Discovery '68. The busy world of outer space.

[Music] [Music] 400 feet per second vertical velocity 28 000 feet unmanned spacecraft like this surveyor landing on the moon are sending back information and pictures that will enable us to send men to the moon and on voyages to more distant planets we're going to see some of the satellites and spacecraft of the future and we'll find out how space research is improving life right here on earth today when discovery takes a closer look at the busy world of outer space [Music] discovery 68 the award-winning program for young people with bill owen a city on the moon a lunar base for men to live and work in is no longer a science fiction fantasy it's close to becoming a reality but in order to get this far we had to find out everything we could about the moon's surface we sent a series of spacecraft seven in all called surveyors to land on the moon and send pictures and scientific information back to the earth the surveyor craft are 10 feet high and 14 feet in diameter their journey from the earth to the moon covers 240 000 miles a 63-hour trip begins with a launch by the atlas centaur rocket as the cocoon opens the first stage burns out and separates then the second stage ignites the surveyor unfolds and leaves the second stage rocket behind then the solar panels are erected to give the surveyor craft precise directional control in space its small jet motors turn the craft until its two navigation sensors can locate and lock onto two fixed points in space the sun and the star canopus then surveyor can guide itself using these two reference points like a beacon the deep space tracking network on earth monitors the flight and sends commands to the spacecraft during its long voyage to the moon as surveyor approaches within a thousand miles of the moon's surface the ground control positions it so that its retro rockets will be able to slow it down from its 5 000 miles per hour speed and then the main propulsion rocket is jettisoned at 60 miles from the surface the spacecraft's own radar signals take over the last few moments of the flight monitored at the jet propulsion laboratory control center in california are the most critical 4 000 feet stable 400 400 feet [Music] 13 feet per second [Applause] with a perfect landing accomplished surveyor's real work begins it sends a series of over ten thousand television pictures back to earth with detailed close-ups of the moon's surface command has been transmitted to take the picture the first portion of these pictures will be with the lens at wide angle setting now proceeding to a multiple sequence of pictures a surveyor type of spacecraft is not designed to be recovered once it lands it must remain on the surface but there's another craft called limb for a lunar module that will be able to land men on the moon and take off again under its own power the first manned landings scheduled by 1970 are part of the apollo space program marked by the successful launching in 1967 of the first giant saturn v rocket booster system apollo will carry three astronauts in the regular command module with the lunar module attached one astronaut remains in orbit around the moon in the command module the other two enter the limb separate and land on the moon's surface after a short stay on the moon the two men will relaunch the limb and rendezvous with the command module which will return all three of them to earth after the first apollo missions this same saturn rocket can be modified to carry more men and material to build an actual lunar base the base may look something like [Music] this because there's no air on the moon we'd have to have our own supply the spacecraft landing port might have a sliding dome to allow men to move about freely as they enter or leave the spacecraft the living and working quarters of this city would have to be underground because of the extremes of heat and cold for protection from harmful solar radiation and to provide a continual supply of fresh air these are some of the difficulties but the rewards could be great the moon may look dead and empty but it does have many resources and advantages because of its lack of atmosphere and no wind or turbulence the moon is a better platform than the earth for observing outer space since its gravity is only one-sixth out of the earth it would make an ideal rocket base for launching future explorations for instance a rocket that needs six hundred thousand pounds of thrust when launched from the earth would need only 100 000 pounds to leave the moon all of the supplies we need to support life might be manufactured directly from elements that exist in the moon soil nuclear or solar furnaces may extract water by heating the rocks of the moon and by separating the water into hydrogen and oxygen we could have both a source of power and air to breed and we should be able to grow our own food there as well first we would bring a small amount of algae to the moon algae are small one cell green plants that would serve two purposes they can be made directly into food and they can also serve as air purifiers like most green plants algae will multiply rapidly and can convert carbon dioxide into fresh oxygen besides algae we can also grow regular fruits and vegetables in special tanks using either lunar soil or highly concentrated chemical solutions these are called hydroponic farms and experiments here on earth have proven that a large amount of food can be grown in a very small area to do this the lunar base would need a wide range of chemicals and plant nutrients although it may seem strange the early rocket transports will probably be carrying loads of fertilizer to the moon at first almost everything will have to be brought from earth but when a moon base becomes self-supporting it might truly become our ideal stepping stone into deep space we'll find out how we're going to travel there and we'll see some of the many unusual ways that space research is helping to improve our life on earth right now we'll do that in just a minute how would you like to take a vacation trip in a rocket and visit