More Moon Exploration

[Music] [Music] hello I'm ly bandant welcome to episode 8 of our series 25 years of progress during this 8th program we cover 1972 and 1973 National Aeronautics and Space Administration events but first let's put 1972 into historical Focus 1972 is the year managa Nicaragua is struck by an earthquake 7,000 die and 200,000 are left homeless and 1972 is a productive year for NASA the mysterious red planet Mars is not nearly as puzzling as it used to be thanks to this spacecraft Mariner 9 Mariner 9 orbited Mars continuously for more than half a Martian year probing sensing and photographing as the seasons change below these are some of the things we've learned Mars has been geologically active with volcanic mountains there are indications that free flowing water may have existed sometime in past Martian history observe from above where huge impact craters and windblown dunes the more than 7,000 pictures returned by Mariner have enabled scientists to map the entire Martian surface and Pinpoint Landing sites for the unmanned Vikings scheduled to soft land there in 1976 Jupiter a thousand times larger than Earth distinguished by glowing yellow orange and blue gray stripes it appears to have its own internal energy source and is so massive that it is almost a small star we launched a spacecraft toward Jupiter called Pioneer 10 it's still a quarter of a billion miles away from this largest planet in our solar system as it flies by Jupiter in late 1973 its cameras and sensors will return the first pictures and data ever recorded at such a close [Music] range this is what the orbiting astronomical Observatory named Copernicus looked like before it was launched last August equipped with sensitive Precision Instruments including a 32in diameter telescope this heaviest of our unmanned spacecraft is studying stars and galaxies to gain a better understanding of how they evolve and eventually die now in orbit above the Earth's distorting atmosphere Copernicus has a clear view of the stars and is returning important new information to astronomers every [Music] day in cooperation with the Italian government NASA orbited another in the Explorer series of spacecraft the small astronomy satellite was launched from a platform in the Indian Ocean to study Earth's sun interaction and especially search for gamma ray sources 84 sounding Rockets were launched from NASA's wop's Island station in Virginia and other sites with payloads to study phenomena affecting the Earth's atmosphere these small relatively inexpensive Rockets are telling us a lot about near Earth space below the region where satellites orbit a comprehensive program to study and make better use of our Earth's resources is in full swing high altitude planes and the new Earth Resources technology satellite are returning thousands of highquality pictures of the Earth as a result scientists hope to better understand our planet its forests crops geology and pollution a new Nimbus research and development weather satellite is taking the first vertical temperature readings from space through clouds it is also monitoring a mysterious disappearing current off the west coast of South America and thermally mapping the Earth's surface so geologists can better understand what's happening below the [Music] crust two commercial communication satellites were launched for the communication satellite Corporation adding new telephone and television channels both craft become part of the global communic ation satellite Network the a in NASA stands for Aeronautics with a wide range of projects underway for example this airplane is equipped with a digital computer that was developed for the flight control system of the Apollo lunar lander its use in planes of the future should make air travel smoother and safer many many aeronautical problems are studied in NASA wind tunnels without having to test full-size planes Engineers can for instance test a tail or Wing section to destruction knowing in advance where structural weaknesses are makes it possible to design out many problems before the first plane is manufactured to help relieve airport congestion NASA is test flying short takeoff and Landing planes like this one stole planes as they are called need very little Runway to either take off or land and may play an important role in providing convenient short Hall inter city transportation research is continuing to make presently operating commercial jet aircraft engines quieter and also to develop the technology for a new quieter engine less noisy takeoff and Landing procedures are another area of of study much of this work is being done by NASA's Lewis Research Center in Cleveland and the Ames Research Center near San Francisco 14 times the wingless M2 lifting body was dropped over a dry Lake Desert near the flight Research Center in California craft like the M2 are forerunners of the reusable space shuttle that will fly a space mission then return to Earth Landing like an airplane [Music] during his visit to Russia President Nixon signed an agreement with chairman kosan of the USSR to conduct an earth orbital rendevu and docking in 1975 between a us and a Russian spacecraft Engineers from both countries have already begun working out the details of the mission to help pave the way for the longest Skylab mission next year astronauts krippin Thorton and bobco spent 56 days locked in a 20t long altitude chamber at the man spacecraft center Houston the purpose was to collect medical data which can be compared with that collected from the real Skylab flights Skylab crew training and spacecraft assembly and testing is also well underway Skylab will be this country's first space station it will be used as a platform to study the Sun the Earth and [Music] himself Apollo 16 with astronauts young mattingley and Duke and Apollo 17 with astronauts cernon Evans and Schmid marked the fifth and sixth times Americans landed on the moon these two flights also concluded the Apollo program but