Original subtitles

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: 250 miles overhead,

traveling 17,000 miles per hour...

...longer than a football field...

...the weight of a fully loaded jumbo jet,

one of humankind's greatest feats of engineering.

The International Space Station.

KWATSI ALIBARUHO: It is, to date,

the largest structure that we have built in space.

♪ ♪

And it's a peacetime structure.

(man speaking on radio)

NARRATOR: The I.S.S. is the longest continuously inhabited structure

in space.

A one-of-a-kind laboratory.

WENDY LAWRENCE: It's a place where you could do scientific research

in a very unique environment,

that of microgravity.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: But to reach this point required

a construction project like no other.

Pieces built across the globe.

MICHAEL LÓPEZ-ALEGRÍA: They don't get put together

until they're in space traveling

at 17,000-plus miles per hour.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: And it's the most dangerous place

humans have ever attempted to live and survive.

CHRIS CASSIDY: In a space mission, the bad guy

is the environment.

The environment is trying to kill you.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Outside the thin metal walls, a merciless vacuum,

extreme temperatures,

and a long, long way to terra firma.

LUCA PARMITANO: You are constantly at risk of dying

for a multitude of reason.

♪ ♪

ROBERT CURBEAM: The systems to keep us alive there

are working pretty much at the limit of physics.

♪ ♪

MIKE FINCKE: We're always asking ourselves,

"What's the next worst failure? What could go wrong next?"

We need to be able to handle those things when they happen,

because in space, it will happen.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: This is the extraordinary story

of building the I.S.S.,

a perilous endeavor requiring

ingenuity, vision,

and, at times, nerves of steel.

♪ ♪

"Operation Space Station:

High-Risk Build."

Right now, on "NOVA."

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: February 10, 2001.

250 miles above the surface of the Earth.

Astronauts Tom Jones and Robert "Beamer" Curbeam

prepare for an extravehicular activity.

A spacewalk.

Just over two years into construction

of the International Space Station,

the structure is far from complete.

The space shuttle Atlantis has brought up a new component:

the laboratory module Destiny.

Tom and Beamer need to connect vital life support systems

to enable astronauts to live and work in the lab.

They are working in a lethally dangerous environment,

and suddenly, something goes wrong.

♪ ♪

A coolant valve fails,

spewing toxic ammonia crystals

into the vacuum of space.

CURBEAM (over radio): I'm getting a lot of ice.

WOMAN: Mm-hmm.

CURBEAM: There's ammonia all over the place.

NARRATOR: Years of training

mean Beamer remains calm,

but it's a serious problem.

JONES (over radio): Need a hand, Beam?

CURBEAM: Yeah, I am going to need one.

BOB CASTLE: We don't know exactly what the leak rate was,

but I knew we didn't have long.

NARRATOR: The next few moments will determine

the fate of a $150 billion multinational space endeavor...

JONES (over radio): Hey, Houston, Atlantis. Do you copy?

We're having a hard time with the leak.

NARRATOR: ...shape the future of human spaceflight...

MAN (over radio): Stand by, uh, we're discussing, uh, next steps.

NARRATOR: ...and, critically, determine whether the astronauts live

or die.

♪ ♪

Constructing a high-tech science laboratory

in the harsh, unforgiving environment of space,

hurtling around the Earth at 17,000 miles per hour,

might seem like a crazy thing to do.

But a structure as big and complex

as the International Space Station

could never be launched fully assembled.

♪ ♪

It meant a massive engineering challenge:

connecting modules in low Earth orbit

by hand.

♪ ♪

It's the culmination of years of planning

that began shortly after the Cold War space race...

...when East and West space programs

had competed to demonstrate technological superiority.

(device beeping, man talking on radio)

ALIBARUHO: So many of the earlier programs

were fueled not just by science,

but they were fueled as much by geopolitical competition.

NARRATOR: In the end, the Soviets lose the moon race,

so they pivot toward something more enduring:

a long-term human presence in space.

Setting out to master living and working in orbit,

in 1986, they launch Mir,

the world's first modular space station.

(crowd shouting and cheering)

But by the early '90s,

the chaotic collapse of the Soviet Union

had dealt a serious blow to those ambitions.

(crowd chanting)

LAWRENCE: There was a concern at the time

that some of the Russian scientists

who had expertise in the area of developing nuclear weapons

might take that expertise to other countries.

