The Smithsonian National air and space museum shows us artifacts that tell the story of Space Exploration from the moon to mar mars. Each week american artifacts takes viewers into archives, museums and Historic Sites around the country. Up next we visit the Smithsonian National air and space museum located on the National Mall in washington, d. C. Our tour guide is valerie neal, head of the Space History Department at the museum who shows us artifacts that tell the story of Space Exploration from the moon to mars. Im valerie neal. 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 spaceflight 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 into 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 1,000 of them on display in our two locations, here in the washington area, and then we have another 1,500 on display in other museums around the world. In our tour today were going to look at some 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. We will 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 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 oddlyshaped top, which is the crew module or crew cabin. This was attached to the command module for the flight from earth to lunar orbit and once in lunar orbit the two crew members who would descend to the surface, armstrong and aldrin climbed into the lunar module. Its it separated from the command module where Michael Collins stayed to orbit the moon and it began its descent the mo began the descent down to the surface. 40 feet. Picking up dust. More forward, drifting to the right a little. Okay. Back right. Okay engine stopped. You copy you down, eagle. Quality base here. 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 watching it on television in their own homes or if they were standing in an Appliance Store watching 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 the lem 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 into the lunar module and this became their vehicle for their trip home. Any launched the small top portion, leaving the base on the moon. They ascended back into lunar orbit, met up with the command module. Exited the lunar module. And once secure inside the command module reunited with Michael Collins. The lunar module fell back to the moon with an intentional crash on the moon because geologists and seismicologyises wanted to track the kind of impact is made on the moon. From a space historians point of view, the two craft, the apollo command module and the lunar module are the icons of the space race, along with the suits worn 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 in space craft they often say they doesnt look like a space ship, because we tend to think that space craft are always stream lined and maybe look like rockets more than anything else. But this space craft has an interesting design and in many ways its fairly primitive, given the job that it had to do. It didnt need to be stream lined 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 strong gravitational field on the moon. Its actually fairly flimsy in some areas. The legs are obviously strong. The mount for the rock engine is strong. But the craft itself and crew module or crew cabin was fairly spartan. It had two windows. Neil armstrong had command of the craft during the final descent to landing, both of them were standing, fully suited in their space suit and they pretty much filled that interior volume in that position with knows 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 the 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 smartphones 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 devise 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, this craft designed not by nasa but but by a company headed by burt ratan, an ingenious designer. It was the first privately developed craft ever launched launched into the space, return to earth. Launched again, return to earth with a human onboard. And by doing that in the year 2004, space ship won won the ansarix prize, a prize of 10 million posted to encourage commercial development of space craft that could be used for space tourism. Space ship one operates as a suborbital craft. Doesnt go into orbit but like alan shepard in 1916, goes up makes a loop into space and glides back down to a landing like an airplane would land. There is a mother ship that is the actual transporter aircraft. And space ship one snuggles under it. The mother ship flies it around here in the atmosphere. And then its released from that. And after its released is when the rock engine ignites and shoots straight up. Space ship one is a very innovative design. It has a hybrid rocket that is part liquid propellant and part solid propellant. It can old hold three people though in the prize winning flight it had only the pilot and ballast to indicate the weight of two other people. And it has a very distinctive design. As you can see right now, its in a configuration with its wings up at about 50,000 feet 40 to 50,000 feet the swings are down and its stream lined looking. But as it shoots up into orbit and reaches the threshold of about 100 kilometers or 62 miles, the wings pivot up. And that stabilizes the craft for that loopover 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 the seat belts they would rise out of their seats. They can look through the round windows and get a wonderful view of the curve tour of the earth and the blackness of space. As the craft begins to descend the feathered wings is what theyre called, the feathered wings stabilize the space craft just the same way that the a badminton birdie or shuttlecock is stabilized so the nose stays pointing downwards and it is more stable. It also creates drag and slows it down quickly so it doesnt need the bulky heat shield. Once in the atmosphere, in the part of the atmosphere where there is enough air that it can fly aerodynamically again. The wings pivot down again into the streamline position. And the whole thing glides back down to a landing on a desert or runway. This little star spangled craft is reminiscent to me of a race car. Sleek and aerodynamic. It looks speedy and 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 weightlessness might want to climb in and go for a ride. Most of the space craft that are in the collection of the National Air Space museum come from our space agency, nasa is our principal donor. At the end of nasas need, the agency will transfer space craft, space suits and a Great Variety of other equipment to the museum so that it can be preserved and displayed. And even used for research. Space ship one is a different case, in that it came from private enterprise. And so in in case we worked directly with the owner, manufacturer designer, burt rutan and his Business Partner paul allen, unof the cofounders of microsoft. And we approached them after the first flight in june of 2004 and