When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions (2008): Season 1, Episode 4 - The Explorers - full transcript

NARRATOR: In 1969, a group
of astronauts change the world.

They ride the biggest rocket
ever built to the moon.

It's the culmination

of more than 10 years
of space pioneering

and a foundation
for more than four decades

of exploring worlds
beyond our own.

This is the story
of our greatest adventure.

[ Applause ]

NASA fulfills
John Kennedy's dream

to land men on the moon
and bring them back alive.

PRESIDENT NIXON:
Neil, Buzz, and Mike,



I want you to know

that I think I'm
the luckiest man in the world

in welcoming you back to Earth.

NARRATOR: But Neil Armstrong
and Buzz Aldrin

clocked just 2 1/2 hours
walking on the surface.

Their successful mission paves
the way for fellow astronauts

to embark on more advanced
lunar exploration.

BEAN: The trainers came to us
one day and said,

''We're gonna teach you
what you need to know

when you get to the moon.''

We said, ''Hey, we know.
We're gonna put up the flag.

We're gonna talk
to the president.

We're gonna come home.''

He said,
''Yeah, that's what you think.''



NARRATOR: Just four months
after the first landing,

Apollo 12 carries
Pete Conrad, Richard Gordon,

and Alan Bean to the moon.

BEAN: 257 feet.
Coming down at 5.

NARRATOR:
Unlike Apollo 11,

Conrad and Bean
make a pinpoint landing.

BEAN: Contact light.
Outstanding, man!

NARRATOR: The area is called
the Ocean of Storms,

the site of an ancient volcano.

They spend nearly eight hours

collecting 75 pounds
of moon rocks.

GIBSON: Pete, you're 34 minutes
into the EVA

and you're right
on the nominal timeline.

BEAN: We were tired.
We were dirty.

It went by pretty quick,
but we did a lot of hard work.

NARRATOR: From an unmanned probe
that landed two years earlier,

they retrieved parts that
contain a remarkable discovery.

Bacteria from Earth
seemed to have survived

in the vacuum of space.

BEAN: When you're
the only two people on the moon

and everybody else is 240,000
miles some other direction,

you're an explorer.

NARRATOR:
For the next moon mission,

NASA geologists choose
a more dangerous landing site --

the heavily cratered
lunar highlands.

BEAN: I've always thought
that our crew, Apollo 12,

could have flown any mission as
good as anybody else, probably,

except 13.

NARRATOR:
NASA makes scientific research

a primary mission objective.

The crew of Apollo 13

takes special training
in lunar geology.

The rocks astronauts bring back

could begin to answer questions
about where the moon came from.

HAISE: The geology training
was really a lot of focus

on the protocol of sampling.

So when we got back,

they could understand
where they come from

and how they fit
into the context of the area.

NARRATOR: The commander
of Apollo 13 is Jim Lovell,

a veteran of two Gemini missions
and Apollo 8.

He's NASA's
most experienced astronaut.

One of the things I wanted to do
before I retired

from active space flight
was to land on the moon.

That's the reason why I had got
into NASA in the first place.

That was the whole thing.

So I was looking forward to 13.

NARRATOR: Jim Lovell's crew
has been training together

for almost a year,

even before being assigned
to Apollo 13.

But the team is broken up
just three days before launch.

Jack Swigert
is a last-minute replacement

when the command-module pilot
is exposed to the measles.

HAISE:
On every flight,

we ended up getting pressed
into the corner.

There were a lot
of last-minute details.

Changes were still being made.

NARRATOR: Swigert joins
the two lunar landers,

Jim Lovell and Fred Haise.

Their destination --

a difficult landing site
in the moon's Fra Mauro Hills.

BEAN: You know,
when you're an astronaut,

you've got to buy into
a lot of risk.

Nobody's gonna save you
if the hardware doesn't work.

You buy into that stuff
if you're gonna be an astronaut.

If you can't buy into it,
don't be an astronaut.

MAN: T-minus 25 seconds and
counting, and Apollo 13 is go.