(crowd shouting)

NARRATOR: To avoid a dangerous new arms race,

America has a radical idea

to keep Russian scientists engaged

in peaceful work:

a collaboration with huge ambition.

LAWRENCE: The Soviet Union had been our enemies.

We had been trained to go to war against them.

But now, suddenly, new tasking.

They're not enemies anymore, they're partners.

(camera shutters clicking)

NARRATOR: In 1993,

the United States, Russia,

Japan, Canada, and several European nations

agree to merge their human spaceflight programs

into a collective effort...

...the International Space Station.

ALIBARUHO: It's huge, and it's got so much technology,

and it's got so many moving parts.

LÓPEZ-ALEGRÍA: There are modules being built

all over the world, in different countries

with different languages,

different alphabets, different measuring systems.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: A Russian-designed life support module based on Mir

will form the anchor.

Over time, it will be extended with 15 more modules.

MIKE FINCKE: We had to figure out how to put Soviet designs

with these American, Japanese, European design together,

and then we couldn't even test them together on the ground.

LÓPEZ-ALEGRÍA: They don't get put together until they're in space,

traveling at 17,000-plus miles per hour.

MIKE FINCKE: And they had to work the first time,

and that only works on these science fiction shows,

not really in real engineering.

LAWRENCE: Building and assembling things that have been built

in numerous countries around the world,

sometimes using different measurement systems,

what could go wrong? (laughs)

NARRATOR: 15 nations collaborate across a complex construction schedule.

The ambition for this orbiting station

is unprecedented.

LAWRENCE: We very quickly realized,

we don't speak each other's languages very well,

but we do have a language in common:

the language of spaceflight.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: It will require more than 40 missions

to piece together its many modules.

Exterior trusses to provide structural support.

Radiator panels to dissipate heat.

And around an acre of solar panels

to power the station.

All of which must be carefully assembled in microgravity

by astronauts working

in one of the harshest environments known to humankind.

ANNOUNCER: Main engines start.

Six engines up and running.

And liftoff.

The International Space Station is underway.

NARRATOR: The bold venture kicks off on November 20, 1998,

from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

A Proton-K rocket carries the Russian component Zarya,

meaning sunrise, into orbit.

ANNOUNCER: And liftoff of the space shuttle Endeavour.

NARRATOR: 16 days later,

the U.S. Unity module joins Zarya.

(man speaking Russian on radio)

NARRATOR: But it's not until 20 months later,

with the arrival of Zvezda, which means star,

that life support systems and living quarters

are finally added.

On November 2, 2000,

the I.S.S. welcomes its first residents...

MAN: The first crew of the International Space Station

has reached their home.

NARRATOR: ...NASA astronaut Bill Shepherd

and cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev,

marking the beginning of continuous habitation

onboard the orbiting outpost.

Three spacewalks the following month

configure power systems and add a framework of trusses

to support the station's solar arrays and radiators.

But things are only just getting started.

MAN: Great news, Mario-- go for docking.

NARRATOR: The space station's early success

is followed by a sobering truth:

building a home in orbit

is as dangerous as it is ambitious.

And with every new addition,

the risks grow.

♪ ♪

Its next module, Destiny, an American-built laboratory,

will lay the foundation

for U.S. scientific research aboard the station.

Its installation falls to two first-time spacewalkers,

TOPGUN pilot Robert "Beamer" Curbeam and Tom Jones.

MAN (over radio): The thermal cover is down,

so you can go ahead and egress.

JONES: I think it's a great day to go and do a spacewalk.

So, uh, Beamer, when you're ready...

CURBEAM (voiceover): When you're first starting and you're going out the hatch,

your first thought is,

"I want to make sure that I get this right,

that I do everything right."

NARRATOR: While their crewmate Marsha Ivins

uses the shuttle's robotic arm

to maneuver the 16-ton Destiny module into position,

the spacewalking pair will assist

with its attachment to Unity

and integration with the rest of the station.

This is when the game starts,

and you've got to be serious about it.

It's time to go to work.

♪ ♪

JONES (over radio): Beamer, K bolts are complete.

You have a go to head on to the lab.

CURBEAM: Roger that.

NARRATOR: One of their primary tasks

is to connect Destiny's coolant lines

to the space station's cooling system

to regulate the onboard temperature.

