A Man's Reach Should Exceed His Grasp (1972)

[Music] n [Music] la [Applause] la [Music] flight the magic power that lifts man above the ground into a third dimension of reality a man's reach should exceed his grasp said Robert Browning or what's a heaven for always man looked at the heavens and reached for flight Icarus the legendary man who first dared to fly was doomed but the dream persisted to almost everything man made he gave imaginary Wings to ships chairs Horseless carriages as if he asked that they would somehow fly but the forces of gravity was stubborn [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] an early success was reported by Alexander Graham Bell in 1896 I witnessed he said a remarkable experiment with Professor Langley's Aerodrome on the bomic river it resembled an enormous bird soaring in the air when the steam gave out the propellers which had moved it stopped and the hole instead of tumbling down settled as slowly and as gracefully as it is possible for any bird to do then two brothers orille Wright and Wilber Wright of d Ohio presented to the commissioner of patents a petition praying for the grant of letters of patent for an alleged new and useful Improvement in flying machines in December 1903 they telegraphed home to report success four flights Thursday morning all against 21 mile wind started from level with engine power alone average speed through Air 31 miles in press home for Christmas nothing wrote John Dos pasos can blur the memory of the chilly December day two shivering bicycle mechanics from Dayton Ohio first felt their homemade Contraption Whitted out of hickory sticks gumed together with Einstein's bicycle cement stretched with muslin they'd sewn on their sister's sewing machine soar into the air above the dunes and the wide Beach at Kittyhawk 20 years before that flight at Kittyhawk a Frenchman Lou muah predicted when the first fear has been conquered when the horror of empty space has been mastered through familiarity with it intelligent man after having reproduced all the gates of the bird will want to improve upon them and he did and a vast love affair developed between man and his flying machine [Music] it was an age of Heroes and heroic flights records were set only to fall and be replaced records for Speed altitude distance greatest of all the record flight made by a young American in 1927 Paris May 26 10:00 struck a sort of shiver went through the crowd all of a sudden sudden the thousands were electrified by the sound of a motor and turning we saw just as if thrown on a Silver Screen a white gray monoplane 20 ft from the ground and softly settling a new age was born a bird Leonardo da Vinci observed is an instrument working according to mathematical law which instrument it is within the capacity of man to reproduce with all its movements according to mathematical law today the art of flying has become the science of Aeronautics as man studies the phenomena and the laws of flight step by experimental step to the first successful PLS only the Baris Theory gave birth [Music] in just a few years Aeronautics moved to flight at supersonic speeds as research planes touch the dark edge of space test in progress a flashing red warning light a massive wind generator begins to turn [Music] through a Labyrinth of pipes and tubes a surge of air accelerates in the test section several times the speed of sound instruments sense the reactions forces pressures Dynamics temperatures torrents of data computers store airplane designs as m mathematical models displayed on demand in various attitudes tiny currents race through a maze of circuitry research data stored searched and analyzed in milliseconds the designer's imagination interacting with the electronic brain [Music] [Music] you [Music] in the creative dialogue between man and machine successive steps are recorded by computer directed plotting machines [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] mathematical models translated into wind tunnel models of titanium and steel the loop closes [Music] as a concept matures research aircraft add flight experience and verify the design the interaction of parts during All Phases of flight the optimum compromise is the mature design as Aviation more and more becomes an incapable part of Modern Life research has turned to a broad range of problems how to reduce jet engine noise how to make runways safer the turbulent wakes left in the Sky by large planes how to build stronger and safer airplanes shock waves and the sonic boom flight experience remains crucial in various test programs airplanes of many kinds are used to verify and improve Design Concepts as our cities grow and expand it becomes ever more difficult to get from place to place in actual flight and in tests concepts for short and vertical takeoff and Landing are developed such airplanes May link down town to Downtown City to airport and town to Country continent to continent research programs investigate flight at ever greater speeds ever higher altitudes New York to Paris in 2 hours New York to Tokyo in six quieter safer and more efficient as time and distance shrink only a few decades since Kittyhawk the airplanes of Tomorrow fly in Wind tunnels today at 6 8 10 times the speed of sound more and more people fly more often in more planes to more places Millions today 10 tens of millions tomorrow the greatest migration in history the future of Aviation will it bring more crowding pollution noise or will it bring us closer together into the family of man computers and wind tunnels circuits and switches dials and gauges new tools for research and man the designer looking into the future research today is solving tomorrow's problem s to fulfill the promise of flight a new freedom for man a man's reach should exceed his grasp the long Impossible Dream to cross the threshold of space has become reality [Music] la as this Mission unfolds it carries with it the