comparemela.com

Were in the boeing milestones of flight hall at the center of the museum. And this is the hall where we display the pioneering aircraft and spacecraft that transform the modern world. When this Museum Opened in july of 1976, almost every space artifact on display had recently been in the news. This was very much a museum of contemporary space flight. And it was for most people their first chance to see what had been lauded in the 1960s and early 1970s during this heroic age of Space Exploration when humans first ventured off the planet into space and all the way to the moon, when the United States and the soviet union began sending craft out to explore the nearby planets. All of this was exciting, thrilling, and people just flocked in to the museum to see it. In the 40 years since this building opened, we have continued to acquire treasures of space history. We have now about 17,000 artifacts related to space history. We have just over a thousand of them on display in our two locations here in the washington area, and then we have another 1500 on display in other museums around the world. In our tour today, were going to look at system of the original artifacts that were the stars of the show when the national air and space Museum Opened and were also going to look at artifacts from history that has been made since then. Well start our tour right here with the lunar module. The icon for the landing on the moon in july 1969. It actually has a companion spacecraft, the apollo command module. And the command module, its Service Module and the lunar module together carried three astronauts, neil armstrong, buzz aldrin and Michael Collins to the moon. The command module very significantly also brought them back safely. This lunar module is an actual lunar module that never flew in space. Its lunar module 2. It was intended to be used in an earth orbital test flight. But the test was canceled as unnecessary. And so now nasa transferred this lunar module to the national air and space museum. It consists of two parts. The base which has the legs and the rocket engine in it. And then the oddly shaped top, which is the crew module or crew cabin. And this was attached to the command module for the flight from earth to lunar orbit. And once in lunar orbit, the two crewmembers who would descend to the surface, armstrong and aldrin climbed into the lunar module. It separated from the command module where Michael Collins stayed to orbit the moon and it began its descent down to the surface. 40 feet down, 2 1 2. Picking up some dust. Drifting to the right a little. Contact right. Okay. Engine stop. We copy it down, eagle. The eagle has landed. This was a thrilling moment in history. And almost everybody who was alive at that moment remembered where they were, whether they were watching it on television in their own homes or if they were standing in an Appliance Store watching it on a television. People around the world stopped to watch the landing on the moon and the first steps of human beings on the moon. Im going to step off now. Thats one small step for man. One giant leap for mankind. After the crew. The apollo 11 crew had climbed out, done some exploration close to the lunar module, collected some samples of lunar soil and rocks, taken some photographs, placed a u. S. Flag on the moon, they went back in to the lunar module. And this became their vehicle for their trip home. They launched the small top portion, leaving the base on the moon. They ascending back up into lunar orbit, rendezvoused with the command module again. Exited the lunar module. And once they were secure inside the command module, reunited with Michael Collins, the lunar module was detached, and it fell back to the moon with an intentional crash on the moon. Because geologists and seismologists wanted to be able to track what kind of impact it made on the moon. So from a space historians point of view, these two craft, the apollo command module and the lunar module are the icons of the space race, along with the suits warn by the astronauts on the moon. These symbolize that very historic moment in time, july 1969. When human beings first set foot on another body in our solar system. And in effect won the space race. When children look at this spacecraft, they often say that doesnt look like a spaceship because we tend to think that spacecraft are always streamlined and maybe they look like rockets. More than anything else. But this spacecraft has an interesting design, and in many ways its fairly primitive given the job that it had to do. It didnt need to be streamlined on the outside because it was not going to operate in the atmosphere. It would only operate in the vacuum of space. And it would not be subject to a strong gravitational field on the moon. So its actually fairly flimsy in some areas. The legs are obviously strong. The mount for the rocket engine is strong. But the craft itself and particularly the crew module or crew cabin was really fairly spartan. It had two windows. Neil armstrong had command of the craft during the final descent to landing. Both of them were standing. They were fully suited in their space suit, and they pretty much filled that interior volume in that position with those space suits on. It was not really designed for