said, regardless of whether you win the x prize or not, we think space ship 1 deserves to be in the National Collection because it was the first privately developed space craft piloted by a human being to go into space and return. You might notice a small dent in the nozzle of the engine on the back of space ship one. And that is not damage caused 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 the 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 record breaking flight. And so they went to the trouble to reinstall the dented engine nozzle on it. Our next stop will be sky lab. And were going to look at that. Because it is one of the original artifacts on display here since before this museum open. Sky lab 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 sky lab thats as tall as i am. But the real sky lab orbital work station behind me absolutely dwarves the model and me. Reaching from the floor up into the skielts of this building, two stories tall. Sky lab 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 there one month another group for two months. The third group three months. The whole point of the sky lab 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, what can we do with this . We have developed this tremendous capability to launch space craft all the way to the moon. We still have a couple of the 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 five rocket that powered the space craft away from earth on a trajectory to the moon and turn that into a habitable module a sort of miniature space station that crews could live in while they were getting in experience of living and working in space. And the actual element thats behind me is the full cylinder that is marked by this wide white band here. And you can see from the cut away there that its two stories on the inside. And those were two floors where the astronauts could actually live. In the missions to the moon and the missions in earth orbit they had been in space craft that were essentially cockpits. They had no more room in them than a sports car. But sky lab was like having a house and actually had rooms in it. There was a gallie ward room where they could meet together eat together. They were eating out of plastic bags tin cans but this was more homelike and social. They had 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 the 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 should wash up and shave. And it even had a shower which was essentially a tunnellike sheath that an astronaut pulled up around him and could use water from a sprayer inside the container. The trick was after the shower all the water had to bewood wiped off the body and the enclosure. And they finally decided it was more trouble than it was worth. They would just take sponge baths. But there was also room for 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 running and tumbling across the tops of the lockers. That was for fun but they used it for serious reasons too. And they were testing out a jet backpack that might be used on space walks and they were able to operate that in that attic space that was so commodious. And below the living deck flar there was the remainder of one of the pro pelant tanks. That became the big trash can. And that was the hatch and they could put the trash through the hatch and it went down to the lower level. The ash itle workshop then was the largest part of the sky lab station. But above it tlfts an air lock module enabling them to go outside and service the big observatory, the solar observatory, which was a wonderful scientific facility attached to the orbital workshop. And using the instruments, a variety of cameras and detecters on what wassed 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. It has holes in it and storms on it. And it was an amazing thing to get the new information through the telescopes on sky lab. 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 sky lab and bring them home again. The whole thing is 22 feet in diameter. And 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 in was a kind of turning point in our Space Program. Sky lab 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 back of everybodys mind there was still a space station. Sky lab was the first step toward what now has become the International Space station, a huge new facility in earths orbit. Now this behemoth behind me is actually the backup sky lab space station. It is flight ready. Nasa built two in case they wanted to do two sky lab missions or in case there was some hardware problem with the first sky lab. We did make a modification to it. Ordinarily we dont modify flightready hardware. But in this case we cut a passageway two doors into it and laid down a sort of hallway right through the middle of the living quarters. So people visiting the museum can walk inside sky lab, see the living quarters, look into the bathro bathroom. They see a mannequin at a table. The smour is et up. The exercise bicycle in plain view. They can see the trash air lock right there. And if they look up they can be wowed by the a free space there is. I mention that sky lab was occupied in 1973 and 74. The last crew to leave sky lab buttoned it up and put it into sleep mode with a view toward a future crew possibly coming back. Then nasa got busy developing the shuttle. So what happened to sky lab . Well, gradually over time its orbit began to sbrrt somewhat and started dropping lower. And lower. And there was an early plan to use the Space Shuttle to go up and meet with it and boost it back up to a higher altitude so it could still be available for use. But the shuttle wasnt yet ready to fly. And so what happened is after the ash it diminished nasa had to bring it back then in a controlled reentry. And so in 1979 sky lab was brought back down. It streaked into earths atmosphere like a meteor. Broke up over the indian ocean. And a few pieces fell in parts of australia and were recovered. But fortunately no one was hit, no one injured, no property damaged. Now i paused here at sky lab, 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 space craft to see what had been happening in space that they had seen on the news and heard about. And sky lab was one of the featured attractions. Sky lab 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 with the soviet Space Program and the u. S. Space Program Began to shift gears. So as we built sky lab 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 mid1970s 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 meeting and docking from a space craft from the United States and a space craft from the soviet union, billed as a historic handshake in space. When the two craft docked appear opened the hatches to the docking mod yuell between them, the american and 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 that you w in relation didnt last long. So 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 a larger space station called mir. Appear not until the collapse of the soviet union in 1992 that another opportunity arose to have a cooperative relationship in space. At that point the u. S. And its international partners, europe, japan and canada, invited russia, the new russia into 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 and the Space Shuttle and the space station basically everything in in gallery happened since the Museum Opened in 1976. In that year the first Space Shuttle, the test vehicle enterprise made its debut and greeted as a revolution in space craft design. This was the first space craft to look like an airplane, the first reusable space craft 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 space craft. 