as astronaut Eugene cernon said before Apollo 17 it's not the end but at the [Music] beginning [Music] [Music] than [Music] those are some of the NASA highlights of 1972 as seen by the eye of the camera let's put the following year 1973 in perspective 1973 is the year high-powered microscopes enable surgery such as reimplantation of severed fingers and in 1973 NASA compiles a list of varied [Music] activities Aeronautics and Space 1973 these were the [Music] highlights this was the year of Skylab Skylab got off to a shaky start when a heat deflecting micrometeoroid Shield was ripped off during launch causing the loss of one solar wing and jamming the other although in orbit the big space station was overheating and low on power people on the ground however hastily designed a replacement an umbrella likee device that would protect the workshop's thin skin from the hot sun the first crew then used the newly designed Sun shade to repair the overheating space station they also deployed the jammed solar Wing result an increase in electrical power and a cooler place to work and work they did three separate astronaut Crews have lived in sky laab for extended periods of time proving that man can withstand prolonged weightlessness by training skylab's onboard telescopes in the direction of the Sun the science of solar astronomy has been extended beyond the limits of earth based observations we're learning more about the Sun than ever before information that may one day help us use this giant furnace as a means of generating and controlling energy for use on Earth using cameras and remote sensors the crews have accumulated hours and hours of intense observations of the earth observations that have ranged from taking measurements of hurricane Ellen over the Atlantic Ocean to photographing possible huge new mineral deposits in Nevada by the time Sky lab ends more than 42,000 pictures of the Earth's surface will have been taken they called her Arabella the space spider actually Arabella was one of several student experiments on Skylab the question raised by a young high school student from Massachusetts was can a spider spin a web in the absence of gravity the answer as you can see was yes tiny fish were another subject for study this Buck Roger likee backpack was also tested the well-dressed Spaceman of the future may very well get about like this American astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts trained this year to prepare for a joint space mission in 1975 the two Crews will meet and join their spacecraft while in orbit around the Earth beyond the rescue capability they will demonstrate it is hoped the complex project will lead to Future intern ational Cooperative programs it's called the reusable space shuttle taking off like a rocket and Landing like an airplane it will virtually replace the way we transport Mann and unmanned spacecraft into orbit by the early 1980s to prepare for the shuttle research and development programs continued to move ahead as high-speed wind tunnels were used to help solve the problems of re-entry here undergoing test are special recoverable booster rockets that will be retrieved after launch other Engineers prepare to make shuttle vibration studies finding out where the stress areas are at NASA's flight Research Center in California the x-24b lifting body was air dropped several times the x24 is developing maneuvering and Landing capabilities for future Aerospace Vehicles like the space [Music] shuttle this is an artist concept of the asteroid belt a scientific spacecraft Pioneer 10 spent 210 days passing through the thousands of rocks sand and dust that make up the asteroid belt on its way to this planet Jupiter on December 3rd after traveling half a billion miles from Earth Pioneer 10 returned closeup pictures and scientific data as it passed within 81,000 Mi of the giant planet data about its temp temperature and the makeup of its [Music] atmosphere Mercury smallest planet in the solar system and closest planet to the Sun so close that it's difficult to observe from Earth this Mariner spacecraft is on its way there now after swinging around Venus next February picking up speed from that planet's gravity it will be propelled on toward Mercury on March 29th 1974 as Mariner flies by the tiny planet its two television cameras will return pictures while other instruments probe in an effort to better understand its [Music] makeup technicians work around the radio astronomy Explorer satellite at the Kennedy Space Center its job is to explore the sources of lowf frequency radio noise in our galaxy and Beyond launched into orbit around the Moon it is expected to provide astronomers with a better picture of extraterrestrial radio signals work continued in the preparation of Viking the spacecraft scheduled to land on Mars in 1976 trying to answer as many questions as possible before landing on the red planet scientists have been attempting to simulate the Martian atmosphere progress is also being made in preparing biological sensing devices to determine if life exist exist [Music] there for years NASA has used sounding Rockets to probe the region of the Earth's atmosphere just below satellite level but above the area where balloons return data this year was no exception with some 80 launches both here and abroad several of the launches were in support of the man orbiting [Music] Skylab KET kutek is on its way visible between mid November and late January it will eventually be as bright or brighter than the famous H's Comet of 1910 when cutek reaches its closest point to the sun on December 28th it will have completed a journey that began about 2 million years ago for NASA spacecraft sounding Rockets balloons Sky laab groundbased observatories and Telescope carrying aircraft like this will team up to form the most comprehensive Comet watch Ever planned and astronomers are eager to determine the elements that make up kutek elements that should tell us more about the nature and origin of