dreams of centuries the science of 300 years and a decade of experience in space flight Sputnik the first satellite then man himself Yuri gagaran Alan Shephard John Glenn Valentina terova a woman in space man walks in Space the intricate ballet of rendevu and docking space a new field for science sensors pointed at the Earth the Sun the Stars weather surveillance Communications agriculture Earth Resources and many other fields benefit from satellite research before man went to the moon unman spacecraft made the voyage Luna and lunic Ranger and surveyor camera shutters clicking from lunar orbiters to map the moon and select Landing SES [Music] in the long period of research and development that led to the landing on the moon each step to be taken on the way and on the moon itself was carefully rehearsed [Music] here men from the planet Earth First set foot upon the moon July 1969 ad it was a small step a giant leap they came in peace For All Mankind [Music] the astronauts found as astronomer Fred Whipple had predicted a Sublime desolation to This Strange World they came as explorers and scientists there had been concern about man's ability to work in the weak lunar gravity but the astronauts reported there seems to be no difficulty in moving around here and we suspect it's even easier than the simulations of 16g that we performed in various simulators on the ground man comes to the Moon with questions questions he asks of the soil the rocks and the terrain of the things he sees and experiences and Records questions he asks with the instruments he leaves behind information radioed back to Earth May answer age-old questions what is the origin the evolution of the Moon the Earth the solar system new questions arise the moon becomes a laboratory scientists of many nations share in its [Music] discoveries a Sublime desolation a laboratory for science it is in Truth For All mankind h [Applause] as the astronauts return home to the sound of cheers and the music of a band in Laboratories around the world the dream of the scientist comes true to hold in his hands a piece of the Moon Constantine silovsky was a shy deaf school teacher and one of the pioneers of Space Science Earth he said is the the Cradle of the mind but one cannot live in the Cradle forever to leave the Cradle new and more efficient concepts of space flight are being developed a space shuttle system spacecraft which will operate in space and in the atmosphere return to Earth to land on runways and be used again space stations will be scientific outposts in Earth orbit platforms for instruments to surve the Earth and observe the heavens and Laboratories for the space technology of tomorrow teams of scientists and Engineers will live and work here for long periods of time looking at the heavens man asks the age old question is anyone there the reason for going to Mars really is to get on the surface of the planet right where're we're interested in in uh how the planet was formed where it came from in the first place what is What is the the physical environment of the planet and of course the biological is there life on the planet does the planet tell us anything about where how when did Life Begin the voices of scientists geologists meteorologists biologists mapping the exploration of another planet with project Viking an unmanned space probe landing on Mars a robot laboratory to conduct experiments and look for life when you go when you think about how to look for life you do what every human being does who's ever been alone on the desert the first thing he does he opens his eyes he looks around and uh and he looks you know he looks with the experience that he's had for uh the length of his life he tries to see if there's a shrub or a bush or or a rat hole or a or or something something to give him some credibility to it how about red grass but there's red grass on Earth that's no challenge the life detection experiment it's really four experiments and because life is such a complicated process the more criteria of biological activity we can look for the more likely we are to find it for example there's the the experiment that deals with photosynthesis where you actually inject some some uh carbon dioxide and see whether the carbon dioxide is picked up by the sunlight but when people are introduced into an experiment they they they're so simple but think of the difficulty replacing the human in trying to make a robot a machine that goes someplace and does for us we're taking what are very simple laboratory routines and uh we have to do all of this in a completely automated uh mode but the thing that really turns me on is the idea that there might be a separate and distinct origin of Life on Mars you know if you really had it happen twice in this tiny little uh sun solar system that we have why the universe must be teaming with life and if that's true who are we to say that we're the Smart Ones you know we may be some where's in the middle one is always in the middle of some curve it's like the days of the Vikings the real Vikings it's an exploratory program and new questions always produce more new questions and and this is how you learn and Beyond this tiny little sun solar system Islands floating in the great void is anyone there nebuli clusters galaxies farther and farther but where man has never been and May in fact never go his mind has already reached out to ask questions digital computers spin out data gravitation Velocity energy Mass the life cycles of universes compressed into minutes as man looks outward into the darkness of space and finds the light of new knowledge he sees and begins to understand himself archal mcle comments to see the Earth as it truly is small and blue and beautiful in that Eternal silence where it floats is to see ourselves as Riders on the earth together Brothers on that bright loveliness in the Eternal cold brothers who know now that they are truly Brothers am [Music]