smile.
13:47That's a nice face.
13:48Oh, really?
13:50Houston is with you at Milan.
13:52Re-entry will test the thermal tiles
13:54when the shuttle hits the atmosphere
13:56at 14,000 miles an hour.
14:02We were in the dark at the time.
14:04And one of the dramatic things that I did notice
14:06was all of a sudden the outside,
14:09which was supposed to be dark,
14:11started glowing this soft pink.
14:13And it was obvious that those little molecules
14:17out there were getting very, very warm.
14:21Velocity Mach 2.
14:23Sink rate still losing altitude
14:25at the rate of about 200 feet per second.
14:28This was one of the first times
14:29I really started getting a sense of speed.
14:31As we came in lower,
14:32you could really get a sense of,
14:34hey, we're going pretty fast.
14:36Well, Kripp said he looked out the window
14:38and he said, what a way to come to California.
14:40We knew we were coming across the West Coast
14:42over Santa Barbara.
14:43And you can see where you turn into Runway 23.
14:47Gear down.
14:48Landing went perfect,
14:49and John greased it on.
14:51About the softest landing you could ever imagine.
14:53And when we finally got wheel stop,
14:55John and I shook hands.
14:57Flight control report steady braking.
15:01And John was as excited
15:02as I've ever seen that man get.
15:04They said it was a pretty good mission.
15:06I don't know if it was dangerous or not.
15:08We weren't really smart enough
15:09to know whether it was dangerous or not.
15:11We did it.
15:13We did it.
15:15We did it.
15:18Krippen and Young
15:19are the first astronauts
15:21to return from space
15:22in a reusable vehicle.
15:25It was about as perfect a mission
15:27as we could have ever executed.
15:35The shuttle era begins.
15:37The orbiter is scheduled
15:38to fly up to 24 times a year.
15:40For the first time,
15:42we can carry something up to space,
15:44drop it off
15:46and leave it there
15:48for six months or so.
15:50Let it be exposed
15:51to the space environment,
15:52the radiation,
15:54all of the different things
15:55that we see in space.
15:57The vacuum is the most important thing.
16:01The space is the real thing.
16:05It's what we do.
16:06It's what we do every day.
16:08that we see in space, the vacuum, and then fly another space shuttle up,
16:13pick it back up, and bring it back down.
16:21To give astronauts more freedom to work outside the spacecraft,
16:25NASA designs a new machine,
16:28the chance to fulfill the dream that man can fly in space.
16:32One of the most exciting things we did on my very first space flight
16:37was something that had never been done before,
16:40and that was to fly the Buck Rogers Jet Backpack.
16:51NASA calls it the Manned Maneuvering Unit.
16:56Controlled by 24 thrusters,
16:58firing bursts of nitrogen gas,
17:01the jet pack provides life support,
17:04communications, and the power to steer through space.
17:09We were approved to build a maneuvering unit for the shuttle program,
17:13and I was picked to be the first to fly it.
17:17Bruce McCandless is a NASA veteran.
17:20He worked the moon landings in Mission Control,
17:24but has never been to space.
17:26The preparation for a spacewalk takes a good hour and a half, two hours.
17:37Put on the liquid cool garment in the airlock, and then I closed it up.
17:44No astronaut has ever walked in space without being firmly tethered to the ship.
17:50People have asked me if I was apprehensive or nervous,
17:54but basically it was a feeling of relief that we had finally gotten to this point.
18:00Okay, Bruce, we see you airborne.
18:04On opening the hatch, I was just seeing nothing down below,
18:08but Earth was unsettling.
18:14So I'm sitting there with a camera in my hand,
18:17and I'll never forget when Bruce McCandless got about 15 feet away,
18:21I looked through the viewfinder the first time
18:24and looked at this image out there of him floating away from us,
18:28and I thought to myself, what a spectacular image this is.
18:33If I don't mess this picture up, I'm going to get some magazine covers with this.
18:40Well, that may have been one small step for a deal,
18:44but it's a heck of a big leap for me.
18:48In the shadow of the Earth, the temperature is more than 250 degrees below freezing.