comfort. It was designed for the purpose of landing, giving the crew an exit so they could spend a couple of hours on the surface of the moon, and then launching again along with their precious cargo of lunar soil and rocks to bring back home to demonstrate that they had been there and to have those materials for scientists to begin analyzing to better understand the moon. Its also amazing to think that the Computing Power required in that day to send these craft to the moon and to program them for the descent and the launch was done with fairly primitive computer programs, and memory was minuscule compared to the memory we have now. And its often said that the Computing Power we hold in our hands every day with our smart phones is vastly more than it took to send people to the moon and back. It gives you a sense of the ingenuity of the engineers in that day to device the solutions to get people to the moon and back safely. So we have seen the iconic artifacts from the heroic age of space flight in the 1960s. Just feet away from it is a much more contemporary spacecraft, spaceship 1. The first craft privately developed not by nasa, not by the u. S. Government, but by a company headed by bert rutan, an ingenious aircraft a designer. Spaceship 1 was the first privately developed craft ever to be launched into space, returned to earth, be launched again, return to earth with a human on board. And by doing that in the year 2004, spaceshipone won the ansari x prize, a prize of 10 million that was posted to encourage commercial development of spacecraft that could be used for space tourism. Spaceshipone operators as a suborbital craft. Like alan shepard did in 1961, it goes up, makes a loop into space and then glides back down to a landing like an airplane would land. There is a mother ship that is the actual transporter aircraft. And spaceshipone snuggles up under it. The mother ship is the one that flies it around here in the atmosphere. And then its released from that. And after its released is when the rocket engine ignites and it shoots straight up. Spaceshipone is a very innovative design in that it has a hybrid rocket that is part liquid propellant and sport solid propellant. Kit hold three people, though in its prize winning flights it had only the pilot and some ballast to indicate the weight of two people. And it has a very distinctive design. As you can see right now, its in a configuration with its wings up at about, oh, 50,000 feet, 40 to 50,000 feet. Those wings are down. And its very streamlined looking. But as it shoots up into orbit and reaches that threshold of about 100 kilometers or 62 miles, the wings pivot up. And that stabilizes the craft for that loop over in orbit. And the loop lasts about six minutes during which the pilot and any passengers would be able to experience weightlessness, if they wanted to unbuckle their seat belt, they would rise out of their seats. They can look through all the wound windows and get a wonderful view of the curvature of the earth and the blackness of space. And then as the craft begins to descend, the feathered wings, what theyre called, the feathered wings stabilize the space just the same way that the a badminton birdie or a shuttlecock is stabilized so that the nose stays downward pointing and the whole craft stays stable. It also creates more drag and slows the spacecraft down more quickly so it doesnt need a bulky heat shield. As spaceshipone comes back into the atmosphere, once its part of the atmosphere where there is enough air that it can fly, aerodynamically again, the wings stream back down into position and it glides down to a land in the desert. This little spacecraft is reminiscent of a race car. Its sleek. It looks aerodynamic. It looks speedy. And it looks sporty. And it just looks like the kind of craft that a person who wanted to go up into space for a quick look and a quick experience of what weightlessness might want to climb in and go for a ride. Where this may go is to the next step which is larger spaceship too. And sir richard branson, who operates virgin or owns Virgin Atlantic airways partnered with bert rutan and his Company Scale composites to do a larger version of spaceshipone. In this case we worked with the owner, manufacturer, designer, burt rutan. And also his Business Partner paul allen who is one of the cofounders of microsoft. And we approached them after the first flight in he has named it Virgin Galactic. June and it will hold 12 people. Of and it is being developed for 200 the express purpose of providing 4 space flight to paying customers. Who want to have the experience and of space flight. They dont have a set debut date said regardless of yet. Whether they suffered a real setback when one of their test flights you crashed. Win but its still out there on the the horizon as something that is x likely to happen. Prize or not, we think space ship one deserves to be and Virgin Galactic is by no in means the only such company. The there are other companies who national are developing spacecraft for al collection. Because it was the first private privately developed spacecraft piloted by human being to go into space and return. You might notice there is a small dent in the nosil of the engine. That is not damage by delivering it to the museum or