Heat doesn't dissipate in space the way it would here.

It just stays there.

And if it just stays there,

you're gonna probably overheat whatever you have.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Every 45 minutes,

as the I.S.S. orbits the planet,

its exterior is exposed to direct sunlight,

raising its temperature

to a blistering 250 degrees Fahrenheit.

Then, as the station slips into the Earth's shadow,

the temperature plummets 500 degrees

to minus 250.

♪ ♪

To combat these wild temperature extremes,

the space station's cooling system

uses loops of mechanically pumped fluid.

(liquid flowing)

Inside U.S. modules,

circulating water transfers heat

to an external loop filled with liquid ammonia.

Which then passes through three waffle-shaped panels

on the station's exterior

to radiate the heat into space.

It's this pressurized ammonia loop

that Robert Curbeam needs to connect to Destiny.

JONES (over radio): Beamer, as soon as, uh, you get, uh, on the lab,

you're going to be removing the four fluid caps,

checking for ammonia crystals.

CURBEAM: Okay, great.

NARRATOR: The pressurized system

keeps the ammonia in liquid form.

Any crystals forming around pipes or connections

are evidence of leaks.

At Johnson Space Center in Houston,

lead flight director Bob Castle keeps watch over Tom and Beamer.

CASTLE: When he's got the suit on, Bob's completely fine.

But one or two breaths of pure ammonia

and you will very likely die within minutes.

Everyone watches the systems on the station

and on the shuttle

to make sure that everything

is still working the way it should be.

NARRATOR: While the team knows what's expected of them,

in space, any number of things can go wrong.

CURBEAM (over radio): Hold on.

I've got a little bit of ammonia coming out of there.

Some ice crystals.

(voiceover): When I actually removed the hose,

I saw a lot more crystals

growing all around the two orifices.

And I knew I had a problem.

(over radio): I'm getting a lot of ice.

WOMAN: Mm-hmm.

CURBEAM: There's ammonia all over the place.

NARRATOR: An automatic shut-off valve has failed.

JONES (over radio): Need a hand, Beam?

CURBEAM: Yeah, I am going to need one.

I felt like I was working in a blizzard,

because there was so much ammonia coming out.

CASTLE: Beamer immediately reported,

"Oh, it's spewing all over the place."

And then my counterpart Andy Algate said,

"We see the accumulator going down."

JONES (over radio): Hey, Houston, Atlantis-- do you copy?

We're having a hard time with the leak.

MAN: And stand by, uh, we're discussing,

uh, next steps that we need to do.

NARRATOR: Without its coolant,

the Destiny module would be uninhabitable,

potentially jeopardizing the entire mission

of the space station.

ALIBARUHO: That heat must be ejected

from the spacecraft eventually, or else

you will burn up the spacecraft and the people inside of it.

♪ ♪

CASTLE: We don't know exactly what the leak rate was,

but I knew we didn't have long.

NARRATOR: Beamer needs to find the shut-off valve upstream

and turn it off.

CURBEAM: I did find very quickly

that it was going to be a lot harder than I thought.

NARRATOR: The valve is stuck.

When I tried to close it, it didn't close.

I tried again-- it didn't close.

They said it was gonna be about 25 pounds of force.

I can tell you--

I've spent a lot of time in the gym--

it was not 25 pounds of force.

It was much, much more.

I tried to close it again.

And finally,

after four or five tries, I got to close it.

JONES (over radio): You just pulled the bail?

CURBEAM: Yes, and that stopped the leak.

JONES: Very good, Beam.

Good idea.

NARRATOR: Mission Control breathes a sigh of relief.

With the leak stopped,

the astronauts can connect Destiny's cooling lines

to the station.

(radio static hisses)

The I.S.S. is safe.

JONES (on radio): What's next?

NARRATOR: But now Beamer is covered in toxic ammonia.

CASTLE: Sooner or later, he's gotta get out of the suit.

And sooner or later,

he's gotta come back in the cabin

and, and expose the outside of the suit to his crewmates.

Who are not interested in dying horrible deaths.

CURBEAM: I thought to myself, "What are they gonna do with me?"

You know, now that I have this toxin

on the outside of the suit.

I knew that the procedure to go back into the spacecraft

was going to change, I just didn't know how.

