One Giant Leap NASA: Triumph and Tragedy

40 years ago, the world watched

as humanity achieved something incredible.

RADIO: 'Houston, Tranquillity base here. The Eagle has landed.'

TV: 'The lunar module on the surface of the moon...'

Putting men on the moon marked a leap in science and technology.

It signalled a new era of exploration, when pioneers would see places few had ever imagined...

and face life-threatening crises in the depths of outer space.

Just a loud bang reverberating through the metal hull.

One of them came up and said, "Houston we've got a problem."

We were in serious trouble.

And with newly enhanced footage, they show us vividly for the first time

the spectacular things they saw.

PRESIDENT KENNEDY: We choose to go to the moon,

we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things,

not because they are easy but because they are hard.

In July 1969, the United States achieves

the late President Kennedy's goal of landing a man on the moon.

'That's one small step for man,

'one giant leap for mankind.'

The moment marks the culmination of countless breakthroughs by NASA.

There was a great feeling of elation,

accomplishing the goal that hundreds of thousands of people had been working toward for nearly a decade.

500 million people around the world share a great moment as it happens live.

TV: 'And there the lunar module on the surface of the moon...'

But less than a year after NASA's greatest triumph they will face the worst imaginable trial.

Apollo 13, to launch in April 1970, will add new challenges to the lunar journey.

Landing in rocky highlands, its crew will collect mountain samples

as clues to the history of our solar system.

Its mission insignia reads "Ex Luna, Scientia" - "From the moon, knowledge".

We were gonna be the first mission to land in a sort of highland area

into a region called Fra Mauro.

Fra Mauro contains material from deep in the lunar crust, essential for aging the moon.

The moon can tell us an awful lot about the origin of the solar system

going back to beginning of our universe, perhaps to the Big Bang.

Planetary science and astronomy have become NASA's main focus.

'You're 34 minutes into the EVA and your right on the nominal timeline.'

Having reached the moon, humanity is compelled to study it.

The goal was just to land on the moon.

By then, once we did that, the focus was "Now, let's learn something from all of this."

Apollo 13 will be the crowning glory of Commander Jim Lovell's impressive career.

NASA's most experienced astronaut, he conducted the first space rendezvous with another vehicle

and was one of the first men to orbit the moon on Apollo 8.

Landing, I think, was a necessary objective, that was our goal.

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

His crew will be first-timers.

Jack Swigert will pilot the command module and Fred Haise will join Lovell on the moon.

The thought of going to the moon made me decide I would join the Astronaut Corps.

'T minus 20 seconds, T minus 20 seconds and counting.

'17...guidance release...15, 14,

13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8.

Ignition sequence has started.

6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, zero.

We have commit and we have lift-off at 2.13.

It has cleared the tower.

There have been only two lunar landings to date.

It remains a daring, difficult feat,

and yet, in mission control, an atmosphere of the routine begins to creep in.

55 hours into the mission, Apollo 13 has completed most of its journey to the moon.

Two days had gone by on Apollo 13.

Things were absolutely working fine, no problems at all.

We were just about entering the lunar sphere of influence,

where the moon with its gravity would be attracting us and actually starting to accelerate us.

Astronaut Jack Lousma handles contact with the crew.

I was capsule communicator.

We were watching the crew as they gave us a tour

round the lunar module just before they were going to bed.

'This is the crew of Apollo 13, wishing everybody there a nice evening,

and we're just about to get back for a pleasant evening in Odyssey. Good night.

Before the crew's scheduled sleep, Capcom asks Apollo 13 to stir their oxygen tanks.

'13, we've got one more item for you when you get a chance.

'We'd like you to stir up your cryo-tanks.

'Jack Swigert acknowledged our request for the stir.'

OK. Standby.

'Swigert then threw two switches.'

COMMUNICATION INTERFERENCE

I remember the time very well.

It was 55 hours 55 minutes and 4 seconds from launch.

Suddenly there was an explosion.

A loud bang reverberating through the metal hull.

The emergency lights come on, jets were firing, noise all over.

We got into the command module. We saw we'd lost two fuel cells

and that put the old lead weight down the bottom of my stomach.

-One of 'em came up and said...

-'OK, Houston, we've had a problem here.

-I said, "Say again, please."

-'Houston, we've had a problem.'

"Houston we've got a problem".

And we sure did. About that time everything almost went dead.