suspending it from the rafters. Rather that buckled in space during its first test flight when the engine ignited and just the heat and the force of the engine ignition buckled the nozzle. For the second flight and the third flight, a different nozzle was used, and they also made some corrections to the ignition sequence so they didnt have that buckling problem again. But when we asked to have space ship one delivered to us for the national collection, we asked to have it returned to its original configuration from its first flight. The first flight wasnt the prizewinning flight, but it was the recordbreaking flight. And so they went to the trouble to reinstall the dented engine nozzle on it. Our next stop will be skylab. And were going to look at that because it is one of the original artifacts on display here since before this Museum Opened. Skylab is so large that it was brought into the museum before the building was closed out. Now im standing in front of a model of skylab that is as tall as i am, but the real skylab orbital workstation behind me absolutely dwarfs the model and me. It reaches from the floor up into the skylights of this building two stories tall. Skylab was the United States first space station. It was placed in orbit in 1973, and in 1973 and 74, three different nasa astronaut crews spent time aboard it. Three men at a time. One group was there for one month. Another group for two months, and the third group for three months. And the whole point of the Skylab Missions was to get some experience in living and working in space. When the Apollo Program came to an end, there was still some hardware left over and nasa thought can we do with this . We developed this tremendous ability to launch spacecraft all the way to the moon. We still have a couple of these powerful rockets on hand. Can we repurpose them and do something else. And so the decision reached was to take the third stage of the gigantic saturn v rocket that powered the spacecraft away from earth on a trajectory to the moon and turned that into a habitable module, a sort of miniature space station that crews could live in while getting this experience of living and working in space. And the actual element that is behind me is the full cylinder that is marked by this wide white band here. And you can see from the cutaway there that its twostories on the inside. And those were two floors where the astronauts could actually live. In the missions to the moon and the earth orbit, they had been spacecraft that were essentially cockpits. They had no more room in them than a sports car. But skylab was like having a house. And it actually had rooms in it. There was a galley ward room where they could prepare food, meet around a table, eat together. They still were eating out of plastic bags and tin cans, but at least it was more home like and more sociable. They had sleeping quarters. Three little bunk areas about the size of closets. But still each member had a private area to retire for some solitary time and some sleep without being confined to the flight seat in a capsule. And most important, it had an actual bathroom. It had an actual toilet. In all these previous missions, the little known dirty secret is that the astronauts were using plastic bags to collect their waste. But finally they had a toilet and they didnt have to deal with the mess of taking care of their bodily functions. It had a sink where they could wash up and could shave. And it even had a shower which was essentially a tunnellike sheath that an astronaut pulled up around him and then could use water from a sprayer inside that container. But then the trick after the shower was all of the water had to be wiped off, wiped off the body, wiped off the little enclosure. And they finally decide it was more trouble than it was worth. They would just take sponge baths. But there was also room for them to have an exercise bicycle and to have some experiments set up. And then they had a huge attic above the living area where their extra supplies were stored and a lot of the systems elements were there. But it was so big that they could run track around the perimeter of it and do tumbling around the perimeter of it, just running and tumbling across the tops of the lockers. That was for fun. But they actually used that space for serious reasons too. And they were testing out a jet backpack that might be used on spacewalks. And they were able to operate that in that attic space that was so commodious. And then below their living deck floor, there was the remainder of one of the propellant tanks. And that became their big trash can. And there was a hatch and they could put their trash through the hatch and it would go down to that lower level. The orbital workshop then was the largest part of the skylab space station. But above it there was an air lock module that enabled them to go outside and to service this big observatory, the solar observatory which was a wonderful scientific facility attached to the orbital workshop. And using the instruments variety of cameras and detectors on what was called the apollo telescope mount, we got our first really detailed views of activity on the sun. And we understood for the first time how dynamic our sun is, how its just roiling with activity all the time and