NARRATOR: Tom wipes the toxic crystals off his crewmate's space suit

using a brush in their E.V.A. kit.

CURBEAM (over radio): Concentrate on the right side.

That would be the side that got sprayed the worst.

JONES: Okay.

NARRATOR: But before he can reenter the space station,

Beamer must burn the last remaining traces of ammonia

off his suit

in the baking heat of the sun.

(boy singing in Latin)

CURBEAM: The amazing thing about the procedure

to help me decontaminate the outside of my space suit

was that it gave me the opportunity

to just sit in the sun and watch the Earth go by

for 45 minutes.

(boy singing)

Which was awesome,

and it was incredible-- I loved it.

And you see the Gobi Desert,

you see all the different parts of Asia,

you see the Himalayas to the south,

you see a little bit of cloud layer there.

(boy singing)

And you just bask in it.

(boy and chorus singing softly)

(singing ends)

NARRATOR: Over the next four days,

undeterred by the experience,

Beamer clocks up 12 more hours of spacewalks

to ensure Destiny is safely attached.

JENNIFER BUCHLI: The Destiny module is what we refer to as the U.S. Lab.

It's really our core lab capability.

So, we have freezers,

we have different payload facilities

to conduct science.

This is sort of the heart of the U.S. segment.

NARRATOR: Destiny is designed for microgravity research

in a variety of fields, from life sciences

to materials science and more.

Microgravity is not zero gravity.

The Earth still exerts a pull on the I.S.S.

This pull is what keeps the station in orbit,

circling the Earth in constant free fall.

Creating an environment

that allows scientists

to observe phenomena that cannot be replicated on Earth.

But the instruments on board are also designed

to put our own planet under the microscope.

BUCHLI: We have a really unique capability

to look down on Earth.

Our orbital path takes us around 90%

of the Earth's inhabited surfaces.

So, this is what allows us,

over time, to see how the Earth is changing.

♪ ♪

How weather patterns are changing

and affecting our environment.

How the forest canopy is changing

and the carbon cycle of Earth.

You have these instruments

all on the same platform going over the same area.

And so, you get a global picture

of the health of what's happening to our planet.

NARRATOR: The new Destiny module not only provides

a platform for scientific research,

it also increases the habitable volume

of the space station by over 40%.

A welcome addition for those

building and living on the I.S.S.

After the installation of the Destiny lab module,

it was fast and furious.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Over the next 21 months, eight successful missions

add the Canadian Space Agency's Canadarm 2,

a 57-foot-long robotic arm;

Quest, which will serve as the primary airlock for spacewalks;

the S0 truss,

forming the station's backbone;

and radiator trusses to help dissipate heat.

All of this made possible

by an iconic spacecraft.

♪ ♪

ALIBARUHO: The I.S.S.

could not have been built without the space shuttle.

Full stop.

NARRATOR: But in February 2003,

after 16 successful shuttle missions to the space station,

disaster strikes.

MAN (over radio): Columbia, Houston-- comm check.

Columbia, Houston-- U.H.F. comm check.

♪ ♪

ANNOUNCER: Flight controllers here in Mission Control

have declared a contingency,

as communications was lost with the space shuttle Columbia

during its descent from orbit en route to landing

at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

NARRATOR: After more than two weeks conducting experiments in orbit,

space shuttle Columbia disintegrates on reentry,

killing all seven crew members.

CURBEAM: Those are my friends, you know?

I knew them personally.

I knew them professionally.

Some of them were in my class.

I miss them every day.

(man speaking on radio)

CURBEAM: It caused us to lose seven very incredible people.

And believe me, they were incredible.

(woman speaking on radio)

MAN (over radio): This is amazing.

It's really getting, uh, it's really bright out there.

MAN: Yup.

Yeah, you definitely don't want to be outside now.

CURBEAM: The Columbia disaster, we later found out,

was due to foam shedding off of the external tank.

NARRATOR: During launch,

a falling piece of insulating foam

struck the shuttle's left wing,

damaging the thermal protection tiles

designed to shield it from extreme heat during reentry.

And what that did was,

that allowed very hot plasma to get inside of the wing

and basically melt the inner structure

of the spacecraft.

NARRATOR: Test simulations back on the ground

reveal the devastating impact

of this seemingly small, briefcase-sized chunk of foam

traveling at high speed.