'We heard a pretty large bang associated with the caution and warning.'

The real breakthrough occurred about 15 minutes later.

Cannot tell you to this day why I did it,

but I looked out the window and I saw oxygen escaping.

Jim Lovell called down from the spacecraft and said, "Hey Houston...

'It looks to me, looking out the hatch, that we are venting something.

'We are venting something out into space.'

What the crew sees out of the window spells near-certain doom for Apollo 13.

We had a sea of debris around us that I could see.

Little kernels, I assume it is frozen oxygen, that looked like popcorn.

As you got further out it was just sparkly material.

Roger, we copy you're venting.

The explosion has shattered the command module's oxygen tanks and destroyed its power cells.

There will be no lunar landing - mere survival for the three men now poses a huge challenge.

We were in serious trouble, very, very serious trouble.

If you didn't have enough oxygen you weren't going to live to make it to re-entry.

I didn't think we'd be able to get 'em back.

The flight director is a very simple job description, it says,

"The flight director may take any actions necessary for crew safety and mission success."

Crew safety is first.

'OK now, let's everybody keep cool.

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

With the power and oxygen levels in the command module running out,

the lunar lander is the crew's only safe haven.

We knew that the command module was going to lose its oxygen

and its ability to generate electricity.

'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.'

The command ship wasn't going to support the crew any more,

they had to go and get over and get started powering up the lunar module.

'We got the LEM still attached, the LEM space craft is good.

'OK, I'm coming back to you. Flight? Go ahead.'

'I think the best thing we can do right now is start a power down.'

We got the crew comfortable over there then the really hard work began,

trying to understand what we had to do to get them back safely.

The instinct in the control centre was turn this thing around and get it coming back home.

I had this gut feeling that said don't go that way, that's the wrong way to go.

Mission control decides to let the mission drift further from the earth and around the moon,

whose gravity will hurl the spacecraft back toward home.

'Here in mission control, we are now looking towards an alternate mission.

'Swinging around the moon and using the lunar module power systems.'

'That sounds like good news.

We'd go around the moon, the moon's gravity could slow us down

and then turn us around and aim us back towards the Earth.

The mission is becoming world news.

The media tries to explain Apollo 13's new trajectory, going further away just to get home.

The lunar landing has been called off.

About 30,000 miles out from the moon and accelerating fast in towards it,

the crew are aiming to curve in behind the moon, and out of contact with earth,

fire the only engine they have left, the lunar module's descent engine.

'The situation is extremely critical...'

As the space craft passes behind the moon, radio contact with the earth goes dead.

The crew is alone, staring at their missed opportunity, only miles away.

As we passed over our landing area, thinking that it sure would have been nice to get down there.

It was fait accompli.

We just had to carry on with the plan.

Emerging from the far side of the moon, Apollo 13 begins the long limp home.

The drama is far from over. Minimal power and water supplies in the lunar lander

aren't intended to support three men for the duration of the flight.

All throughout the return home we had to monitor what we were using.

The lunar module was designed only to support two people and, of course, we had three.

We had about two days of supply of the ship powered up.

We knew we had to start husbanding the resources that we had.

Everybody was making constant calculations.

Were we going to have enough water?

Was there going to be enough electrical power?

Was there going to be enough oxygen?

The shocking answer is no.

The 99-hour journey home would be longer than the men could survive.

By the end of the shift we had come up with a game plan.

We were going to fire the engines to accelerate us back to earth.

-'Ignition.'

-So that we would get back as fast as we reasonably could.

'Thrust looks good.'

I think this burn effectively cut off 10 hours.

'Hang on in there. It won't be long.'

But just as the crew has escaped several deadly threats, a new one looms.

The men's own carbon dioxide exhalation is poisoning the dwindling air they breathe.

The crew is slowly suffocating.

They're going to experience carbon dioxide poisoning very quickly,

because we only had enough air scrubbers in the lunar module for two people for two days.

If you get too much carbon dioxide, you start breathing real fast and pretty quick you die.

There are spare carbon dioxide filters in the command module,

but a lack of design foresight renders them useless here in the lunar module.

The CO2 scrubber in the lunar module was a round canister.

But we had the command module scrubbers but they were square.

And you can't put a square scrubber into a round hole.

So engineering comes up with the idea of fabricating an adapter.