spewing out big explosions of matter. And it has holes in it. And it has storms on it. And it was an amazing thing to get this new information through the telescopes on skylab. And then here at the top, one can see the docking port for the apollo command and Service Module, which was essentially the shuttle craft to bring the astronauts to skylab and bring them back home again. This whole thing is 22 feet in diameter. Again, when you think of the ingenuity of turning a stage of a rocket, which is basically a big fuel tank into a home that people can live in, and you can provide them with plumbing and comfort and room to move around, a window to look out to enjoy the views of the earth, this was a kind of turning point in our Space Program. Skylab was the test run for what the next big thing was supposed to be. And from the late 1950s and early 1960s on, planners in the United States had foreseen an eventual space station. In fact, the original plans were to build a space station in earth orbit first and then go to the moon. But president kennedy reversed that and decided to send the United States to the moon first. As part of the cold war competition with the soviet union. So in the become of everybodys mind, there was still a space station. Skylab was the first step toward what now has become the International Space station. A huge new facility in earth orbit. Now this behemoth behind me is actually the backup skylab space station. It is flight ready. Nasa built two of them in case they wanted to do two Skylab Missions or in case there was some hardware problem with the first skylab orbital workshop. We did make a modification to it. Ordinarily, we dont modify flightready hardware. But this case, we cut a passage way, two doors into it and laid down a sort of hallway right through the middle of this living quarters so people who visit the knew seem can walk inside skylab. They can see the living quarters. They can look into the bathroom. They see a mannequin at the table with some food out on the table. The shower is set up there. The exercise bicycle is in plain view. They can see the trash air lock right there. And if they look up, they can just be wowed by the amount of free space there is. I mention that skylab was occupied in 1973 and 74. The last crew to leave skylab buttoned it up and put into it sleep mode with a view toward a future crew potential coming back. And then nasa got very busy developing the shuttle. So what happened to skylab . Well, gradually over time its orbit began to deteriorate somewhat. It started dropping lower and lower. And there was an early plan to use the Space Shuttle to go up and rendezvous with it and boost it back up to a higher altitude so that it could still be available for use. But the shuttle wasnt yet ready to fly. And so what happened is after the orbit diminished, nasa had to bring it back in a controlled reentry. So in 1979, skylab was brought back down. It streaked into earths atmosphere like a meteor. It broke up over the indian ocean. And a few pieces fell in parts of australia and were recovered. Fortunately no one was hit. No one was injured. No property was damaged. Now i paused here at skylab because this was still news in 1976 when this Museum Opened. People streamed in here literally by the millions that first year. They were thrilled not only to see the old aircraft, but to see the new spacecraft, to see what had been happening in space that they had seen on the news and heard about. And skylab was one of these featured attractions. Skylab was about settling down in space. Throughout the 1960s, the impetus had been to get into space, to get into orbit, to get to the moon. After the space race was won, by the United States with the landings on the moon in 1969 through 1972, both the soviet Space Program and the u. S. Space Program Began to shift gears. So as we built skylab in the early 1970s, the soviets were also beginning to develop a space station. In fact, a series of space stations called salyut. There was a moment there in the early to mid 1970s when soviet and u. S. Tension abated somewhat and the two Space Programs, the two nations decided to do a cooperative venture in space. And that occurred in 1975. It was a rendezvous and docking in space of an apollo spacecraft from the United States and a soyuz spacecraft from the soviet union. And it was build as a historic handshake in space. Because when the two craft docked and they opened their hatches, to this docking module between them, the american commander and the russian commander came together and shook hands. And at the time it was hoped that this might be the beginning of a new era of cooperation in space. But that thaw in relations didnt last very long. And so really, throughout the latter 1970s, 1980s, the u. S. Went on with developing the Space Shuttle, the soviets went on with developing the series of salyut space stations. And then a much larger space station called mir. And it was not until the collapse of the soviet union in about 1992 that another opportunity arose to have a cooperative relationship in space. At that point, the u. S. And its international partner, europe, japan and canada invited russia, the new russia in to partnership on the International Space station. And since then, our activities