LOVELL: You know,
you're sort of relaxed

because there's only two things
that are gonna happen.

Either it's gonna go as planned
or something is gonna go wrong.

This was my last chance
to get to the moon.

MAN:
Mission sequence has started.

6. . . 5. . . 4. . . 3. . . 2. . . 1 . . . 0.

We have commit,
and we have lift-off at 2:13.

[ Cheers and applause ]

The Saturn V building up
to 7.6 million pounds of thrust.

And it has cleared the tower.

MAN #2: This is Mission Control,
Houston.

We appear to have a good
first stage at this point.

Flight dynamics officer says
the trajectory looks good.

We show 1/2 mile in altitude
at this time.

NARRATOR: Apollo 13
is just the eighth launch

of the most powerful rocket
ever built.

LOVELL: Roll complete,
and we're pitching.

MAN: Roger that.
Stand by for mode one-bravo.

NARRATOR: Gene Kranz monitors
all aspects of the launch

from his desk at Mission Control
in Houston.

KRANZ: The flight director's
job description is very simple.

It's only one sentence long.

It says to take any actions
needed for crew safety

and mission success.

Crew safety is number one.
Mission success is number two.

Fred, one more thing on the TV.

If you could come down
to F-22 again.

HAISE: I was pretty busy
getting equipment out

and occasionally
getting a chance

to sneak a peek out the window.

Even though you've seen
pictures and footage

from previous flights,

it's unbelievable
when you're there looking out.

NARRATOR:
More than halfway to the moon,

the crew broadcasts Iive
from the spaceship

for television viewers on Earth.

Okay, a couple square packages
Inow have my hand on here

are our emergency
oxygen supplies.

NARRATOR:
The astronauts don't know

the networks aren't carrying
their broadcasts.

Missions to the moon
are becoming routine.

And not just for the public.

HAISE: The controllers said
they're bored to death

because, really, it was --

Everything was going right down
to flight plan perfectly.

KRANZ: The shift rotations
at Mission Control

had come off very smoothly.

Everything was on track.

We're just about ready

to close out our inspection
of Aquarius

and get back for
a pleasant evening at Odyssey.

Good night.

NARRATOR: As the crew prepares
for seven hours of sleep,

Mission Control makes
one last routine request.

KRANZ: This is where we turn on
some fans in the oxygen tanks

to basically stir them up
to make them uniform

so we can measure them.

Jack Swigert acknowledged
our request for the stir.

SWIGERT:
Okay. Stand by.

Swigert then threw two switches.

[ Radio static ]

A light came on that said
there was something wrong

with your electrical system.

But before we could digest
that information,

two more lights came on
that said two out of three

of your fuel cells
had just died.

KRANZ:
It was now 55 hours, 55 minutes,

and 4 seconds from launch.

My voice slips come -- ''Flight,
we've had a computer restart.''

MAN:
Roger. Reset.

KRANZ: Another one says
''Antenna switch.''

Another one says
'' Main bus interval.''

And then down from the
spacecraft, Lovell calls.

LOVELL: Lights were coming on,
noise all over.

Jets were firing.
I had no idea what was going on.

I looked up at Fred Haise.

I couId tell from his expression
he had no idea.

HAISE:
RCS system, cryogenics,

electrical power,
A.C. power, D.C. power.

LOVELL: I quickly looked
at Jack Swigert.

His eyes were as wide
as saucers.

He didn't know
what was occurring.

KRANZ: I thought that we've had
another power glitch.

We had had two
earlier in my shift.

And we're gonna solve
this problem quickly

and get back on track.

LOVELL:
Mission Control, of course,

being a couple hundred thousand
miles away,

was a little bit slower
in realizing what was happening.

HAISE:
They were chasing down a trail

that said it was
an instrumentation problem.

KRANZ:
Voice communications were solid,

but our telemetry
made absolutely no sense.

But the real impact came

when Jim Lovell
was looking out the hatch window

and says, ''Hey, Houston. . .''

LOVELL:
Yeah, that's the tip of the A.C.