your friends on moon city this is what the moon might look like when you get there according to the scientists at north american rockwell in downey california the scientists who are working in outer space research today are facing the same kind of questions people asked in 1492 when columbus found a new world why bother going there if it's so expensive and dangerous what are we going to find what good will it do us in the 1400s it took many years to prove the value of exploration but today with satellites and rockets to do our exploring we can find out what this busy new world of outer space is doing to improve our lives on earth right now the very idea of traveling in space is exciting in itself and the first steps have already been taken okay i'm out right now i'm down on my head and i'm looking right down looks like we're coming up on the coast of california this is the greatest experience it's just been under sometime before 1970 men are scheduled to land on the moon and after that mars and then voyages to the more distant planets of our solar system exploring outer space has many long-range benefits but there are also many immediate and very practical ways that space science is helping us today radio and television programs are relayed across the world by communication satellites in orbit around the earth as many as 300 two-way telephone conversations across continents and oceans can be handled at the same time by one satellite high altitude weather forecasting helps us to predict storms and hurricanes earthquakes and floods satellites are able to transmit information and pictures as well these photographs were actually taken by satellite they show a sequence of cloud formations developing over the earth by using special infrared cameras that can penetrate through smoke forest fires can be located and controlled before they spread over vast areas because certain types of rock formations can be seen better from space geologists are able to locate mineral and oil deposits underground and in the oceans schools of fish and plankton can be observed quickly and easily by these cameras our latest satellites are now able to take pictures in full color this is one of the first color pictures of the earth ever taken by satellite all of these are models one-third the size of actual satellites that are in orbit today around the earth this is one of the first called simcom it was launched in nineteen sixty three this is early bird launched in nineteen sixty five this one's called intelsat which stands for international telecommunications satellite and this is the latest one of the series ats the applications technology satellite which not only can take color photographs but can provide us with other scientific information as well after being launched by a large booster rocket the satellites use their own small rocket motors which enable them to reach the proper position to go into orbit around the earth while using these antennas to send back information to the earth they all use solar panels to change the sun's energy into electrical power and most important of all they remain in synchronous orbit that is they maintain the same relative position to the earth as they continually orbit around it the satellite actually remains fixed in the sky with almost half the world in continuous view to see how it's done let's watch an actual launch an atlas agena rocket carries the spacecraft into a parking orbit then the capsule separates and controlled by space stations from the ground the satellite's own rockets thrusted into the proper elliptical orbit around the earth to keep the satellite's cameras and antennas continually fixed towards the earth the craft can be spin stabilized the rocket motors start it spinning around once it's begun to revolve it will continue to spin by itself another way of keeping a satellite pointing toward earth would not require any spinning at all this later method will use long stabilizing booms the longest ones are 130 feet in length the weight of the booms balances the satellite the way a tightrope walker uses a pole the booms keep the satellite pointed towards the earth once it's in its correct orbit you might wonder how they can fit such long booms inside the small satellite after it's placed into orbit a small motor unwinds the reel of tape which is specially designed to curl into the form of a long tube as it unwinds out into space when fully extended the booms would cover an area almost as large as a football field these satellites are able to broadcast continually to a series of ground stations all over the globe covering a range from the united states to australia and japan in addition they can transmit messages send weather and space information directly to aircraft or spacecraft more than a hundred different satellites have already been launched by several countries into the busy world of outer space they're all designed to provide us with information that we can use right now here on earth they're also able to tell us what we need to know about space before sending men aloft the spacecraft of the future that will carry men on journeys to nearby planets and into deep space are being designed today we're going to see some of the space stations of the future where men can live and work in comfort in outer space we'll do that in just a minute where do we go after the moon one of the suggestions for the future is to have a self-contained orbiting space station that could be sent aloft and positioned anywhere we wanted it here's a model of a proposed space station that could fit into the same saturn rocket that carries the apollo spacecraft after being placed into orbit and separated from the rocket the arms of the station would automatically unfold and lock together in the shape of a wheel fully extended it would be 150 feet in diameter small rocket motors would impart enough spin to give the station an artificial gravity such a station would serve as a manned laboratory performing experiments and scientific observations impossible from an earth base it could serve as a docking station for refueling