in space have been carried out on a cooperative basis. Now were in the moving beyond earth gallery. This is where we treat human space flight in the era of the Space Shuttle and the International Space station. Basically, everything thats depicted in this gallery happened since the Museum Opened in 1976. In fact, in that year, the first Space Shuttle, the test vehicle enterprise made its debut. And it was greeted as a revolution in spacecraft design. This was the first spacecraft to look like an airplane, the first reusable spacecraft that would be able to return to earth, land, be serviced, and fly again. And really, the Space Shuttle era is all about practical uses of space, practical access to space, practical benefits from space. The distinctive feature of the Space Shuttle was that it was a reusable spacecraft. And by being reusable, it was supposed to be more economical and more readily used for routine space flight. In fact, early on the planners and designers thought it might operate as regularly as an aircraft in service. It didnt work out that way. It turns out even though it was a reusable craft, it was in many ways an experimental craft. And it was a very complicated and sophisticated spacecraft. Now im standing in front of one of the distinctive features of the Space Shuttle, which is one of the three main engines that powered the craft into operator. These are reusable liquid propellant engines that had not been done before. They operate with a greater degree of efficiency and reliability than any other rocket engine had done before. The Space Shuttle main engines were one of the great technical challenges of the Space Shuttle program. And were fortunate to have one here that was made up for us of parts and components that flew on quite a variety of missions. And as a whole, it wasnt flown in space, it has flight components it. So were very pleased to have that. We do have actually the Space Shuttle discovery on display at our second location, the udvarhazy center near dallas airport. It was delivered to us without main engines. It was delivered only with nozzles because nasa chose to save those engines. They were so highly prized. They chose to save them for possible use on the next launch vehicle. If were lucky, one day we may get one of those. And that would be one that had actually flown in space. On the wall behind the main engine is a Cross Section of the other main propulsion element of the shuttle. And thats a slice of a solid rocket booster, or its actually a slice of a model of a solid rocket booster. But in addition to the rocket engines that were physically integrated into the shuttle orbiter, there were these twin solid rocket boosters mounted on the sides of the giant liquid propellant tank. And we commissioned that model of the Cross Section to show the pattern in that rocket booster where the solid fuel first begins to burn. And its like a star shape or a snowflake shape pattern there. And that increases the efficiency of the fuel burn and produces a tremendous amount of thrust through the twin solid rocket boosters. They burned out within two minutes of ignition and fell away from the shuttle. The main engines consumed fuel from the external tank for 8 1 2 minutes and the tank fell away just before the Space Shuttle entered orbit. A totally revolutionary way of spending a spacecraft into orbit. And thats really the theme of this whole gallery is a new way of doing space flight in the shuttle era. As i mentioned, the shuttle era began in a way in 1976 when this Museum Opened. The first actual shuttle launch into space was not until 1981. But then for the 30 following years, there were 135 Space Shuttle missions. All but two of them completely successful. And the two that failed, of course, were the challenger and columbia accidents sts51l, the 25th Shuttle Mission and sts107 in 2003. In talking about the shuttle in this gallery, we do talk about what was revolutionary about it. We also do acknowledge that it was not a perfect technical system, that it didnt perform exactly as planned, and it did result in those two tragedies. And so we didnt want to gloss over any of that. We wanted to make the point that doing something revolutionary always entails risk. And working with new technologies that are operating at the really the far margins of performance adds to that element of risk. At the other hand, the whole Space Shuttle system consisted of millions of components that had to work perfectly every time. And in most occasions, thats exactly what happened. So we have a section in here about the design of the shuttle, the various options that were considered before the final design was settled on, whether to make it a fully reusable vehicle or partially reusable. Partial won out for economic reasons. We also talk about living and working in space on the shuttle. Because the shuttle served various purposes. It was a delivery truck. It could carry satellites into orbit. It was a shortterm space station. When a laboratory was in the payload bay, it actually served as a Research Center in space. It served as a servicing station as with the hubbell space telescope. That astronauts could do repairs in orbit and prolong the life of the observatory there. And then finally, it was the construction site for the