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. Didnt work out that way. Turns out even though it was reusable it was in many ways an experimental craft and it was a very complicated and sophisticated space craft. 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 orbit. These are reusable. Liquid propellant engines. That had not been done before. They operate with great efficiency and reliability. The Space Shuttle main engines were Condition One of the great technical challenges of the Space Shuttle program. We are fortunate to have one for us made of parts and components that flew on quite a variety of missions. And both as a whole it wasnt flown in space, it has flight components on it. So we are very pleased to have that. We do have actually the Space Shuttle discovery on display at our second location, the center near dulles april. It was delivered without main engines, only with nozzles because nasa chose to save the 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 propullings booster. Its a slice of a model of a solid rocket booster. In addition to the rocket engines physically integrated into the shuttle orbiter there were the twin solid rocket boosters mounded on the sides of the giant liquid propellant tank. And we commissioned that model of the crosssection to show the pattern in that rocket booster where the solid fuel first begins to burn. Its like a star shape or snow flake shape pattern there. That increases the efficiency of the fuel burn and produced tremendous 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 eight and a half minutes. And the tank fell away just before the pace shuttle entered orbit. A totally revolutionary way of sending a space craft into orbit. 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 in 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 wsh rowe, sts 51 l, the 25th mission and sts 107 in 2003. In talking about the shuttle in in 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. 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 operating at the really the far margins of performance adds to that element of risk. And 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 this 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 pay load bay it served as a Research Center in space. It served as a servicing station as with the Hubble Space Telescope that astronauts could do repairs in orbit and pro long the life of the observatory there. And then finally it was a construction site for the International Space station. And all of the large modules all of the solar arrays o, the long trusses that make up the International Space station were carried up into space into the pay load way of the Space Shuttle. The Space Shuttle had a profound impact also 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 were test pilots, many of them also combat pilots who were very experienced in highaltitude flight under extreme conditions. Some scientists have been admitted into the Astronaut Corps. And one of those scientists went to the moon. And three of them served on sky lab. But because the shuttle had a different kind of mission to do research and useful work in space, it need add crew that was more versatile than just pilots. It needed scientists and engineers to carry out its missions. And once the Astronaut Corps needed for 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 the 35, six were women. Three africanamerican men. One was an asianpacific heritage man. And from that point on the shuttle Astronaut Program was much more diverse and 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 7th mission, sally ride and an africanamerican flew in space on the eighth mission, guy blueford. We have on display in this gallery the flight suits that they presented to the museum after their historic flights. And certainly salary ride became a hero to girls and women. She was one of six women in the Astronaut Corps. Happened to be the one chosen to fly first. She ended up being the one who got credit for breaking the barrier and became a hero then for the rest of her life. Guy blewford had the same impact on the africanamerican community. By the time the schultz Program Ended in 2011 about 20 of the Astronaut Corps had been women. 12 had been africanamerican. Women and africanamericans had served in every role. They had been pilot, commanders, space walker, mission scientist, they had demonstrated very well that people who are capable who have the right skills and drive and motivation could be successful astronauts. The last big task for the Space Shuttle actually its st. Its original task, the task for which it was designed with the large pay load bay, 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 depicted here in the factualry in a model we have suspended. Its a 1 to 1 oh 00 steal mod. Pl. The actual space sfags is the size of a football field. End zone to end zone and sideline to signed. To build something of that size in space. So we have been in earth orbit here a few minutes. Why dont we go to mars. Just outside the gallery is viking, the first space craft to land on mars. Here we are at viking, the first space craft 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 onto 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 sight 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 1 and 2 at their landing sites have been dormant for a number of of years. They are sitting there on the surface of mars waiting to be rediscovered either by a rover or some eventual human explorer. In viking is an exact duplicate or triple kit. This was kept at the jet laboratory in california. And during the mission they used it as a test could you tell to try out procedures to do trouble shooting for any problems any detected with the surface landers on mars. This lander was really part of that family. Planetary exploration has developed according to a well thoughtout strategy. And you have to remember become in 1960s when all of this was brandnew we didnt know exactly where the moon was or exactly where mars or venus was. We knew exactly where they were. But you need to know that much more exactly if you are going to launch a space craft from planet earth, which is in motion, the space craft will be in motion and the planetary destination will be in motion. So there is a lot of calculation that goes into that. And in the early 1960s and mid1960s there were a lot of misses. We would shoot something toward the moon and it would sail right past or miss it by a long shot. Or the soviets would do the same thing. Or would we would try to land something on the moon and it would crash into it instead. 