All shuttles are grounded

while a full investigation is carried out,

effectively halting construction of the I.S.S.

The only way to reach the orbiting outpost

is via Russian Soyuz capsules

launched from Baikonur, Kazakhstan.

To conserve vital supplies like oxygen and water on the I.S.S.,

the crew is reduced from three to just two.

Commander Gennady Padalka from Russia

and flight engineer Mike Fincke from the United States

form the two-person crew of Expedition 9.

MIKE FINCKE: I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

It's not a super-wealthy city,

but we have all kinds of resources for education.

So, I went to the planetarium,

I went to the library, I learned,

and I knew that I wanted to become an astronaut.

I met my wife at Johnson Space Center,

here at NASA,

and like men and women do,

we fell in love

and we started a family,

and I still hadn't flown yet.

And then the opportunity came up.

(people talking in background)

RENITA FINCKE: When I married him, I knew

that he wanted to go into space.

And so,

I was always going to support his dream,

even though it was going to disrupt

our planning for life on the ground.

NARRATOR: Mike spent eight years training before this mission,

a mission scheduled to last six months.

It's been his ultimate ambition,

but one that involves personal sacrifice

for himself and his wife, Renita.

(baby crying, people talking over radio)

RENITA FINCKE (over radio): It's a girl!

Boy, she sounds upset.

RENITA FINCKE: Oh, she's got some lungs on her.

Well, we heard her all the way up here.

RENITA FINCKE: It was about two months

into his six-month mission that we had the baby.

NARRATOR: For the first time in history,

an American astronaut is in space

when his child is born.

It will be four months before Mike returns to Earth

to hold his daughter for the first time.

During his absence, she will grow.

But Mike's body will also undergo changes.

While his new baby is developing muscles quickly,

Mike's muscles will deteriorate

because of microgravity.

Renita and fellow biomedical engineers

at Johnson Space Center

research ways to overcome this challenge.

RENITA FINCKE: As you're up there longer and using your muscles less,

you're going to need to find ways to counteract

all the changes that are happening.

NARRATOR: Without exercise,

astronauts' muscle mass can fall by up to 50%

over a six-month mission.

RENITA FINCKE: We provide crew members

with aerobic exercise, as well as resistance exercise.

So, we're able to build muscle as we're exercising,

so that we can make sure that everybody is fit

for doing what their duties are in space.

NARRATOR: In their role as the station's caretakers,

the crew must occasionally carry out

physically exhausting work

on the outside of the space station.

For Mike and Gennady,

this poses an additional challenge,

since, for safety,

spacewalks require two crew members.

This means leaving the I.S.S.

completely unoccupied during the operation.

MIKE FINCKE: One of our planned spacewalks was to travel to the very end

of the space station,

which is the very aft end of Zvezda.

NARRATOR: The plan is to install equipment

in preparation for the arrival of a cargo vehicle

from the European Space Agency.

The two spacewalkers

undertake a tightly choreographed procedure.

But no matter how much they plan and practice,

in space, there's always room for the unexpected.

MIKE FINCKE: We're always asking ourselves,

"What's the next worst failure? What could go wrong next?"

We need to be able to handle those kind of things

when they happen,

because in space, it will happen.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Two hours into the spacewalk,

it does.

♪ ♪

Gennady and I were just working away,

doing what we needed to do.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: But as they worked,

they were inadvertently causing a problem.

♪ ♪

MIKE FINCKE: Our space suits were providing

a very little bit of momentum

towards pushing the space station.

♪ ♪

So, we were actually pushing it to go out of orientation.

(radio crackling)

NARRATOR: The two astronauts working at one end of the station

have caused the entire structure to tip.

How could this happen?

♪ ♪

The stability of the I.S.S. and its orientation,

or attitude,

should be maintained through the use of four gyroscopes.

A gyroscope is a wheel or disc spinning on its axis.

The heavier the disc and the faster it spins,

the more stable the gyroscope.

That's because a spinning disc

creates momentum perpendicular to the plane of rotation,

which makes it resist tipping over.

Embedded in the I.S.S.

are four huge gyroscopes pointed in different directions,

with 220-pound wheels spinning

at over 100 revolutions a second,

usually enough to keep the whole station

from rotating in any direction.