18:54I got so cold that I was shivering and my teeth were chattering.
18:59McCandless spends more than four hours flying the jetpack through space.
19:06It was a tremendously exciting experience.
19:10It was the first time I'd ever flown a jetpack in space.
19:14It was the first time I'd ever flown a jetpack in space.
19:18It was the first time I'd ever flown a jetpack in space.
19:21It was a tremendously exciting moment to look out the window
19:26and watch Bruce McCandless floating away
19:30and drifting out to 300 feet away from the space shuttle,
19:35the length of a football field away from us.
19:38Just passed over Florida and Cuba.
19:41Well, I guess the break in orbit is going to have to go 10 percent faster.
19:46Looks like Florida.
19:47It is Florida. It's the Cape.
19:50Yeah, you're on a stateside pass, Bruce.
19:54I think I got enough still to be.
19:56Spaceflight is back on the front page.
19:59Images from shuttle missions rival science fiction.
20:06The shuttle was probably the finest flying machine that NASA has ever built.
20:12There's the final turn into the hack.
20:14It's still in the...
20:16I believe it's really the pinnacle of American aerospace technology.
20:21It revolutionized our knowledge in aerodynamics.
20:29But the shuttle becomes a victim of its own success.
20:35It flies so often, it's taken for granted.
20:39The public loses interest.
20:42As they continued to fly, it got more routine.
20:46People got more confident.
20:49All of a sudden, they had an airliner that people could ride on safely.
20:54They expected it to work.
20:56They expected no problem with it.
21:01NASA was arrogant.
21:03Thought they couldn't do anything wrong.
21:13NASA needs to capture the public's imagination again.
21:17Their answer, a teacher in space,
21:20and lessons beamed down from the shuttle in orbit.
21:23Ten thousand teachers apply.
21:26Krista McAuliffe was selected,
21:28and they could not have selected a better person.
21:32I've made nine wonderful friends over the last two weeks.
21:35When that shuttle goes, they might be one body.
21:38But there's going to be ten souls, and I'm taking them with me.
21:41Thank you.
21:42That's great.
21:45Barbara Morgan is Krista's backup.
21:49Well, you're always a little disappointed,
21:51and I tried to bump Krista off with poison cookies,
21:53but she would never eat them.
21:58I was just surprised and very pleased to be able to do this.
22:04I was just surprised and very pleased to be able to have the opportunity to train alongside.
22:18A social studies teacher and mother of two from Concord, New Hampshire,
22:22Krista will fly on the Challenger,
22:25known as the workhorse of the shuttle fleet.
22:34Three months before her flight, Krista and Barbara watch their first shuttle.
22:48There's joy. There's also a sense of surprise.
22:52I think the biggest surprise was how bright it was and how loud it was.
22:58And then when you feel the sound just coming up through your body
23:01and pounding in your chest and everything.
23:05It was wonderful to be there together and to know that Krista's turn was next.
23:10Good thing we're preparing to throttle down.
23:29The night before, I'm getting from my sources that it's too cold tomorrow to fly.
23:36Temperatures drop below freezing.
23:40The shuttle has never launched in such extreme conditions.
23:46The temperatures were a concern,
23:48but it was not the kind of thing that would say,
23:51no, we've got a very solid reason for a no-go that day.
23:56It got down to 27 degrees and I call my desk and I want to do a report on the Today Show
24:02that they shouldn't be taking off today. After all, they have the teacher on board.
24:11They were very excited about exploration and about space
24:15and about sharing it with the smiles on their faces and the extreme joy.
24:21They were really happy to be doing what they were doing.
24:28And we're at T-minus nine minutes and counting.
24:31People thought that because the teacher would be on board
24:34that it might rejuvenate attention.
24:37But it did not.
24:39T-minus seven minutes and counting.
24:41There weren't that many members here of the press.
24:45The mission has already been postponed several times due to mechanical problems and bad weather.
24:51Throughout the morning, engineers express concern about the unusually low temperatures.
24:57At 11.38 a.m., Challenger is cleared for launch.
25:03I remember, I looked in their eyes and I wished them well on the journey.