the Sun and other planets Santa Barbara California Louisiana and Mississippi Cleveland Ohio all these places like many others have one thing in common each was photographed by the Earth Resources technology satellite orbiting 57 M overhead since being launched in mid 1972 the Earth Resources spacecraft has returned nearly 100,000 pictures of our [Music] planet more specifically it is proving extremely useful in such applications as land use and Timber inventory crop identification water pollution and improved maps to geologists this area of California looks looks like this when the appropriate geologic information is superimposed investigators look forward to even more exciting possibilities for operational use in the future for example during this past summer a remote sensing station was tested that can tell when conditions exist for a forest fire to occur in less than an hour valuable fire index data was relayed via the Earth Resources satellite to the California division of Forestry headquarters in Sacramento the highly successful experiment has important implications for those areas troubled by forest fires helping verify images from spacecraft are the U2 high altitude Earth survey planes flying at altitudes of 65,000 ft the U2 has evolved into a sophisticated research tool in its own right these are just a few of the highquality pictures returned pictures that have spotted smoke from from forest fires in California and help survey the extent of Damage Done by tree killing Tusk moths in Washington and Oregon the Lewis Research Center in Cleveland is seen of a program to explore and demonstrate how navigation of the Great Lakes may be extended year round ice maps are made with the help of a reconnaissance plane on loan from the US Army its special radar provides detailed images similar to black and white photographs and plane records ice surface temperatures NASA scientists also regularly fly and Coast Guard helicopters equipped to the type of radar that measures ice thickness to verify these instrument measurements with actual conditions on the ice surface samples are taken along the flight path the system is expected to be in use this winter making it possible to extend the shipping season and potentially saving millions of dollars NASA's Aeronautics program is geared toward improving civil and Military Aviation noise abatement airport congestion visibility tests short and vertical takeoff planes and all aspects of aircraft safety in great demand are the many simulators that help man work better with his machines some simulators use motion to make the pilot senses believe he is flying this man machine integration as it's called tries among other things to determine the proper roles for humans and [Music] computers emphasis continues on the rapidly growing class of planes used by individuals or as executive aircraft consider the problem of wake turbulence tornado likee patterns of air that trail behind large jets these vortices as they are called pose a hazard for smaller lighter weight aircraft following in their weight through laboratory and wind tunnel tests and actual inflight analysis NASA is studying ways to break up the whirling air masses eliminating the danger to smaller planes a research program is underway to identify acceptable airplane ride qualities these passengers respond to a variety of vibrations and motions without actually flying simulators like this one at the Langley Research Center are used to study passenger response under control conditions the simulator work is correlated with flight tests at the flight Research Center volunteer passengers read write eat and drink typical passenger activities during the flight they evaluate the degree of motion and electronically record their rating the US Army flying crane helicopter is a unique machine when the helicopter developed excessive vibrations under certain payload conditions the Army was assisted by Nas in solving the problem the solution developed involved bonding stiff lightweight Boron epoxy materials to the aluminum frame the process eliminated the problem and provided a weight saving of 60 lb besides so successful has the composite materials programmed been that test applications are planned for the wing Rudder and Aeron components of large Transport Aircraft at the flight Research Center test pilots are flying a plane without having to leave the ground actually it's a new way of flight testing Advanced aircraft that's both more economical and less hazardous a typical flight involves air launching a large-scale model from high altitude a research pilot in a realistically recreated cockpit on the ground complete with flight controls flies the remotely piloted craft using computers and television the television camera is installed in the model where the pilot would normally sit this this view is then transmitted to the test pilot since the research pilot on the ground has direct control over the model he is able to perform high-risk flight Maneuvers such as stalls and rolling at the end of a typical 99-minute test flight the model is lowered by Parachute in the final stages it is recovered in midair by a helicopter and brought gently to the ground for reuse speed and fuel consumption these factors have great impact on on the design and performance of future aircraft this Air Force plane the yf-12 is being test flone to study such things other areas of research include heating flight stability and control structural Dynamics gust response and since the plane cruises at three times the speed of sound at 75,000 ft the physics of the Earth's upper [Music] atmosphere man space flight space science and applications Aeronautics and research and development 1973 a year of significant [Music] achievement those are some of NASA's 1973 highlights as seen by the eye of the camera next time we will cover NASA events from 1974 to 1976 I'm ly [Music] bant [Music] I [Music] looking good Roger Clum on the [Music] roll Columbia Houston you're go at 40 40 oh