The space station constantly experiences forces,

from solar winds or from the Earth's gravity.

If left unchecked,

they would cause the space station

to tilt or tumble.

The gyros counteract those movements.

But they can only compensate so much.

And they're already close to their limit

when Mike and Gennady

push the station out of alignment.

So, the space station went into a mode that said,

"Look, I can't control myself anymore.

"I'm not out of control,

but I'm gonna go into" what we call free drift.

So, the space station just started to drift

and point up, point up.

And there we are,

and we looked up, and we were

in a very unusual attitude, and there was,

planet Earth was zooming below.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Holding a desired orientation in space

is crucial to help keep the station's solar arrays

locked onto the sun.

This isn't just about efficiency.

It's about survival.

♪ ♪

MIKE FINCKE: We're completely off the grid,

and in order to keep it powered,

we're collecting as much solar energy as we can

when we're on the light side of the planet.

NARRATOR: When the station slips into darkness,

for 45 minutes every orbit,

solar-charged batteries become crucial for powering

critical life-support systems.

♪ ♪

With the solar panels unable to charge

the I.S.S.'s batteries,

to conserve power, Mission Control turns off

non-essential systems.

♪ ♪

The only way to get the space station

back into the correct attitude

is with the use of thrusters...

...located exactly where Mike and Gennady are working.

(radio crackling)

But there's a new problem.

Gennady and I were working and talking to our,

our Russian colleagues on the ground,

and all of a sudden, it became very quiet.

(radio crackling, transmission breaking up)

NARRATOR: The power-saving protocols

have inadvertently cut off all communication

between the astronauts and Ground Control.

♪ ♪

(radio crackling)

There was no one else to give us instructions.

And Gennady and I said, "Well, what are we going to do?"

NARRATOR: Mission Control has a terrible dilemma.

To restore attitude,

they must activate the thrusters.

But with no way to communicate with Gennady and Mike,

flight controllers have no idea

whether their astronauts are in the firing line.

ALIBARUHO: If a crew member was going to be moving by them,

that crew member would be blasted with hot gas

or contaminated

because the gas that the thrusters used

was extremely toxic,

extremely, extremely toxic-- deadly.

MIKE FINCKE: We don't want to be anywhere near that action.

If we were there in our space suits

when the thrusters went off,

we would've experienced the, the thrill of being melted.

NARRATOR: Suspended hundreds of miles above Earth,

the two spacewalkers cling to an empty, drifting space station,

unsure what to do next.

♪ ♪

As the planet turns slowly beneath them,

Mike scans the horizon

and spots something

that provides a spark of hope against the void.

MIKE FINCKE: We saw where we were going.

We were headed over Greece, and headed north and east,

so, we knew we were going to be over

what we call a Russian ground site.

(static crackling)

NARRATOR: After several minutes of silence...

(man speaking Russian on radio)

NARRATOR: ...success.

Roscosmos manages to reestablish backup communications.

MIKE FINCKE: We heard Moscow.

They said, "Hey, guys, you know,

"the space station is not in good control.

"We need to reestablish control.

"We highly suggest-- in fact, we tell you

"to move away from those thrusters.

It's not in your interest to stay there."

♪ ♪

So, we had to go hand-over-hand

to move away from the thrusters to be safe

from any plume damage or any heat

that was being produced.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: With the pair clear,

the thrusters are fired.

♪ ♪

Attitude reestablished.

♪ ♪

MIKE FINCKE: It was a good view.

We got to look at planet Earth as we regained orientation

from being pitched up all the way

being pitched down.

We got the chance to just sit there

and wait as the station regained its orientation.

Then they said, "Okay, we're back to normal work.

"Get back out there and finish your job.

Stop slacking." (laughs)

NARRATOR: On October 23, 2004,

after traveling more than 78 million miles

aboard the International Space Station,

Expedition 9 hands over command of the outpost

to the crew of Expedition 10

and makes preparations to return to Earth.

(talking indistinctly)

By the end of the mission,

I was kind of missing things back on planet Earth.

I was missing my family-- it got bigger

while I was gone, we had a baby.

And I knew I had to go back home.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: For almost two years,

I.S.S. has been in stasis.

With no way of getting new modules up,

its completion relies on one crucial factor:

NASA's return to flight.