and maintenance of other spacecraft and a command and control center for more distant voyages like a trip to mars or venus some of these ideas of space research may seem fantastic to us but people are working to make the dreams of today into the realities of tomorrow one of those people is dr craft erica of the autonetics division of north american rockwell dr eric is one of the leading space scientists in our country today he's been looking into the future uses of outer space of space as a place to live dr erica i understand this is an idea you have for a space hospital of the future right yes bill that's correct space hospital may sound like a far out idea but observations that we have made so far during manned space flight indicate that such a hospital may have attractive medical possibilities how large would this hospital be well approximately 300 feet from one end of the system to the other you see each one of these uh resembles a letter and each section of the letter is a wing and each rung on the letter is actually a war now the system very slowly rotates so you'd have lower gravity or low g conditions near the hub and increasing g conditions as you go further out now patients who have been treated in the low g wards will gradually be transferred after long stay time in these low g wards into high g wards where they will be reconditioned for existence on earth i see now over here we have an enlarged version of one of the hospital awards yes that is correct you see uh how this war ties in with the end beams of the ladder through which the patients would be transported until they get to the ward into which they are delivered and then they are being transported over here into the ward now this is not a sick bed ward by the ward in which there there's an operating room here in the center from a medical point of view what would be the benefits of having a hospital in outer space well primarily the effect of low gravity and in addition to this the effect of vacuum that you have and you can use this by actually establishing vacuum chambers as you do here on earth uh hyperbaric chambers for delicate heart operations you can do that in space quite easily of course because you're surrounded by vacuum you just separate one section of a wart and evacuate it so the emptiness of space actually becomes an asset management correct now there's something else that fascinates me this is a design for a space hotel in the future yes uh it's a large structure which is actually completely self-sufficient and serves as an oral tourist facility now where are the actual rooms in this hotel well you see those light green parts here are 12 story buildings and each story contains four rooms now dr eric if these don't look quite the same as the hotel rooms is that something else yes these are hydroponic gardens and animal shelters in which you are actually feeding and raising animals to supply fresh food for the hotel it would not be economically worthwhile to carry every stake up from earth now what about these red areas they simulate conditions on the surface of other planets at the correct gravitational level so they are part of the tourist facilities and attractions so you could simulate a visit to mars or venus that is correct be quite a vacation yes if you wanted a hotel room with a view this would be the ultimate you have you places here and you look down at the earth which is very beautiful how about the yellow chambers are they different from the red yes the yellow chambers are main attractions uh dynamia in which people under near zero conditions of gravity actually float around and use it in the same manner in which you would use a large swimming pool in hotel on earth the accommodations in the hotel rooms could actually be quite comfortable here we have a good view of some of the rooms in our space hotel that's right bill this is one of the parts and you see three floors indicated here each one consists of four rooms and you see it has all the conveniences that you would have in an earth hotel and here we see the passengers on the space hotel at play in the giant playrooms that is right this is the interior of one of the dineria in which you see the people floating around in near weightless condition you can devise all sorts of interesting games in the state of weightlessness yes in fact we have thought of many of these and really the only limit is your imagination you see space basically is a very friendly environment people normally don't think of it in these terms but consider the fact that there are no winds there's no rain there are no bacteria there's no decay it is a clean beautiful environment it looks as if that world of outer space promises to be very busy indeed that is correct space is basically a friendly environment and i'm sure many things will happen in it in the future well dr ericky you've certainly shown us some unusual ideas for outer space today yes the future promises to be exciting in the busy world of outer space we'll be back in just a minute as we've seen today the busy world of outer space has already begun to change our lives your television set may have printed electrical circuits originally designed for spacecraft we're using transistors for tiny portable radios and tvs powered by long life nickel or silver cadmium batteries in communications weather information improved crops and better medicine the space age has already helped improve our lives here on earth in the future perhaps in 20 or 25 years you may visit a lunar base or an orbiting hotel who knows there's a whole new world out there waiting to be discovered if you'd like to find out more about space ask your librarian for any of these books robots in space by michael chester all about satellites and spaceships by david dietz and this book the uses of space by ben bova be with us next week as discovery continues to discover america bye bye the discovery unit's transportation and promotional consideration provided by united airlines [Music] this has been a jewels power production in association with abc news and public [Music] affairs you