25:09T-minus two minutes and 20 seconds.
25:12Someone stuck their head into the big conference room and said,
25:16Hey guys, Challenger's about two minutes from liftoff.
25:19You want to take a break?
25:20I said, No.
25:21I said, Okay.
25:22I said, Okay.
25:23I said, No.
25:24I said, No.
25:25I said, No.
25:26I said, No.
25:27I said, No.
25:28I said, No.
25:29I said, No.
25:30I said, No.
25:31I said, No.
25:33I said, No.
25:34I said, No.
25:36You've already took off.
25:37You want to take a break, and watch the launch.
25:40T-minus one minute and counting.
25:43Christo's parents are at the cape for the launch.
25:47Sound suppression system now armed.
25:48I've done a lot of launches on the top of the launch control roof out here, and I've seen families.
25:54They're worried.
25:55They're scared.
25:56They're in tears.
25:57T-minus 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, we have main engine start, 4, 3, 2, 1, and liftoff.
26:09We heard ignition, we heard liftoff, I heard the call throttle down.
26:14Everything was looking normal, I was watching the main engines.
26:17You're sitting there quietly rooting for him, you're sitting there quietly saying, go Challenger, go Challenger.
26:31Challenger now heading downrange.
26:35Preparing to re-throttle the engines back up 200%.
26:38It seemed to be just kind of crawling in space.
26:413-1 for the Guinness Book of Records for the size flight crew aboard, 3,305.
27:07Go ahead and fire, reports vehicle exploded.
27:14Flight controllers here looking very carefully at the situation.
27:17Seconds later, I happened to see sort of a flicker over on the TV.
27:23Flight, we've had negative contact, lost family.
27:27Okay, all operators, watch your data carefully.
27:30And I looked over, and I saw this picture of this expanding fireball with pieces moving in all directions.
27:43The crippled rocket boosters careen out of control.
27:52Specially declassified footage shows them being remotely destroyed.
27:58We have a report from the flight dynamics officer that the vehicle has exploded.
28:05Flight director confirms that.
28:07We are looking at checking with the recovery forces to see what can be done at this point.
28:13I knew instantly that none of them could possibly survive because we didn't have parachutes, we didn't have pressure suits.
28:21And at the altitude that they broke up at, there was no way they were going to maintain consciousness.
28:27It was immediately obvious to me that we had lost the entire crew.
28:33It didn't look normal.
28:38And I knew that from the amount of training that we had had.
28:41And from the launch that we had seen previous that Kristen and I had witnessed.
28:48Very, very sad time.
28:51I felt horrible.
28:54It was a huge loss, and it always will be.
28:58I believe every person in mission control came to grips with his demons that day.
29:04And I think several of us said a few prayers for the crew.
29:09And we also prayed for the team in mission control, the team in launch control,
29:15and those people who would have to live with the aftermath of this accident.
29:19Don't reconfigure your console.
29:21Make hard copies of all your displays.
29:23Make sure you protect any data source you have.
29:28I was vice president of the United States way back then.
29:32I went down there when Challenger blew up.
29:35It was a terrible tragedy, of course.
29:38So Reagan asked me to go down to comfort the families.
29:43It was a very moving thing for me to see these families in grief.
29:49I think the thing that really moved me was President Reagan's comments after that.
29:55We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning,
30:00as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye
30:04and slipped the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God.
30:10Thank you.
30:11It was so beautiful. I could never have done that.
30:14I would have choked up too badly.
30:20For the first time, NASA loses astronauts during a mission.
30:31They shut down the shuttle program and launch a complete investigation,
30:36reconstructing the 73-second mission in split-second intervals.
30:41The report is scathing.
30:45It turns very rapidly from grief to anger
30:48because you discovered there was gross negligence to launch on that day.
30:54Just plain negligence.
30:56We had all the data.
30:58We knew how bad everything was.
31:00We knew the relationship with O-rings and temperature.
31:03You know, it turns to sheer anger.
31:08The investigation concludes that cold weather caused the failure of an O-ring.
31:13A rubber gasket in the right rocket booster.