The troops come in to mission control, carrying boxes with stuff in it,

"This is the carbon dioxide fix, we need to make you do it

"and here's checklist, we want you to read that up to Jack Swigert."

Of course, the engineering team on the ground is only allowed to use materials the crew has on board.

So NASA figured it out using duct tape, a piece of plastic,

cardboard, a cover from one of our manuals, and an old sock.

He was hopeful but sceptical

when I told him all the things he had to go and get.

It sounded like a Fifth Grade grade school project.

It may look like child's play but it's a lifesaver.

And it didn't take but about two minutes

before you could see that CO2 level start to come down.

One small thing fixed.

As they approach Earth, Apollo 13 faces one last life-or-death hurdle.

They must jettison the lunar module, their lifeboat, as they re-inhabit

the dead command module, the only vehicle designed for re-entry.

The emotional content peaks because we start speaking to the spacecraft.

'Farewell, Aquarius. We thank you.'

We thank you, you were one hell of a good ship.

The damaged command module has barely enough life-support to get the crew the last step home.

But no-one knows if it will survive the 1,500-degree heat of re-entry.

There was concern people had expressed with the heat shield.

Did the explosion rupture the heat shield on our command module?

There was no choice. We had to re-enter, so we're going to find out one way or the other by entering.

You've done the best you can for your crew and your mission, then it's time to hand over to a higher authority

to bring this mission to its ultimate conclusion.

As the ship smashes into Earth's atmosphere at eight times the speed of a bullet, all contact goes dead.

We expected communication and didn't get it

and now I was the guy calling and saying, "Apollo 13, Houston?"

Apollo 13, Apollo 13?

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

Just listening to that static, waiting for a call of, you know, "Houston this is us."

Capcom was calling, "Do you read us?" and we were getting no response.

Every controller is standing on their feet staring at those clocks and wondering what went wrong.

'Odyssey Houston, we show you on the main. It really looks great.'

'Apollo 13. Apollo 13. Recovery, over.'

It was a wonderful sigh of relief

to splash down in the water

to get back into the warm Pacific Ocean again from the cold climate inside the spacecraft.

Literally every controller is standing, crying

and you're frankly embarrassed by your loss of composure.

It was joyous, people broke out the cigars

that were traditional at that time.

There was a lot of people slapping each other on the back.

I believe that the Apollo 13 was one of NASA's finest hours.

Despite Apollo 13's close call,

NASA forges ahead with lunar exploration.

Just nine months later, Apollo 14 achieves Apollo 13's intended mission.

Three further landings explore more of the moon, with the help of a car.

Driving a rover was a lot of fun.

We were laughing and cackling and just enjoying ourselves.

We felt like we were flying.

On Apollo 16, Charlie Duke and John Young cover 17 miles in the lunar rover.

Max speed for us was 11 miles an hour.

It was a good driving machine. We drove all the way up Stone Mountain, parked it in the rim of a crater.

There was an awesome view from up there,

you could look out across the Caley Plains.

From the data they bring back, planetary geologists learn that

meteor impacts were the main factor to shape the moon's surface.

We brought back some moon rocks.

Everybody was mighty pleased.

In December 1972, the final lunar mission counts down.

More than half a million people come to witness the launch of Apollo 17

and the last flight of the mighty Saturn V.

The first lunar era is ending as NASA sets sights on new targets.

NASA and the Government had to make a decision,

do we keep the Saturn V production line up or do we go back

and build a reusable spacecraft that will reduce the cost and increase the access to orbit?

You couldn't go on spending 300 million every time you wanted to launch into space.

NASA went to Congress and said we need a re-usable spacecraft,

as re-usable as we can get, and that was the space Shuttle programme.

With the new spacecraft on the drawing board, Apollo 17 Commander Gene Cernan

will bid the moon a final farewell.

Philosophically, there's deeper meaning to Apollo,

a meaning I'm not sure we'll ever fully understand for another 50 or 100 years.

The day we left this planet.

3, 2, 1...

Ignition.

We're on our way, Houston.

It is a benchmark in human history.

Only decades after the first aeroplane flew, 12 men have now walked on the moon.

We went to the moon, we came home, closed the garage doors and started over again.

When the garage doors are reopened, something completely different comes rolling out.

The first time I saw the Shuttle on the back of the 747, I said to myself

we have really screwed up, this is not going to work.

Some people were calling it the Messiah because whenever anybody

saw the big Shuttle, the first thing they'd say is, "Jesus Christ."