International Space station. And all of the large modules, all of the solar rays, all of the long trusses that make up the International Space station were carried up into space in the payload bay of the Space Shuttle. The Space Shuttle also had a profound impact on the Astronaut Corps and on our perception of human space flight. Because up until that point, the Astronaut Corps had consisted entirely of men. And the majority of them were test pilots. Many of them also combat pilots who were very experienced in High Altitude flight under extreme conditions. Some scientists had been admitted into the Astronaut Corps, and one of those scientists went to the moon, and three of them served on skylab. But because the shuttle had a different kind of mission to do research and useful work in space, it needed a crew that was more versatile than just pilots. It needed scientists and engineers to carry out its missions. And once the Astronaut Corps needed more scientists and engineers, that opened up the pool of eligible candidates to become astronauts. And so in 1978, nasa selected its first astronauts for the Space Shuttle era. And they chose 35. Of those 35, 6 were women, 3 were African American men. One was an Asian Pacific heritage man. And from that point on, the shuttle Astronaut Program was much more diverse. And it became more reflective of who we are as the american people. And in 1983, within the first ten missions, a woman flew in space on the seventh mission, sally ride and an African American flew in space on the eighth mission, guy bluford. We have on display in this gallery their flight suits that they presented to the museum after their historic flights. And certainly sally ride became a hero to girls and women. She was one of six women in the Astronaut Corps. She happened to be the one chosen to fly first. And so she ended up being the one who got credit for breaking that barrier and became a hero then for the rest of her life. Guy bluford had the same impact on the African American community. By the time the Shuttle Program ended in 2011, about 20 of the Astronaut Corps had been women. About 12 had been African American. Women and African Americans had served in every role. They had been pilot, commanders, spacewalker, mission scientist. They had demonstrated very well that people who are capable, who had the right skills and the right drive and motivation could be successful astronauts. The last big task for the Space Shuttle was actually its original task, the task for which it was designed with that large payload bay. And that was construction of the International Space station. It took about 40 missions to assemble the International Space station in orbit. Starting in 1999 and completing in 2011. The space station as it exists now is depict heard in the gallery in a model that we have suspended. Its a 1 to 100 scale model. The actual International Space station is the size of a football field from end zone to end zone and from sideline to sideline. So that gives you a sense of this tremendous technological endeavor to build something of that size in space. So weve been in earth orbit here for a few minutes. Why dont we go to mars. Just outside the gallery is viking, the first spacecraft to land on mars. Here we are at viking, the first spacecraft to land on mars. Actually, its one of two vikings that landed on mars. And this is another thing that was in the news at the time that this Museum Opened in 1976. To have landed on mars after a number of trials and misses was very exciting. Both the russians and the United States had been trying to put a craft on to the surface of mars. This was equipped as a sort of observatory and a sort of laboratory. It had a scoop at the end of a long arm that was going to scoop up some soil near its landing site and dump it into a little container where it would be subjected to some chemistry tests to determine if there were any organic compounds in it or any moisture in it. Anything that might have been conducive to life. And in fact in a very simplified version of things, the viking lander was going to look for signs of life on mars. Thats how the public perceived it. The Scientific Community was interested in a whole variety of other questions. What was the composition of the rocks . What was the surface environment like . So it had a weather station. It had a variety of instruments. And this was the first chance to really touch and feel the surface soil and the surface rocks on another planetary body other than the moon. Tremendously exciting, and the beginning of what has become a long history now of returning to mars. Each time with more sophisticated instruments, each time to learn more about that neighboring planet which has long occupied peoples imaginations as the likeliest next destination for human exploration. Landers like the viking lander opened the door toward that possible eventual human exploration of the planet mars. Vikings one and two have been dorm nant n dormant for a number of years. Theyre sitting there on the surface of mars waiting to be rediscovered either by a rover or by some eventual human explorer. This viking lander is a duplicate and this is kept at the jet Propulsion Laboratory in california. And in the mission, they used it as a test case to try out any