31:16It leaked flames that ignited the external fuel tank.
31:20The report also chronicles the final moments in the astronauts' lives.
31:25We know that the crew of Challenger survived the breakup.
31:30We know that three of the crew members turned on their air packs after the vehicle broke up.
31:38Now, Challenger was at 49,000 feet,
31:42going uphill at a tremendous rate when it broke up,
31:46and it coasted uphill to 67,000 feet.
31:50Very, very high altitude.
31:52There's no way in the world that the crew was going to maintain consciousness
31:56in that kind of an environment.
31:58So, we believe they were alive,
32:02but we also believe they were unconscious.
32:05But we also believe they were unconscious when they hit the water.
32:10They were alive until they hit the water.
32:29No shuttle flies for two and a half years.
32:33We did a lot of second-guessing in the Congress about the whole program
32:38and whether we were taking proper care of these people going out into space
32:43and whether the program was worth it.
32:46But NASA determined to go forward with the support of the Congress
32:50and of the American people, and forward it went.
32:54After the loss of Challenger, it took us almost three years
32:58to redesign and rebuild
33:01and get ready to feel confident about going to space again.
33:10After the Challenger accident,
33:12the press took a whole different outlook towards NASA.
33:16The outlook towards NASA was,
33:18We're not sure we believe you when you say you're going to do this.
33:27Shuttle flights resume in September 1988.
33:35After five missions, the fleet of three orbiters
33:38is flying a regular schedule again.
33:42We have to continue to move forward.
33:46We have to continue to move forward.
33:48To stop in space is to surrender.
33:53The orbiter Discovery rolls out for the most ambitious mission of the shuttle era.
33:58It promises to unlock age-old mysteries about the origins of the universe,
34:03to look deep into space for clues to the distant past.
34:08The promise of Hubble to the public was the power.
34:11It was going to show them their universe
34:14in a way they'd never seen it before.
34:17We said Hubble would probably answer the question,
34:20What is the age of the universe?
34:23Hubble was going to see galaxies and stars being born.
34:27Here was a new telescope which was going to be launched by the shuttle,
34:31and somehow it was going to make these incredible things possible.
34:36Hubble is a pioneering scientific mission,
34:39launching the most powerful telescope ever built.
34:42At 24,000 pounds, it's the size of a city bus.
34:47This is shuttle launch control at T-3 hours and holding.
34:53The telescope has to be high above the Earth's radiant light,
34:57which could distort its view into deep space.
35:01The desire was to get it as high as we possibly could.
35:06Normally, the shuttle would fly between 150-170 nautical miles,
35:11and for Hubble, we wanted to do almost twice that.
35:15And that really pushed us to the limit of what the shuttle could achieve.
35:21Discovery will launch Hubble higher than any spacecraft has flown since men went to the moon.
35:28NASA selects a veteran crew to deliver the world's most expensive telescope,
35:33with a price tag topping $1.5 billion.
35:37STS-31 was a high-profile mission because we had all flown before.
35:44We had a bit of a leg up on training.
35:48We didn't have to start at zero.
35:51Pilot Charlie Bolden, Bruce McCandless.
35:57Kathy Sullivan is the first American woman to walk in space.
36:01This is her second shuttle mission.
36:05There's thousands and thousands of things that have to be right on the money,
36:09and checked hundreds of times a second to be sure everything's ready to go.
36:13And it has to all mesh, you know, with an astonishing kind of precision
36:17in the last minute or so of a countdown.
36:21The odds ought to be that you never get off the planet.
36:25Let's go do this.
36:32Hubblecast is produced by ESA and the European Space Agency.
36:36Hubblecast is produced by ESA and the European Space Agency.
37:00It wasn't that long since Challenger.
37:02Hubble was the biggest, the largest thing we had ever tried to deploy.
37:06I don't think any of us wanted Hubble to have any sort of a major problem after Challenger.
37:13Discovery's velocity now 2,300 feet per second,
37:16and it's downrange 8 nautical miles.
37:20On schedule, Discovery jettisons the solid rocket boosters.
37:33Hubblecast is produced by ESA and the European Space Agency.
37:45Discovery burns through 2,000 tons of fuel to reach 370 miles above the Earth,
37:52more than twice as high as the shuttle's normal orbit.
38:03I was able to look out pretty much right away after main engine cutoff,
38:06and I distinctly remember the feeling,
38:08wow, this is a lot higher than I was last time.
38:13We were all struck by how fabulously different
38:16the doubling of the altitude made the Earth look.
38:20That was and is the highest that any of us have been
38:24and that the shuttle has ever been, even to date.
38:32The higher they are, the more fuel they'll need to get home.
38:37If disaster strikes and it runs out,
38:40they'll be stuck in space, unable to return before their oxygen is gone.
38:45If you looked up at the key onboard shuttle fuel gauges,
38:48the moment you got there, they were reading 49%.
38:54You wonder, well, is that really going to be enough to get us back down?
39:00You still got five or six days to go,
39:03and you're already through half your propellant.
39:06Any indication of a leak, any indication of a leak,
39:09you're getting out of there fast,
39:11or we don't get to come home and talk with you about it.
39:21The crew plans to launch Hubble the next day.
39:25Discovery using.
39:27Warning story.
39:29Got to go for HST, deploy arms.
39:31Bill Reeves directs the flight from mission control.
39:35It was time critical that you get on orbit as fast as you can,
39:39get everything checked out as fast as you can,
39:41and get this telescope deployed.
39:44Discovery's robotic arm lifts Hubble from the cargo bay.
39:49Timing is now critical.
39:51Discovery using.
39:54Hubble's ultra-sensitive instruments need a continuous source of energy.
40:01Its two solar panels must be fully extended
40:04before the telescope can be deployed,
40:07or the extreme temperatures in space could cause catastrophic damage.
40:11Hubble is on the batteries,
40:13so you only last so long on batteries,
40:15you've got to get the solar panels out, you know, to get your electricity.
40:19Likely to go pre-drift.
40:21Before the solar arrays come out,
40:23the telescope is using battery power,
40:26which is fine so long as the arrays come out.
40:30Discovery go plus SDM deploy.
40:34They commanded the first set of solar arrays to deploy,
40:39and that all worked properly,
40:41and so we're feeling pretty good about things,
40:43and then they go to do the second set.
40:46Discovery, we'd like pre-drift or minus SDM deploy.
40:51Okay, we copy pre-drift.
40:53You could see a little bit of the stored energy in the canister
40:56as the latches were released and the array would come out a little bit,
40:59and then it would stop.
41:03And we thought, well, that's not what it's supposed to do.
41:06Houston, Discovery, it looks like motion stopped.
41:09My payload officer told me the array had stopped.
41:12Immediately we knew we had a problem.
41:16One good solar panel is keeping Hubble alive, but just barely.
41:22The telescope is useless until it's under full power.
41:32So the payload team were trying to figure out why it wouldn't deploy.
41:38So there was a sense of urgency to get things going.
41:43Mission control scrambles for a solution.
41:47The crew in space prepares for an EVA.
41:51They may have to crank the solar panel open by hand.
41:54So the EVA crew press on with EVA prep.
41:57Yeah, we had Bruce McCandless and Kathy Sullivan get suited up.
42:02Just as insurance.
42:04We instantly jumped into that get-outside mode
42:07and dropped the cameras and started suiting up.
42:11The struggle at this point is having to listen to the telescope guys,
42:15ask them do they think they've got this fixed.
42:18Flight payloads?
42:19Go ahead.
42:20They haven't gotten it yet, and they're scratching their heads.
42:23They're working a plan right now,
42:25and I'll get back to you as soon as we get a good plan pulled together.
42:31The other thing I need an answer to is if I can go ahead and commit to EVA
42:36with a thought of going out and cranking it out,
42:39if whatever they're about to do fails.
42:41We really expect we're going to have to go out the door,
42:43and you actually crank it out by hand.
42:46They want us to just press on to back them up.
42:48We need to get on with it.
42:49Something had to happen to get that array out,
42:52or we'd lose the telescope.
42:54Okay, flight, I'll come back with the answer.
42:56I need answers now.
42:58By this time, Bruce and Kathy are in their spacesuits,
43:01they're in the airlock.
43:03Flight, I failed.
43:04Go ahead.
43:05Yeah, I don't feel comfortable waiting until after 6.20.
43:07I don't either. That's why I want the answers now.
43:09Time is very critical.
43:11They certainly were measuring how long it would take before the telescope would die.
43:16What I need is the status of the state of charge of the batteries at release.
43:20Are we going to have adequate charge?
43:22We can only get minus X translation.
43:25It's firm.
43:27That was a very difficult day.
43:30We really earned our pay that day.
43:33If the second solar panel isn't generating power soon,
43:39NASA could face a difficult decision.
43:42Payload.
43:43Leave Hubble in orbit until another mission can return and attempt to repair it.
43:51At mission control, engineers search for computer commands that will deploy the second array.
43:58Yes, what we need to do is command both of the motors on the PD right now.
44:03They're moving together right now?
44:04Yes.
44:05That's what they want to do?
44:06Yes, sir.
44:07The guys on the ground figured out an alternate command.
44:10It had taken them those couple of hours to find their way to that conclusion.
44:14We gave the command, and sure enough, it started to open and it kept going.
44:21The solar panels unfold and get right to work.
44:24Okay, EECOM.
44:26Lighting up sunlight and converting it into electricity.
44:30Hubble is ready for launch.
44:32Eagle.
44:33Go.
44:34FAO.
44:35Go.
44:36Max.
44:37Go.
44:38PRS.
44:39Go flight.
44:40The person I didn't get to see, I was looking, I was about this far away from the wall of the airlock,
44:42staring at a nice bright blank white wall and listening to all of that happening on the comm loops.
44:47Payloads waiting on you.
44:51Flight payloads, we are no.
44:53Capcom, we have a go for release.
44:55Discovery, go for Hubble release.
45:11We were very satisfied with our mission.
45:14We had gotten the telescope deployed.
45:16We had done what we had set out to do.
45:18There was a feeling of pride and also a feeling of a new beginning.
45:25We're going to be able to observe things and answer questions that we thought were unanswerable before.
45:43The Hubble launch revives America's space program.
45:47It's the high-profile mission NASA needs to put the Challenger disaster behind them.
45:53And 370 miles above the earth, the Hubble telescope prepares to peer back through space and time
46:00to capture images of the origins of all things.
46:04About two or three weeks after launch, we started to take the first images
46:08and a few of us gathered around a screen to see the images that would come back that night.
46:13And the focus didn't seem to be right.
46:17They didn't look nearly as sharp as the experts in the room expected them to
46:21and sort of looked at each other and said, that's the way it's supposed to be, isn't it?
46:25And of course, people knew that it wasn't.
46:28Hubble's main mirror, eight feet wide and weighing nearly a ton, is the wrong shape,
46:34ground to the wrong specifications.
46:37Many images are blurred.
46:40Hubble is nearsighted.
46:43It was only off by about a millionth of an inch,
46:46which is about one-fiftieth the diameter of a human hair.
46:51It was absolutely shocking when a couple of people who were optics experts
46:56came forward and said, you can't correct it.
47:00There's nothing you can do about it.
47:02There's a significant spherical aberration that appears to be present in the optics,
47:06in the optical telescope.
47:07You grieve for the fact that, you know, the possibilities, and they're gone.
47:12But very soon then, the grief turns to flat-out anger.
47:16How could this have happened?
47:18I mean, you know, don't you guys know how to make telescopes?
47:24Personally, I felt like it was the end of the world.
47:26You can imagine, you spend 15 years of your career working on something,
47:30and the world is watching, and it's a total disaster.
47:33As far as you know, it had to have happened on the ground before it went up.
47:36We're a joke, a national joke.
47:38The most expensive, most powerful telescope in the world is a dud.
47:45It's really hard now, in retrospect,
47:47to create the sense of outrage and despair that people were feeling.
47:55This was a, you know, multibillion-dollar disaster.