Built to be reusable, the Shuttle will enable astronauts

to train for the future long-term habitation of deep space.

They wanted eventually to go build a colony on the moon.

Before we did that, we thought we needed a space station.

To do a space station we needed a way to get in and out of space easier and for that we needed a Shuttle.

The Shuttle was a new generation of space systems.

A low-cost, relatively quick, simple, safe access to orbit.

Designed to fly with a crew of seven, for the first high-risk mission, NASA will send only two.

In 1978, I was with the then-director of flight crew operations.

George out of the blue says, "Crip, how would you like to go fly the first one?"

I was ready to turn handsprings right there.

Crippen was very smart, that's why I flew with him.

He's a great fella. He had to put up with me on that mission.

John Young will command the first Shuttle flight.

John Young was the chief of the astronaut office.

He had flown four times previously, including walking on the moon.

He was the obvious choice to be commander of the first flight.

But before the Shuttle can fly into outer space, there are many engineering challenges to overcome.

The most difficult problem is how to endure the white heat of re-entry on each of countless flights.

The solution is to apply a layer of heat-proof tiles.

There are probably only around 20,000 to 25,000 tiles

and they are very fragile.

Your on the glide slope, we see you on the glide slope.

Simpler on paper than in practice.

Even at average aeroplane speeds during early test flights, hundreds of tiles fall off.

They didn't have 'em stuck on right, Yep, that was a serious problem.

We had to sort of shut things down till we got it fixed.

The team develops new glue that finally passes stress tests matching re-entry.

But now the engines aren't behaving.

Every time we would light them off in our test facilities,

they would blow up.

That wasn't a good thing, obviously.

To blast the Shuttle into space, a completely new method of propulsion must be mastered.

A massive external tank will carry 750 tonnes of liquid hydrogen fuel

for the main engines and two special add-on booster rockets running on solid fuel will burn uncontrolled,

like fireworks, providing 44 million horsepower of thrust.

These solid rockets basically provide the majority of the thrust

to get up to about two minutes in powered flight.

But once they're lit, there's no way to turn them off.

Many fear they could spiral out of control and take the Shuttle with them.

Safety systems must be devised.

By now, the Shuttle's been in development for so long, people begin to wonder if it will ever fly.

Instead of Young and Crippen it was gonna be old and crippled by the time we got to fly!

It almost was.

Four years after the first glide test

and 20 years after the first American launched into space,

Crippen and Young finally suit up for the Shuttle's historic launch.

Every other NASA project had flown unmanned flights first.

This time, that's not an option.

Astronauts must pilot the Shuttle back to Earth.

Risk is part of the business in test flying.

How do you assess the risk factor?

You just take the risk and do whatever it is you have to do to make it work.

Cape Canaveral comes alive for its first countdown to launch in six years.

If you see anything you don't understand when we're going down here, we got seven hold points.

You remember where they are?

Seven minutes, we got one at five minutes...

The vehicle is so complex and so many things could go wrong.

It has 2,000 switches and circuit breakers and a 110 pages of software

and you have to know all that stuff if you're gonna fly it.

15, ten, lift-off pick-up in about a minute and a half here.

DPS, we're going to flight guidance?

It was only when the countdown got inside of a minute that I turned to John and said I think we might do it.

That's when my heart rate went up to about 130,

John's stayed down at a nice cool 90.

If you're so worried you can't think about what you're procedures are, you're dead anyway.

T minus ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four...

We've gone for main engines start.

By the time you clear above the tower, you're going already over 100 miles an hour.

Columbia, Houston we have 40 seconds to LOS.

We'll see you at Madrid.

It had ejection seats, but I wouldn't

say they would have been a lot of fun.

What you'd have done is bail out into the 5,000 degree Fahrenheit

rocket plumes and made you a crispy critter.

The sound went away.

And I really thought that the engines had quit.

But checking the instruments, the engines were running.

After 8½ minutes you're in orbit, in zero g. It's quite a ride.

Things about you start to float, the checklist floats up, maybe a loose washer floating around

so you see all of that, so you know you're weightless.

The Shuttle's got some great windows.

The colours of the oceans, it's gorgeous.

Vice-President George Bush comes on line to congratulate the first Shuttle astronauts.

-If you would, please, Mr Vice-President.

-BUSH: How's Crip's heartbeat doing?