(birds chirping)

(helicopter blades whirring)

Less than a year after Mike's return to Earth,

following an overhaul of NASA's safety practices,

the space shuttle program is reinstated,

with the first assignment a mission to the I.S.S.

(crowd cheering)

On July 26, 2005,

the crew of Discovery prepares for STS-114.

(on radio): Okay, Eileen, our long wait may be over.

So, on behalf of the many millions of people

who believe so deeply in what we do,

good luck, Godspeed,

and have a little fun up there.

ZEBULON SCOVILLE: STS-114 was our return to flight

after the Columbia tragedy.

We had made mistakes,

and we were ready to fly again

with the solutions

to be able to show

that we belonged in space,

and we could keep going.

MAN (on radio): Okay, here we go.

ALIBARUHO: The fact is,

we had to have the space shuttle

to finish building the International Space Station.

NARRATOR: For mission specialist Wendy Lawrence,

STS-114 will be her first visit to the I.S.S.

and fourth and final venture into space.

(man speaking on radio)

NARRATOR: The flight will carry supplies to the station

and prove that the shuttle program

is safe enough to continue.

(man speaking indistinctly on radio)

We're ready to go.

ANNOUNCER: T-minus ten seconds.

Go for main engines start.

Seven, six, five--

three engines up and burning.

Three...

♪ ♪

LAWRENCE: Main engines lit off,

solid rocket boosters lit off.

You literally feel like you're in your slingshot.

You know when you're leaving the launch pad.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: In the wake of the Columbia disaster,

NASA implements a series of new safety protocols:

a redesign of the shuttle's external tank

to reduce the potential for foam shedding;

installation of multiple cameras to cover the launch

and check for any anomalies;

and an enhanced in-orbit inspection of the shuttle

using new cameras and sensors.

♪ ♪

EILEEN COLLINS (over radio): Houston, Discovery.

We have a good plus-X maneuver.

NARRATOR: Discovery reaches orbit,

apparently without issue.

LAWRENCE: Flight day two for us

was the initial on-orbit inspection.

ALIBARUHO: We used the shuttle robotic arm

and the new sensor package to examine

the structural integrity of the thermal protection system

to see if there was any damage that may have occurred.

NARRATOR: Meanwhile, on the ground,

analysts scour footage of the launch

and discover several troubling incidents.

♪ ♪

A large bird hitting the shuttle's fuel tank.

♪ ♪

A small piece of thermal tile detaching.

And a large section of foam falling from the external tank.

Could history be repeating itself?

We looked at the side of the vehicle,

we looked around our nose cap area, as well.

Didn't see any damage, so we were, like, "Okay.

"Not great to hear that foam came off.

Doesn't look like it hit a critical area."

NARRATOR: The inspection isn't conclusive, though.

They need a closer look.

And to do that,

they'll need the help of the I.S.S. crew

and a shuttle maneuver never before attempted.

LAWRENCE: We came to 600 feet below the station.

We basically did a back flip.

NARRATOR: Inside Discovery,

commander Eileen Collins initiates the maneuver

to pitch the shuttle 360 degrees.

The shuttle was performing

what we called the rendezvous pitch maneuver

to allow the I.S.S. crew

to take scores of high-resolution photographs.

NARRATOR: The crew onboard the I.S.S.

have a window of just 93 seconds,

when the underside is in the sun,

to take high-resolution images of the shuttle's heat shield.

SCOVILLE: Those were then downlinked

to engineers to be able to look for any damage

or misconfiguration of those tiles.

LAWRENCE: As we came out of our back flip,

we got to watch space station

come up over the tail of our orbiter, Discovery.

And I called that our "Star Wars" moment,

because it was just so cool.

It was, like, here's this big spacecraft

right next to mine, rising up over the tail.

NARRATOR: While the shuttle crew

unloads supplies onto the station,

engineers on the ground pore over

the images of the shuttle,

searching for anything out of the ordinary.

♪ ♪

(camera shutter clicks)

SCOVILLE: Engineers identified that there was

a small piece of gap filler.

What this is is a piece of fabric

that is meant to fill spaces

in between the tiles on the orbiter.

This gap filler had actually stuck up

into the surrounding area

above the outer mold line of the orbiter.

So, there were two of these gap fillers

sticking out from in between the tiles

on the underside of Discovery.

Something they'd never seen before.