procedures to do trouble shooting for any problems that they detected with the surface land willers on mars. Landers on mars. So this lander is really part of that family. Planetary exploration when it started in 1960s, we didnt know exactly where the moon was or mars or venus, and we knew approximately where they were, but you need to know that much more exactly if you are going to launch a spacecraft from planet earth, which is in motion, and the spacecraft will be in motion, and the planetary destination will be in motion. So there is a lot of calculation that goes into that. In the early 1960s and mid1960s there were a lot of misses. We should shoot something towards the moon and it would sail right past or miss ut by a long shot. Or the soviets would do the same thing or we would try to land something on the moon, and it would crash into it instead. And so it was kind of a Demolition Derby in the 1960s. But that was really the essential first stage, was to start sending craft out to fly by and to increasingly get closer and closer so that you could determine exactly where they were and what the celestial mechanics of space flight really were at an exacting level. So after the flyby was were a level. After the flyby was perfected and the purpose of that was to get a good first look. Cameras on board could spend back images, to get a sense of what that body was like. Then the next step was to send something to go into orbit around it. Again, with cameras and some other instruments to try to determine what is the surface like, is there an atmosphere . What is it like . What more can we learn by being closer to it and staying in orbit around it . And, again, there were some near misses on those orbitters as well. By the early 1970s, that problem was pretty well solved. So you have flyby. Then you go into orbit. Then you send a lander. The next step is to send a roefr rover so you could learn not only about the immediate landing site where a static craft like viking sits, but start ranging out around it and start doing what human beings do, go exploring, extend the range, look around the next hill to see whats there. For the next phase in our exploration mars, indeed, has been rovers and our next stop will be to take a look at three generations of mars rovers. Well, now we are in the exploring the planets gallery, where we really focus on recent events in planetary exploration. As we learned with viking, the strategy tends to move from having a static lander, which viking was, to having mobile landers. And this is one of my favorite parts in the museum, because this is where we display the three rovers that have been doing Major Research on the planet mars over the last 20 years. The first rover to land and operate successfully on mars was one identical to this one. It was part of the path finder mission of 1996, and a little rover named sojournor was p eoo down on mars. You can see it has six wheels and theyre a kind of wheel called rocker wheels that will enable it to go over rocks without tipping over. Its about the size of a microwave oven, if you imagined amicrowave oven having wheels. It was a little geologist that was put down on the surface of mars to do some of the kinds of investigations that a human geologist would do. Its equipped with a device to touch up against a rock and determine what chemical elements are in that rock. It had a camera for guidance. It could also pick up information about the ambient environment of mars. So you can think of marie currie is the name of this one and so jj jo urner as the first this is the backup for the mission. This could have gone to mars itself. Ten years later after pathfinder mission, we had a mission that landed a somewhat larger rover on mars and this is a model of spirit and opportunity. This is an engineering model, though, and isnt really ready to go to mars. You can see the growth since the first rover. This one is more like the size of a golf cart, perhaps. Again, it has the special wheels so that it can operate well on the uneven terrain. And its equipped not only with the solar panels to keep it powered up, but with larger and more sophisticated instruments. It has a robotic arm that extends out. It has almost a head here at the front, at the top of this long neck. Thats where the cameras are for its movement around, enabling scientists here on earth to see where its going and to see what its seeing. And it has various other scientific devices on it. And, again, a kind of mars weather station to determine whats the ambient environment like . What is the wind like . What are the temperatures at different times during the martian day. What is it like when a dust storm blows up and passes through . So again this is a more capable geologist now thats on the surface of grabbed public attention because, first of all, its so big. Its like having a car on mars. And this is the one that had the very dramatic landing sequence where it was dropped from a crane that was descending from the orbital spacecraft. It was called seven minutes of terror to get it to the surface of mars without it being damaged. It was a very successful landing. And curiosity has been roaming for kilometers on the surface of mars. Its studying planes. Its on the rim of a crater. Its going down into the