-Brought down to about nothing, I think.

-Oh, really?

Crippen and Young orbit the Earth 36 times in two days,

and then face the most dangerous stage in the Shuttle's maiden flight.

Re-entry will mark the first true test of the thousands of thermal tiles protecting them.

It's on the dark side of the earth, so it's essentially black outside.

Hitting the atmosphere at 14,000mph,

they generate temperatures of 1,600 Celsius.

You get this pink glow outside.

It's not a fiery thing but you can tell it's pretty hot out there.

The maiden Shuttle has made it through re-entry in one piece.

Synch rate still losing altitude at a rate of 200 feet per second.

As you're coming down, you can really see that your moving over the terrain fairly rapidly.

Lots of fun.

Like Crippen said, what a way to come to California.

That's what he told me whenever we were flying across the coast.

And you can see where you turn in to runway 23.

John greased it on the lake bed out there like he always does.

Flight control, report steady braking.

I've never seen John that excited before or since.

I said, "let's finish this check list and get out of here."

You feel like you've done a good job and it worked.

Crippen and Young are the first astronauts to return from space in a reusable vehicle,

marking the dawn of a new era in human exploration.

The ease with which the Shuttle can move in and out of Earth orbit revolutionises space travel.

The capability that the vehicle brought into orbit and all the things that we're able to try,

lots of types of missions, ranging from science missions, to repair missions, to satellite launches,

and we got a chance to give all those different things a shot.

But to perform such tasks on Shuttle missions,

astronauts will need maximum mobility in the form of a Buck Rogers jetpack.

The Man Manoeuvring Unit was a backpack, something that

an astronaut in a spacesuit would wear on his back.

Bruce McCandless is a NASA veteran.

He was a flight controller for the moon landings, but has never been to space.

I was offered the opportunity and accepted

to be the first to fly the MMU from the Shuttle.

On 7th February 1984, McCandless finally gets his chance.

He dons the pack and ventures solo into the vacuum of space.

They explained that they wanted to make sure I didn't get into any trouble.

They didn't want to be known as the commander who launched with five and came back with four.

For the first time, an astronaut becomes a lone human satellite.

With nothing tethering him to the Shuttle, his only lifeline is the jetpack he helped design.

Once you get going, all it takes is finger movements.

McCandless is floating over 90 metres out.

A lone man drifting in the infinite ocean of space.

May well have been one small step for Neil, but it's a heck of a big leap for me.

A nice chuckle all around and served to relax people and proceeded on.

These pictures have shown up for years.

It was an amazing sight, an astronaut flying out in space with a space suit on.

He's kind of tilted half way.

You may get the name of World's Fastest Human Being going along there are 4 miles a second, Bruce!

The fastest man returns to the safety of the Shuttle and sets sail for home.

The stunning pictures capture the public's imagination, as well as the headlines.

We were getting to fly on a fairly frequent basis, doing some very productive work.

It was a grand time.

The Shuttle is making the risky business of space flight look easy.

Shuttle missions are seen as commonplace and unremarkable.

As they continued to fly,

it got more routine, people got more confident.

People were looking at the Shuttle as if it was an airliner,

and it never was.

It takes a lot of tender loving care and if you don't give it that TLC it can bite you in the behind.

They were pushing, they were trying to get to at least two launches off a month.

And after more than 20 missions, the Shuttle is no longer front-page news.

In an attempt to regain relevance,

NASA decides to put a schoolteacher on the Shuttle to beam lessons down from space.

10,000 teachers apply.

Christa McAuliffe was just delightful. She was just the best that we had.

-She was perfect.

-38-year old social studies teacher and mother-of-two from New Hampshire,

Christa will join six other astronauts on the Shuttle Challenger.

Among them is Ron McNair, flying his second mission after crewing with Bruce McCandless

on the pioneering, backpack-flying STS-41 flight.

Shuttle astronauts are like a sponge.

They absorb things and Ron was one of the real sponges.

He was absorbing everything he needed to fly.

We look forward to returning, launching from the Cape firstly,

and returning here a few days later.

I had have the privilege of being...

He was excited.

Ron loved everything. He loved physics - what made anything go.

Space was another frontier to explore.

At this time I'd like to introduce you to Christa McAuliffe, our payload specialist teacher in space.

Well, I'm so excited to be here.

I don't think any teacher has ever been more ready

to have two lessons in my life.