SCOVILLE: The problem with this is,

as this reenters the Earth's atmosphere,

this could actually cause the smooth flow

to hit that gap filler, and then become turbulent,

which creates downstream heating

and puts extra heat stress on the orbiter tiles.

LAWRENCE: The flow might come back together in a way

where it now becomes almost like a blowtorch,

and it might burn through

one of the thermal protection system tiles.

NARRATOR: This could turn the shuttle

into a fireball.

The gap fillers protect the tiles

from vibrations on launch,

but are not needed for reentry.

LAWRENCE: The decision was made

that these two gap fillers really need to be removed

before we come back for landing.

MAN (on radio): ...one hour and ten minutes, the I.M.U. aligned...

LAWRENCE: The underside of the space shuttle orbiter

was not designed to have astronauts there.

There were no handholds whatsoever.

Really, the only way for us

to have done the gap filler removal

was to have a crew member on the end of a robotic arm.

(man speaking indistinctly on radio)

LAWRENCE: I got to fly the station robotic arm

for that E.V.A.

Steve Robinson was on the end of the arm,

and I flew him to where no astronaut had ever been before:

on the underside of the space shuttle orbiter,

beneath the belly.

NARRATOR: Once Steve locates the gap fillers,

he must remove them.

ROBINSON (over radio): My brakes set?

MAN: The brakes are on, you're a go.

♪ ♪

MAN: Nicely done, Steve.

♪ ♪

ROBINSON: Okay, that came out very easily.

Probably even less force.

It looks like this big patient is cured.

MAN: Copy that.

NARRATOR: After a two-week,

5.8-million-mile journey in space,

on August 9, 2005,

Discovery sets off for home.

LAWRENCE (over radio): ...circuit breakers coming back in.

Okay, we did see that...

NARRATOR: Only now will the team find out if the fix worked.

ANNOUNCER: Discovery's altitude now 72 miles.

Speed 17,000 miles per hour.

And now all of a sudden, you're coming back to gravity,

something you've spent virtually your entire life in,

and it's not pleasant.

NARRATOR: The shuttle's immense speed

as it reenters Earth's atmosphere

superheats the air, tearing molecules apart,

creating a plasma.

Temperatures outside soar

to a blistering 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

ANNOUNCER: As Discovery descends into the atmosphere,

it will perform a series of four banks

to dissipate speed.

NARRATOR: Well past the point of no return,

all the seven crew members can do now

is trust that their inspection was thorough

and the repair is sufficient.

MAN (over radio): Discovery, Houston.

Energy, ground track, and nav are all go.

Your touchdown is 2600 at 205.

COLLINS: And Discovery copies, thank you.

♪ ♪

Houston, Discovery has the runway in sight.

MAN: Copy runway.

♪ ♪

ANNOUNCER: Main gear touchdown.

Nose gear touchdown.

And Discovery is home.

SCOVILLE: Let me tell you,

when Discovery touched down on the runway,

we knew that it had been a flawless reentry profile.

There was a sense of both relief and accomplishment

of all the teams that had shown

that we could again fly the space shuttle safely.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: With the shuttle program reinstated,

construction of the I.S.S. can now resume.

♪ ♪

Over the next six years,

19 shuttle missions, and 94 spacewalks,

numerous parts and modules

are bolted onto the International Space Station.

Among them Columbus,

a cutting-edge science laboratory from Europe.

The Japanese Kibo laboratory,

with an exterior facility to conduct Earth observation,

communication, and materials science research.

The Poisk Mini-Research Module 2,

Russia's first major addition since 2001.

And the Tranquility module,

with its now world-famous observation cupola.

♪ ♪

In May 2011, the I.S.S.

is finally complete,

a $150 billion space laboratory.

♪ ♪

LAWRENCE: It was a milestone many, many, many people

had been working to

to achieve its original goal,

which, to be a place where you could do scientific research

in a very unique environment, that of microgravity.

MIKE FINCKE: We've opened some of the secrets of the universe,

all the way from science and physics

to how to work together as humans.

How to plan and overcome difficulties together.

♪ ♪

LAWRENCE: When we humans really want to,

we can take that proverbial sword

and we can truly beat it into a plowshare.

We can do some pretty remarkable things together, peacefully,

for the benefit of all humankind.

♪ ♪

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