crater to have a look at what these surface geology is like there. And the main mission of cureios is to follow the water. Scientists have a lot of evidence that at some point in the past, mars had a lot of water. And the evidence is in sedimentation on mars and in portions of land that look as if theyve been washed over by water which then evaporated. And so the thrust of the curiosity rover is to investigate sites that seem to have had an abundance of water at some time in the past. Once again, this is a surrogate for a human geologist. Much larger in scale than the pathfinder and the spirit and opportunity rovers, much sturdier structure, a chassis that really is the size of a compact car. Again, a suite of cameras and weather station instruments on board. And this one is also a chemistry lab. There are several devices on here that can do analysis of the chemicals in the soil and in the rocks. Its really being a very exciting mission and it has no end in sight. I think the public has become very fond of these rovers. On the surface of mars so that if in the future humans actually go there, theyll know a lot more about the terrain and also know a lot more about sites that might still harbor moisture, if not actual water. And this pattern replicates what we did when we went to the moon. We started with missions that first flew past the moon, but one of the next things we did was set a lander on the moon, just to determine how strong is the soil . Can something land there, or will it sink in . If humans are going to land, will they be able to walk on the moon . And i think were quite confident about mars that humans will be able to move around on the surface of mars very well. The rovers have demonstrated how easy it is to do that. One other thing about the rovers is they dont operate alone and preprogrammed. There are whole teams here on earth that are charting out their itineraries and scheduling their activities. And when they are working on the mission, in their heads, they are on mars with the rover. And they even wear watches where they set their watch to martian time. The martian day is 24 hours and 39 minutes. Their day is just enough longer than ours that for the people working on earth, each day they start work 39 minutes later. The days creep ahead for them. So when this Museum Opened in 1976, we were wrapping up a golden age of human exploration with the apolo mission missions moon and the first golden age of planetary exploration with the missions of the 1970s to mars and to the outer planets. Were now in another golden age of planetary exploration, particularly on mars, with curiosity rover so actively exploring there. So, were right in the present moment here when were with the mars rovers. And i wonder what we might see here in ten years or 20 years as planetary exploration continues with great success, we hope and there is much talk about having a Human Mission to mars by about 2030 or so. If that should happen, that will probably be the stellar attraction in the museum by the time the next major anniversary rolls around. You can watch this or other american artifacts programs by visiting cspan. Org history. All week were featuring programs of whats available every week on cspan American History. Real america, the civil war, oral histories, the presidency and special event coverage about our nations history. Enjoy American History tv now and every weekend on cspan3. Weeknight this is month were featuring American History programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan3. A look at our weekly lectures. Programs on drugs in u. S. History, including one examining regulation of marijuana. See it tonight starting at 8 00 eastern and every saturday and sunday on cspan3. Labor day weekend on American History tv. Saturday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on lectures in history, a discussion about Abraham Lincoln and native americans. Sunday, at 4 00 p. M. On real america, the 1950 army film invasion of Southern France and monday, labor day, at 8 00 p. M. Eastern, the commemoration of the 400th anniversary of virginias first General Assembly held at jamestown. Explore our nations past on American History tv, every weekend on cspan3. Sunday night on q a, university of Pennsylvania Law School professor amy wax on Free Expression on College Campuses and the conflicts surrounding an opinion piece sheadelphphiladel we were trying to tout this code of behavior of being one that was particularly functional and suited to our current technological democratic capitalist society and comparing it other cultures which, you know, arent as functional. We gave some examples, and that immediately caused a firestorm. Sunday night at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspans q a. Three former apollo era flight controllers and engineers discussed the design and development of the lunar module and how it operated during the moon landing. This was part of an event sponsored by Space Center Houston to mark the events 50th anniversary. Good morning and happy Lunar Landing day. [ cheers and applause ] its great to have you all here. Im tracy lamm, chief operating officer. We are the First Autism Center as a science center. We

© 2024 Vimarsana

comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.