We have a go for main engine start.

Three months before her flight, Christa watches her first Shuttle launch.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

I compare the Teacher In Space programme to the decision to cross the Mississippi River.

If space was to expand and progress, we needed common, ordinary people

to cross that river and continue the process of exploration.

People capable of providing the passion needed

to inspire another generation of explorers to go out.

Weather concerns delay four launches before Challenger

is finally scheduled for 28th January 1986.

As that date approaches, temperatures drop below freezing.

No-one had seen it that cold here at the Cape before.

Throughout the morning, engineers raise questions about the unusually low temperatures.

I was absolutely appalled at the sight that I saw.

The Shuttle had been suspended in ice in a prehistoric fashion.

I heard the discussions associated with the launch directors,

but I never heard anything that indicated there was concern.

I had confidence in their ability to make the reports and assess the proper areas.

T minus 7 minutes and counting.

Just before noon, Challenger is cleared for launch.

Ground one sequencer program has been initiated.

Thousands of school children around the country tune in to watch.

And in mission control, Houston, Flight Director Jay Greene awaits the handover.

The shifts before had worked the issues.

We were clear for flight.

T-minus one minute and counting.

Christa's parents are at the Cape for the launch, as is Ron McNair's wife, Cheryl.

We were excited and we were on top of the roof and my children were with me

and as well as my father and we were all concentrating on what was to be and the excitement of it.

It was an exciting day.

T minus ten, nine, eight, seven, six...

We have main engines start.

Four, three, two, one and lift-off.

Countdown was nominal.

We lifted off, throttle down went well, engines came up back to normal.

CHEERING

Challenger go with throttle up.

SCREAMING

SCREAMING

Go ahead. Vehicle exploded.

-Can we get any reports from recovery forces?

-Obviously a malfunction.

I saw basically a flash of white light.

We've had negative contact, we've lost the family.

OK, all operators watch your data carefully.

And then I looked over and saw the display over there and it showed this expanding cloud,

and many fingers going off in different directions.

The now-detached rocket boosters spiral wildly through the sky at immense speed.

Specially declassified footage shows them being remotely destroyed.

We have a report from the flight dynamics officer that the vehicle has exploded.

Flight director confirms that.

We are looking at checking with the recovery forces to see what can be done at this point.

We started tracking or trying to track, expecting that out of the plume,

the orbitor would come flying out.

I've seen Ron survive so many different things and I just thought whatever it is, he'll find a way.

There'll be escape routes or something.

There was nothing to track. We knew it was hopeless.

Eventually, it was inevitable that they were lost.

Challenger explodes at 49,000 feet.

The crew cabin remains intact and tumbles,

hitting the ocean two minutes later and at 200 miles per hour.

Though they most likely survive the explosion, the crew are unconscious by the time they hit the water.

We just had to find a way to get the courage to continue through this very difficult time.

Don't reconfigure your console.

Take hard copies of all your displays.

Make sure you protect any data source you have.

That was the first time we'd ever lost anybody in flight.

We always had this feeling that regardless of what happened, we'd get the crew back

and, unfortunately, that wasn't the case.

I was Vice-President of the United States way back then.

I went down there when Challenger blew up.

Reagan asked me to go down to comfort the families.

It was a very moving thing for me,

to see these families in grief.

I think the thing that really moved me was President Reagan's comments after that.

We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them,

this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye,

and slipped the surly bonds of Earth

to touch the face of God.

-Thank you.

-It was so beautiful.

I could never have done that. I would have choked up too badly.

The Shuttle program is shut down for a complete investigation.

Many of the controllers decided this wasn't the kind of business they wanted to remain in.

They never wanted to accept the responsibility

for the life or death of the crew they would fly.

Morale was pretty low,

very low in fact, but we were determined to find out what caused the accident

and to correct it, and get back flying again.

Still waiting word from any recovery forces in the down range field.

The report is scathing, concluding that cold weather

caused the failure of an O-ring, a rubber gasket in the right rocket booster.

It leaked flames that ignited the external fuel tank.

It was a stupid thing, a rushed job, stupid thing where we got complacent.

The inevitable question - should we continue flying, is it too dangerous?

There was a lot of second guessing in the Congress about the whole program

and whether we were taking proper care of these people going into space and whether the program was worth it.

But NASA determined to go forward with the support of the Congress and of the American people and so it did.