HAISE: I could see
a sea of debris around us

of little twinkly things moving
out away from the spacecraft,

which I'm assuming
is frozen oxygen.

YOUNG:
I was in Mission Control.

And Jim Lovell said,
''We got a problem.''

And he was right.

I thought we'd lost them

when I saw that second
oxygen tank leaking out.

We were in serious,
serious trouble.

From then on,
it was survival mode.

Okay, now,
let's everybody keep cool.

Let's solve the problem,
but let's not make it any worse

by guessing.

NARRATOR:
What they do know is bad enough.

Both oxygen tanks
are losing pressure quickly.

Two of three fuel cells
are dead.

Without oxygen, the remaining
fuel cell won't last long.

HAISE: The quantity indicator
on the second oxygen tank

was moving downward.

Not very fast,
but nevertheless diminishing.

And so it was apparent

that we were gonna lose
that second oxygen tank.

NARRATOR:
The command module is dying.

Its fuel cells need oxygen
to produce electricity.

And the crew needs oxygen
to breathe.

Their only hope
is the lunar module.

LOVELL: I realized we were
shortly gonna be out of oxygen

and that we're gonna have to use
the lunar module

as a lifeboat to get home.

NARRATOR: The lunar module
has its own oxygen and power.

But it's only equipped to
support two people for two days.

It's going to take four days

to get three astronauts
back to Earth.

Every minute is critical.

KRANZ:
We figure we've got

about 15 minutes' worth of power
left in the command module,

so we want you to start
getting over in the LEM

and getting some power on that.

NARRATOR:
Following standard procedure,

it should take lunar-module
pilot Fred Haise two hours

to activate the LEM .

HAISE:
I drifted down.

We had our activation checklist
that we used.

As I went through the checklist,
draw a big ''X''

through whole sections
and move on.

NARRATOR:
With just moments to spare,

Haise powers up
the lunar module.

But living in the LEM
means they can't fire

the powerful
command-module rockets

to reverse course back to Earth.

They'll need to make
the longer trip around the moon.

KRANZ: I made the decision
that we would go around the moon

as opposed to use a direct abort

because I would have to jettison
my lunar module.

And I didn't want to lose
my lunar module,

which I considered a lifeboat.

We're looking -- now looking
towards an alternate mission.

Swinging around the moon

and using the lunar module
power systems.

SWIGERT:
That sounds like good news.

NARRATOR: Lovell fires
the engine of the lunar module

to set their course
around the moon and home again.

The lightweight LEM
offers little protection

against the extreme conditions
in deep space.

To conserve power,

only essential instruments
are turned on.

KERWIN:
It was flimsy,

and it was not designed
for long habitation

between the moon and the Earth,
which is pretty cold.

LOVELL:
The temperature kept dropping

all the way down
to zero Celsius --

you know, 34 degrees Fahrenheit.

HAISE:
It was a pretty bad environment

to be sitting in for the number
of days that we had to exist.

NARRATOR:
77 hours into the mission,

Apollo 13 circles
around the far side of the moon,

using its gravity
for a slingshot back to Earth.

We're out of communication with
the ground during that period.

[ Radio static ]

NARRATOR:
For 26 minutes,

Mission Control hears nothing
but static.

HAISE:
There was a point,

call it a sort of a second point
of disappointment on my part,

that we weren't gonna get
to go down there.

NARRATOR: The biggest question
for Mission Control

is whether the limited supplies
in the LEM

will keep the crew alive
long enough to reach Earth.

KERWIN: Everybody was making
constant calculations.

''Do we have enough
electrical power?

Do we have enough water?
Do we have enough oxygen?''

NARRATOR:
The answer is definitive.

The crew won't survive.

They have to get home faster.

KRANZ:
After we passed behind the moon,

we had to come up
with a technique

to accelerate
our return journey.

LOVELL: We were gonna
have to use the engine

of the lunar module the second
time to speed up to get back.

Otherwise, we'd be out of power.

NARRATOR:
The extra boost

cuts nine hours
off the return journey.

With careful rationing
of water and power,

their supplies should last.