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 were at an compacting level. So after the fly by was perfected. And the purpose of that was to get a good first look, cameras onboard could send 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 other instruments to try to determine what is the surface like . Is there 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 orbiters as well. But by the early 1970s that problem was pretty well solved. So you have fly by. Then you go into orbit. Then you send a lander. The next step is to send a rover so that you can learn about not only the immediate landing site where a static craft like viking sits. But you can 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. So the next phase in our exploration of mars 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 upon recent events in planetary exploration. As we learned with viking, the strategy tends to move from having a static lander which vieks 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 sojurner operated. It huss six wheels and theyre called rocker wheels enabling it to go over rocks without tipping over. Its about the size of a microwave oven imagine that with wheels. With solar panels on top to keep it powered. It was pennsylvania little geologist on the surface of mars to do some of the investigations that a human geologist would do. Its equipped with a device to to touch up against a rock and determine the chemical elements in the rock. It had a camera for guidance. It could also pick up information about the ambient environment of mars. So you can think of m marie curii and its the first geologist on mars to roam around to explore a broader area. This is actually the backup for the path finder mission. This could have gone to mars itself. Ten years later after the path finder mission we had another mission that landed somewhat larger rover on mars. And in is a model of spirit and opportunity. This is an engineering model, though and isnt really ready to go to mars. But you can see the growth since the first rover. In one is more like the size of a golf cart perhaps, again it has the special wheels. So that 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 the long neck. Thats where the cameras are for its movement around, enabling scienti scientists here on earth to go where its going and see what its seeing. And it has other scientific devices on it. And again a mars weather station to determine the ambient environment, the wind, what are the temperatures at different times during the martian day. This is a more capable geologist on the surface of mars. One mimicking some of the capability that a human being has. Spirit and opportunity were launched to mars in the year 2004. So now well have a look at the third rover on the surface of mars. And this one landed in 2012. And is still working today. S in a model of curiousty. Curiousty has just 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 ash itle space craft. And it was called 7 minutes of terror to get it down to the as far as of mars without it being damaged. But it was a very successful landing. Curiousty has been roaming for kilometers on the surface of mars. Its studyings plaeg. Its on the rim of a creator. Down into the creator to have pennsylvania look at what the surface geology is like there. And the main mission of cursety is to follow the water. Scientists have a lot of evidence that at some point in the evidence 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 cursety 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 path finder 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 onboard. 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 niece rovers, because they sense that they are surrogates for us and maybe path finders for us. They are doing the initial reconnaissance of the surface of mars so 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 harbor moisture, if not actual water. And this pattern copies what we did with the moon. We flew missions past the moon but then we set a lander on the moon to determine how strong is the soil. Can something land there or sink in . If humans are going to land, will they be able to walk on the moon . I think we are 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 day there is 24 hours and 39 minutes. The day is just enough longer than ours where each day the workers start 30 minutes later. The days creep ahead for them. So when the Museum Opened in 1976, we were wrapping up a golden age of human exploration with the Apollo Missions to the moon. And we were launching into the first golden age of planetary exploration with the missions of the 1970s to mars and to the the outer planets. Were now in another golden age of planetary exploration, particularly on mars with curiousty 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 at any time visiting our wentz. Cspan. Org history. All week we are featuring American History tv programs as a preview of whats available every we could on cspan3. The lectures in history, american artifacts, real america, the civil war, oral histories, the presidency, and special event coverage by our nations history. Enjoy American History tv now and every weekend on cspan3. And here is a look at our primetime schedule on the cspan networks. Starting at 8 eastern on cspan, remarks from aflcio president on the state of the Labor Movement and involvement in the 2020 elections. On cspan2, its book tv with authors who are written recent best sellers. On cspan3 its American History tv with programs on marijuana regulation in the u. S. 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 aefrs 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 conflict surrounding an opinion piece she coshore authored in the philadelphia enquirer. I think this is what roughled a lot of people, that not all cultures are alike. We were trying to tout this code of behavior as being one particularly functional and suited to our current technological democratic capitalist society. And comparing it to other cultures which, you know, arent as functional. And we gave some examples. And that immediately caused a fire storm. Sunday night at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan2s q a. The. Three former apollo era flight controllers and engineers discussed the design and development of the lunar module and how it