No Shuttle flies for 2½ years while NASA redesigns,

rebuilds and grows confidence about returning to space.

When I look back over my career, that phase was one of the toughest things I've participated in.

Because we had more people telling us why we couldn't go fly than we had telling us how we're going to go.

September 1988, Bob Crippen deems that the Shuttle is fit for flight again,

and when the newly revamped spaceship reaches for the skies,

a whole new era of ground-breaking achievements begins.

Shuttle flight STS-31 launches the Hubble Space Telescope.

Discovery, go for Hubble release.

Which later goes on to unveil the universe in awe-inspiring detail.

Hubble measures the age of the universe to around 13.7 billion years

and confirms the existence of black holes.

We're revolutionised our knowledge of astronomy.

Now that alone could justify the Space Shuttle.

We've managed to build an international space station that is an engineering marvel.

Over 30 Shuttle flights carry the building blocks

of the epic International Space Station into orbit.

At £108 billion, it is by far the most expensive object ever built

and spans 60 metres.

It's big enough that you can find a quiet place to be alone if you need to be.

We're learning how to work on a big project internationally, in space,

and the goal from the beginning is some day to work together as a team to go to other planets.

And despite being bound to Earth orbit,

the Shuttle continues to expand space flight knowledge for destinations further afield.

From flying the vehicle in and out of the atmosphere, each time we do that,

we're laying the bricks for future trips away from our planet.

In January 2003, Shuttle Columbia is scheduled to fly

a two-week mission dedicated to zero gravity experiments.

It was a science and research mission,

there were a lot of very wide-ranging experiments on it.

Laurel Clark, mission specialist,

on her first flight.

I worked a lot of different Shuttle missions but it was a personal launch because my wife was on it.

A few days before launch, Laurel Clark films a tour around the Shuttle for her son, Ian.

Hi, Ian Blair. I love you. I'll see you soon. It won't be that long.

She was excited it was a science mission

and she was going to get to practice a lot of the things

that she'd spent a lifetime learning about.

It goes streaming past the pilot.

Columbia's commander is Rick Husband.

I talked to him on the phone the morning of the mission

and he was very excited.

The weather was absolutely beautiful and perfect.

Commander Rick Husband and mission specialist Laurel Clark.

And you can see...

Husband climbing in...

somewhat difficult, cramped quarters there.

Ten, nine, eight, seven. We have a go.

Main engines start.

Three, two, one,

we have booster ignition and lift-off of Space Shuttle Columbia

with a multitude of national and international space researchers.

Houston now controlling the flight with Columbia. The international research mission finally underway.

There's such a mixture of feelings of pride and anxiousness.

I was very keenly aware of the exact moment when Challenger broke apart.

Columbia, Houston you are go at throttle up.

We copy, go at throttle up.

The throttle up call acknowledged by Commander Rick Husband.

Columbia's launch appears to be perfect.

The cargo bay has been turned into a laboratory,

allowing mission number STS-107 to conduct dozens of experiments.

This mission had multiple different types of science -

earth science, space science, physical science and life science.

Because of her medical background, her big projects were the ones growing cancer cells in space.

It's been almost 10 days since the STS-107 launch from Kennedy Space Centre.

I'm in a unique position because I work both as a flight surgeon and as a spouse.

It's kind of an eerie story, because a it was like two in the morning a week before they landed...

and I remember going through the logbooks and seeing all these concerns about a foam strike.

High-speed cameras show insulation foam breaking off and striking the Shuttle, generating a plume.

I had to decide whether I was going to talk to Laurel about it on our video conference.

You know, I made a decision that I was there and I found this out,

not as a family member, but as a flight controller and so I didn't talk to her about it.

NASA misjudges the severity of the damage and rejects calls for closer inspection.

Some engineer said, "It's like a piece of Styrofoam hitting your car, it didn't do any damage."

No, it only knocked a hole that big in the wing.

In fact, Columbia is now orbiting the Earth with a bowling ball size gash in its heat shield,

leaving it defenceless against the brutal force of re-entry.

I carry some of the burden and some of the guilt,

like a lot of the people that worked in mission control, that they didn't do enough.

The crew is told the foam strike is not a cause for concern.

And after 16 days in space, it's time to head back to earth.

The mission had been incredibly successful, everything that they had wanted to accomplish, they did.

When we went out to the landing site to wait for Columbia,

everybody was very excited and no concern whatsoever.