HAISE:
Should nothing else go wrong,

we had a shot
at getting back to an entry.

NARRATOR: While conditions
in the LEM are miserable,

the low temperatures
won't kill them.

But every breath they take
produces a poison that can.

KERWIN: Carbon dioxide
was beginning to build up

in the lunar-module atmosphere.

LOVELL: The canisters
to remove carbon dioxide

in the lunar module --

there are only enough of them
for two people.

We were three.

KERWIN: And as the CO2 level
in the blood goes up,

your muscle function
is gonna stop.

And you're gonna lose
consciousness and die.

NARRATOR: There are spare
canisters in the command module,

but a basic design error
renders them useless.

DUKE: The command module carbon
dioxide scrubber was square.

But the lunar module was round.

So we had to rig up a deal

that would work this square deal
in this round hole.

KRANZ: The crew was faced
with suffocation.

So engineering came up with the
idea to fabricate an adapter.

KERWIN:
They brought it in.

We got down
on our hands and knees,

and they made me build it.

And once I had built it,
they said,

''Okay, now you know
how to build it.

Now go tell Jack Swigert
how to build it.''

LOVELL:
We did it with duct tape. . .

with a piece of plastic. . .

a piece of cardboard,
and an old sock.

KERWIN:
And then he plugged it in,

and, lo and behold, that CO2
level just came down so slick.

It was great.

NARRATOR:
As they approach Earth,

the crew prepares for one
of the most dangerous parts

of their mission -- reentry.

They need to get back
in the command module

and jettison the LEM
that's kept them alive.

DUKE:
We were concerned

because this command module had
not been powered up for days.

And so it had gotten
very cold inside.

And how was the heat shield
going to respond?

And is it gonna work through
the heat of the reentry?

HAISE: They're not gonna be able
to do anything about it,

and we got to get
through the entry.

It's the only way to get home.

[ Radio static ]

DUKE:
We lost communications.

There was what we call blackout
due to the ionized atmosphere.

NARRATOR: The blackout
should last three minutes.

[ Radio static ]

MAN: Apollo 13.

Apollo 13. Over.

''Hello, '' you know, ''Aquarius.''

''Hello, Apollo 13.''
And no response.

MAN: It's been two minutes now
from time of drogue deployment.

NARRATOR: After four minutes,
still nothing.

KERWIN:
You just had to sit there

and listen
through all that static,

waiting for somebody
to say ''Houston.''

[ Radio static ]

SWIGERT:
Okay, Joe.

[ Cheers and applause ]

[ Indistinct talking on radio ]

MAN #2:
This is recovery. Over.

Photo one
splashed down at this time.

LOVELL: And when we finally
hit the water,

then we knew
that we were 100% safe.

YOUNG: They landed right where
they were supposed to land.

It was awesome.

There was a big, big celebration
at Mission Control.

KERWIN: We were all very joyful
and all very tired,

and there didn't seem to be
anything else to say, you know?

Any mission that you can bring
your crew back home from

is a success.

PRESIDENT NIXON:
The men of Apollo 13,

by their poise and skill

under the most intense kind
of pressure,

epitomize the character that
accepts danger and surmounts it.

Theirs is the spirit
that built America.

NARRATOR: NASA is determined to
maintain an aggressive schedule

of lunar exploration.

Nine months later. . .

MAN:
And we're free.

NARRATOR: . . .Apollo 1 4
is racing to the moon.

The commander is Alan Shepard,
the first American in space.

Their destination --
Apollo 13's landing site.

MAN #2: Good show.
Thank you.

NARRATOR:
The Fra Mauro Highlands.

MAN:
We're on the surface.

MAN #2:
Okay, we made a good landing.

NARRATOR:
Scientists think this region

could hold clues from the time
the moon was just being formed.

The astronauts bring a handcart

to haul 90 pounds of rocks
back to the LEM.

And Alan Shepard even finds time

to convert the rock sampler
into a golf club.

Once again,
large audiences are watching

when astronauts
broadcast from the moon.

With the success of Apollo 14,

NASA plans to expand
its lunar explorations

with a bold new series
of missions.

DUKE: The whole objective
was to put out a whole suite

of geological experiments
and scientific experiments.

WORDEN : We wanted to collect
enough data

so that we can analyze the moon
and see what it's made of.

What is the structure
of the moon?

Is it like the Earth?
Is it like an asteroid?

You know, what's the structure
of the moon?

NARRATOR:
For the new missions,

astronauts will spend more time
on the lunar surface

and bring back heavier payloads
of moon rocks.

For more ambitious explorations,

they'll have to cover
a lot more territory.

NASA develops
a revolutionary vehicle.

CARR: The lunar rover was
a very, very creative effort.

We knew we wanted a vehicle that
could roll along on that very --

what seemed like sandy
kind of a surface.

And it had to be operable

by people in suits
that were very, very stiff

and without
a whole lot of mobility.

NARRATOR: The lunar rover is
a four-wheel-drive two-seater.

It has a top speed
of 8 miles per hour.

A magnetic compass
won't work on the moon,

so a computer constantly plots
a straight line back to the LEM

YOUNG: Charlie and I worked
on the lunar-rover vehicle

over at the
Marshall Space Flight Center.

And it was
a great driving machine.

DUKE: We had the car to broaden
our exploration base.

Before the car,
we had no ability

to walk more than 300
or 400 yards.

But with a car, we could cover
a radius of about 5 miles.

NARRATOR:
Apollo 16.

John Young, Charlie Duke,
and Ken Mattingly

blast off into the Florida sky.

Young and Duke use
the lunar rover

to explore an area known
as the Descartes Mountains.

DUKE: We had trained that
John Young would be the driver,

and I would navigate.

Yow! Whoo!

Well, just to see how fast
the thing would go downhill,

and it would do pretty good.

YOUNG: Huh?

DUKE:
It was fun riding the rover.

It was a lot of fun.
Bounced a lot.

That moon dust was pouring down
on us like rain.

And so after a half
of a moonwalk,

our white suits turned gray.

YOUNG:
I spent a lot of time saying,

''Charlie, don't bump my arm.''

'Cause he was sitting
right next to me,

and so any time he moved
his hand,

it would make my wrist
turn the steering wheel.

Not a good thing when
you're heading for big blocks.

DUKE:
Okay, Tony.

NARRATOR:
The rover's TV camera

beams pictures
to a team of scientists.

Okay, we copy that.

NARRATOR:
Working from the rover,

they collect a record
209 pounds of moon rocks.

DUKE: We could collect
a lot more rocks,

and we could see
a lot of variety of rocks

as we journeyed
across this landing area

that was selected
for its geological significance.

So it really revolutionized
the lunar surface exploration.

NARRATOR: Duke and Young
drive the rover hard

for nearly 17 miles
over rugged terrain.

Parked at the landing site,

it documents Apollo 16 blasting
off from the lunar surface.

DUKE: What a ride.
What a ride.

NARRATOR: Apollo 17 targets
another geologically rich area

of the moon.

But this will be Project
Apollo's final lunar landing.

Budget cuts force NASA

to scrub three more missions
already scheduled.

We were disappointed 'cause
they canceled 18, 19, and 20.

We had the hardware.

We had crews picked.

And all it was
was operational money.

NARRATOR: NASA wants
the last moon mission

to be their greatest.

The landing site demands
the first night launch

of the giant Saturn V rocket.

On board, Ron Evans
is command-module pilot.

Harrison Schmitt is NASA's
first scientist in space.

And the commander of Apollo 17
is Gene Cernan,

a veteran of Gemini 9
and Apollo 10.

Apollo 17 was a. . .
was a real goal of mine.

I knew before we launched

that Apollo 17 was gonna be
the last flight to the moon.

And I knew I would be the guy

to make the final steps
on the moon.

There were a lot of people,
I think,

in positions of responsibility
within NASA

who, being the last flight, just
wanted me to get back alive.

NARRATOR:
More than half a million people

come from all over the world
to watch the final lunar launch.

Rog. We're go
for lift-off here, Cap Com.

NARRATOR: Apollo 17
is Gene Cernan's second trip

to the moon.

On Apollo 10, he flew a lander

to within 47,000 feet
of the lunar surface.

This time, he's cleared to land.

CERNAN: I needed to go back
on Apollo 17.

I wanted to cover
the last 47,000 feet.

I've been to the moon, folks.

I'm not going back again
not to land.

And I think people knew that.

Obviously, I was
not gonna do something dumb,

but I was gonna land.

You're looking real good, Gene,
right down the line.

CERNAN:
Stand by for touchdown.

SCHMITT: Stand by.

25 feet, down at 2.

Fuel's good.

20 feet.

Going down at 2.

10 feet.

10 feet.

Got contact.

Stop, push.

Engine stop.

CERNAN: Okay, Houston.
The Challenger has landed.

NARRATOR:
Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt

join an elite fraternity.

Only 12 men have landed
on the moon.

Over the next three days,

Cernan and Schmitt spend
more time walking on the moon

than any other astronauts.

CERNAN: ♫ I was strolling
on the moon one day ♫

BOTH : ♫ In the merry,
merry month of ♫

-. . . December.
-SCHMITT: No. May.

-May. May the month is.
-That's right.

May is the month.

NARRATOR: A team of scientists
monitors their work.

SCHMITT: Hey!

There is orange soil.

CERNAN: Well, don't move it
until I see it.

SCHMITT:
It's all over.

Orange!

CERNAN:
Don't move it until I see it.

SCHMITT: I've stirred it up
with my feet.

CERNAN:
Hey, it is!

I can see it from here.
It's orange!

Let's think about this
logically.

They're up against
a constraint anyways,

so they got to leave
at a certain time

regardless of what we got.

MAN: We'd like you
to leave immediately.

CERNAN: Okay.

My golly,
this time goes fast!

NARRATOR:
Three years after Neil Armstrong

became the first man
to walk on the moon,

Gene Cernan prepares to be
the last.

When I crawled up the ladder,

I knew I wasn't gonna be
coming this way again.

And I just wanted to stop time.

I wanted to freeze time.

I want to take advantage
of this moment.

Hey, one minute, Houston.

We're 50 seconds now,
and we're go.

MAN:
You're looking good here.

NARRATOR: It's only 11 years
since Alan Shepard

became the first American
in space

and John Kennedy challenged
the U. S. to go to the moon.

Now Apollo 17
is the end of an era.

KRANZ: It's like breaking off
a love affair.

You've had a marvelous time,

but now it's time to bring
that relationship to an end.

SCHMITT:
3. . . 2. . . 1 .

Ignition.

CERNAN:
We're on our way, Houston.

SCHMITT:
Rates are good.

AGS saw it.

MAN: Pitch over.

FULLERTON : Okay.
You have good thrust.

NARRATOR: Cernan and Schmitt
start the long journey home.

The camera on the rover will
transmit pictures back to Earth

for another 27 hours --

the final images from man's
last trip to the moon.

Having explored
the lunar surface,

NASA shifts gears to learn
to live long-term in space.

LOVELL: You know, engineers
want to do something different.

They said,
''Hey, we've been there.

We've done that.
And let's do something else.''

WORDEN:
We proved to ourselves

that we can go somewhere
and survive.

So now the next step's
gonna be a much bigger one.

BEAN:
If we're ever gonna go to Mars,

we've got to understand what
happens to humans and machinery

when they spend
a year or two in space.

NARRATOR: NASA develops
a radical new spacecraft

using a Saturn V rocket

left over from the scrubbed
Apollo missions.

CERNAN: It was a good use
of the hardware we had

to develop Skylab.

It was a space station.

KERWIN:
The big insight

was that you could use
the third stage

of the great big Saturn V rocket
as a habitable place to live.

NARRATOR:
Launching Skylab into orbit

won't demand the rocket power
that sent men to the moon.

NASA converts
the top of a Saturn V

into the first
American space station.

CARR:
It's been compared to the size

of a small three-bedroom house.

Each had our own bedroom.

Each bedroom was about the size
of a telephone booth,

and the beds
were fastened to the wall.

NARRATOR: The commander
of Skylab's first crew

is Pete Conrad,

who flew two Gemini missions
and Apollo 12.

Rookie Paul Weitz is the pilot.

And another rookie,
Joseph Kerwin,

is the science pilot.

We could stuff it
with experiments.

We could put the food and water
up there for three missions.

We could do it all,
and it was great.

NARRATOR: Skylab and crew
will launch on separate rockets.

KERWIN:
This beautiful big Saturn V

with the workshop on it
was to launch on May 14th,

and it would get
into the correct orbit.

The next day, we would launch.

NARRATOR:
Not since Gemini 6 and 7

has NASA attempted two launches
so close together.

The unmanned Skylab flies first.

MAN: The Skylab lifting
off the pad now, moving up.

Skylab has cleared the tower.

KERWIN:
It looked like a great launch.

Went up into the sky
as far as we could see it

and was on its way successfully.

Pretty soon,
the news from Mission Control

began to get bad.

There had been a ''G'' shock,
a sudden acceleration,

on the way up.

They didn't know what caused it.

MAN: Skylab space station
now in orbit.

Still some doubt in the minds

of flight controllers
here in Mission Control

as to whether the main
solar panels on the workshop

have indeed deployed.

KERWIN: One of them
didn't respond at all.

The other one, just a trickle
of current that they could see.

MAN:
The planned 28-day mission

is not possible without
the workshop main solar panels.

KERWIN:
Meanwhile, the temperatures

both outside and inside
of the workshop began to rise.

We have insufficient
electrical power,

we have temperatures
that are out of control,

and it looks like
the heat shield is gone.

CARR: We just had to sit around
and wait and worry and wonder

whether or not we were going to
end up getting a mission

or whether we were gonna lose
the whole mission.

People in Mission Control were
about ready to give up, l think.

KERWIN: The second response
five minutes later was,

''Come on, we're engineers.

Let's get to work on this thing
and see what we can do.''

BEAN:
They stopped the next launch,

and they said,
''Now, your job has changed

from activating the workshop
to saving the workshop

and then activating it.''

NARRATOR: Skylab's biggest
problem is heat from the sun.

Engineers quickly design
a giant parasol.

GARRIOTT: They not only had to
understand the problem,

they then had to design
the hardware,

they had to built the hardware,
test the hardware,

package it for flight,
and get it to the spacecraft.

NARRATOR:
After a 10-day delay,

Kerwin, Conrad, and Weitz
finally launch --

NASA's first repairmen in space.

MAN:
T-minus 7. . . 6. . . 5. . . 4. . . 3. . .

Engine sequence start.

. . . 2. . . 1 . . . 0.

We have launch commit,
and we have lift-off.

The clock is running, and
Skylab has cleared the tower.

NARRATOR:
Eight hours after launch,

they rendezvous with Skylab
and see the damage close-up.

MAN:
Houston is now controlling.

KERWIN: Pete flew our
command-service module around,

and we took not only photographs
but also television,

whose images could be dumped
to the ground.

And that was priceless

because it gave the engineers
working on the ground

a good look at what was wrong.

MAN:
Roger. Copy.

NARRATOR: The crew has to enter
Skylab to repair it.

270 miles above the Earth. . .

. . .traveling at more
than 17,000 miles an hour,

Pete Conrad must perform
a precise hard dock.

We went to dock,
and the soft dock failed.

There were little
capture latches

in the nose
of the docking probe,

and for some reason
they were stuck shut,

and they never came open.

We're sitting there
contemplating the fact

that if we can't dock,
the mission is over.

They'll bring us home tomorrow.

But there was
one final backup procedure

that had never been used.

If you got in there tight,
they would go.

So Pete gets all set
for one more go,

and he bumps in, and
he's applying the rocket thrust.

Ground said it would take
about 10 seconds.

If it doesn't work in
10 seconds, it's not gonna work.

And the probe
nestles into the drogue.

And we're counting --
1 , 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

Rat-a-tat-tat!

Man, and all the latches
latched.

It was like an explosion
up there.

[ Radio static ]

We got a hard dock out of it!

MAN #2:
Hey, way to go!

And, oh, we were so relieved.

It didn't smell very good.

It had a sort of a burned smell
to it.

NARRATOR: The crew gets to work
in Skylab's searing heat.

The astronauts take turns
trying to deploy the parasol.

GARRIOTT:
They put out this parasol,

which was extended out through
a little 10x10-inch aperture.

KERWIN: Okay, Houston,
we had a clean deployment

as far the rods clearing
and everything.

And then a spring was released,
and the fishing rods pulled up.

KERWIN: . . . oscillated the rod in
and out, stroke-wise, rapidly.

It was successful,

and the temperatures
began to come down.

They came down from the 130s
to the mid-80s.

NARRATOR: But Skylab has
an even bigger problem.

One solar panel had been damaged
during launch

and still isn't working.

KERWIN: The problem
with the solar panel

was out where there were
no handholds, no footholds,

no lighting -- where no
crew member was supposed to go.

Yet it had to be done, so
let's figure out ways to do it.

NARRATOR: A backup team works
with a full-size model of Skylab

in a neutral-buoyancy tank.

Their solution is unprecedented
in manned space flight.

KERWIN:
For the first time,

crews going outside in their
space suits to repair problems.

That had never been done before.

NARRATOR:
The other solar panel

is jammed by a small piece
of metal

preventing it from opening.

If they can cut it,
the panel should unfold.

We had a limb lop,

the kind of thing that they use
to trim tree limbs

away from power lines.

It had two brown ropes
attached to it.

One would close the jaws, and
the other would open the jaws.

MAN: That's it.
You got it right there.

I pulled
on the close-the-jaws rope. . .

. . . and completed cutting
the aluminum scrap.

We did it.
[ Chuckles ]

The best sight
of the entire mission --

that solar-panel cover
all the way up at 90 degrees.

And the people on the ground
were so pleased, too,

because we were gonna get
our power back.

We were gonna be able
to complete the mission.

That was a good day.
That was a very good day.

NARRATOR: The space station
is open for business.

Over the next eight months,
Skylab is home to three crews,

each setting new records

for astronauts living
and working in space.

BEAN: You fly from one side
to the other.

We had erected handrails
in there to move along.

You don't do that.
You don't use any of that stuff.

I can remember the first week
or so I'd do flips on the way.

KERWIN:
The feeling of being Peter Pan,

of being your own spacecraft
flying around the Earth

is awesome and incredible.

We were zipping around there

as if we had never been
other than weightless.

NARRATOR: Skylab crews log
more than 3,000 hours

of scientific experiments

and transform our understanding
of the sun.

GARRIOTT:
The work itself was fun.

This is a kind of work
that had never been done before.

NARRATOR:
Skylab is the first step

toward the human habitation
of space.

Jerry Carr, William Pogue,
and Edward Gibson

are Skylab's last crew.

KERWIN:
They went for 84 days.

Came back with less weight loss,
less loss in muscle strength,

in better shape all around than
either of the first two crews.

CARR: When we returned
from the mission,

the doctors opined that maybe
we were in better condition

when we got back
than when we left.

KERWIN: We demonstrated that you
could go three months in space

and come back in good shape.

That was a triumph.

NARRATOR: The technology
of the Apollo program

not only carries astronauts
to the moon and back,

but allows humans
to live and work in space

longer than ever before.

KRANZ: Space is basically
a test of survival --

our ability to invent things

that will allow us
to use very limited resources.

You have to use everything.

And you have to use it

as most efficiently
and effectively as possible.

NARRATOR:
Skylab provides the foundation

for a permanent human presence
in space

and the exploration of worlds
deep into the solar system.

The power of space
was to raise our aspirations

to those things that
are possible if we will commit.