The crew readies themselves and their vehicle for re-entry.

Hey, Rick, thanks for that tag up and we concur with all.

Columbia, Houston good burn, no trim required.

We started 17,000 miles an hour, er, couple hundred mile above the earth.

VOICES OVER RADIO

You'll notice kind of a yellowish, er, orange glow around the perimeter of the window,

and it even gets a little bit of a lime green sometime.

It'll look like a thunderstorm, but it's very calm and very quiet.

I don't have my gloves on yet.

Yep. Yep. Yep.

As the jets fire to steer the Shuttle...

..they will reflect in the plasma that has developed.

That plasma will leave a streak in the sky as we come home.

This is amazing, it's bright out there, you definitely don't want to be outside there.

Columbia is right on track toward a landing at the Kennedy Space Center at 8.16am Central.

-Jon Clark and Evelyn Husband are together with the families waiting at the Cape.

-We were all there.

It was actually just a real calm, peaceful period of time.

VOICES OVER RADIO

We're ready for ops 304.

Re-entry appears routine until about 17 minutes before landing.

-E Com.

-FYI, I've just lost four separate temperature trans boosters

on the left side of the vehicle, hydraulic return temperatures.

And I said, "Woah, that's not normal."

And Columbia Houston, we see your tire pressure messages and we did not comp for that.

You don't expect to hear a communication about alarms during landings,

especially something like a tyre alarm.

Columbia Houston UHF com check.

And the...the Cap com trying to call the Shuttle and all you heard was, "Com check."

12½ minutes to touchdown according to clocks in mission control.

And the most sickening thing was at the moment when that clock went to zero

and I was aware that they weren't going to land.

And I just got an absolute clenching, horrible feeling in my gut.

When are you expecting tracking?

One minute ago, flight. We do not have any valid data at this time.

OK.

I turn on the TV and I see the videos from Dallas that show the Shuttle breaking up.

Multiple, bright, bursting flares.

That was the realisation for me that it was not survivable.

We'd lost the crew.

The kids were, like, from a quiet crying to like, I mean, blood-curdling screams.

I'll remember that for the rest of my life.

-TC flight, lock the doors...

-Copy.

No phone calls off site, outside of this room.

Our discussions are on these loops, on the recorded DVS loops only.

Wreckage is found stretched several hundred miles through Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas.

NASA's investigation concludes the puncture in the heat shield

allowed hot gases to enter the spacecraft and break it apart.

Blunt trauma and sudden loss of oxygen killed all Columbia's crew.

They stayed up there for 16 days with that big hole in the wing and never knew it was there.

If they'd only looked, they could have saved these guys lives, but they didn't look.

For the second time in its history, the Shuttle fleet is grounded for 2½ years.

Both Challenger and Columbia underscored the Shuttle is never going to be routine,

going into space is never going to be routine. It's a dangerous business.

When we have tragedies,

we have to absorb the lessons of those failures,

we have to correct the mistakes that were made, and we have to move on.

Because the only other alternative is to say we will stop flying,

we will retreat, and I think that's the worst possible choice.

When the Shuttle returns to space, Eileen Collins is the commander for its 114th flight.

This is Shuttle launch control where we see the STS-114 astronauts.

People were saying we shouldn't send astronauts into space, it's too dangerous.

We are willing to accept a certain amount of risk

to take part in this extremely important mission that we have,

which is exploring space.

On behalf of the millions of people who believe so deeply in what we do, good luck, Godspeed, and have fun.

We fly for our country. We fly for humanity.

And we don't stop flying because we have accidents.

This launch marks the start of the Shuttle's final chapter.

Lift-off on space Shuttle Discovery, beginning America's new journey to the moon, Mars, and beyond.

NASA's workhorse is set to retire in 2010, but it marks only the beginning of the space age.

Half a century after space travel began, we are reaping great rewards from exploration.

Science has made a giant leap forward and we've learned that there are no limits.

But there is a cost.

Risk is the price of progress.

You have to find the people capable of managing that risk and continue to move forward.

Through both glorious triumphs and heartbreaking tragedies, NASA's drive to explore is empowered.

Explorers are an inspiration to the young people

to attain greater significant challenges in their lives.

You can actually accomplish something that has been thought about for hundreds of year

by all sorts of poets and astronomers.

The human spirit is to go explore, and to see what's out there.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd