All language subtitles for Historys.Greatest.Machines.with.Dolph.Lundgren.S01E08.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

[intense music]

- We've all heard this advice,
don't reinvent the wheel.

Well, what if reinventing it
turns the world upside down?

Because sometimes a new machine
can change the whole game.

Tonight, the super structure

that makes our survival
in space possible.

- They're in zero gravity.

They're working out
with the equivalent

of 600 pounds of weight.

- How about the garage-born tech

that cracks the
code on computers?

- We have 21-year-old Steve Jobs

and his buddy Steve Wozniak
in Jobs's parents' garage

building what Wozniak considers
to be his masterpiece.

- And Henry Ford

revolutionizes the idea
of what a car can be.

- By 1925, every single person
that's working on the line

to build the Model T
can also afford one.

This is a game changer.

- I'm Dolph Lundgren.

On screen, I'm all
about the action.

But off screen, I have
degrees in engineering.

I even studied at MIT.

I learned that machines
and the people behind them

can transform the world.

Join me as I explore the
gears, grit, and genius

beyond history's
greatest machines.

[graphics whooshing]

In the 15th century,
knowledge is closely guarded,

kept in handwritten manuscripts,

controlled by those in power.

Until a single invention

breaks their stranglehold
on information

and allows ideas to suddenly
spread like wildfire.

- Back in medieval Europe,

reading is basically
a privilege,

belonging to the
aristocracy and the clergy.

Literacy rates across
Europe are not even 10%.

- What illiteracy does

is maintain a centuries-long
power dynamic,

creates a hierarchy
that puts the nobility

and religious leaders
at the very top.

- [Don] When the peasantry can't
read,

they can't communicate
opposition.

That means they can't share
ideas of reform far and wide.

This makes them much
easier to control

and preserves the status quo.

- [Dolph] There's a reason
most people don't read.

They can't afford to.

- If you're a standard laborer,

a single book could cost
as much as your wages

for an entire year.

- The price is so
expensive because

every book means

painstakingly
copying it by hand.

Even the Bible is a luxury.

It is too expensive for
an average person to own.

[intense music]

- [Dolph] In 1440,

one man invents a machine
that will change all this.

A German craftsman
you've probably heard of,

Johannes Gutenberg.

- [Lance] Gutenberg comes from a
well off merchant family

in Mainz, Germany,

and their primary business is
minting coins for the church.

- By 1428,

social unrest strikes Mainz
and the surrounding areas.

- Craftsman's guilds are tired

of the economic and
political inequality

at the hands of
the ruling class,

so they lead a revolt

that sends the Gutenberg's
into exile in France.

- [Don] Gutenberg is stripped
of his status and wealth.

He gets a taste of what it's
like to be on the other side.

- [Lance] He sees firsthand,
how knowledge and books

are tightly controlled by the
church and the ruling elite,

and he becomes deeply resentful

that knowledge belongs
to only those with power.

- [Hakeem] So Gutenberg gets an
idea.

What's the barrier to reading?

It's cost and accessibility,

and that's tied to
how books are made.

- [Dolph] Gutenberg's
answer is bold,

to print books on
mass using a press.

- Crude printing presses
exist at the time,

but they're not how we
think of it these days.

You would have to
handcarve from wood

each individual page.

Furthermore, the wood
wears out over time.

[intense music]

- [Dolph] Gutenberg's
printing press

is the size of a workbench,

but weighs over 300 pounds.

You need even pressure
to print clearly,

so he adapts the same kind of
screw press to use at the time

to squeeze olives
and make olive oil.

- The real magic though,
is in the metal letters.

- These metal letters can
be placed into a plate

in whatever
configuration is needed.

- [Hakeem] The type is
assembled line by line

to create an entire page layout.

Combined these metal
letters with ink,

and the page is loaded
onto a heavy plate

which presses
evenly on the paper

delivering the ink
type to the paper.

- It's rapid, it's reliable,

and most importantly, for
mass media, it's cheap.

- [Lance] The full process

takes about two to
three minutes per page,

and that means that a
skilled group of workers

can print 250 to
300 pages in a day.

- [Don] Gutenberg's first
project is of course, the Bible.

It's over 1200 pages long.

Now at that pace, it would
take about five to six days

to complete a copy.

At that time,

it would take a
writer around a year

to hand ink a full
copy of the Bible.

- Gutenberg's Bibles are printed

in this beautiful,
black, gothic typeface.

When they get released,

they look so close to the
original handwritten versions,

people can't tell
the difference.

- [Dolph] But unfortunately
for Gutenberg,

there's no way to
protect his IP.

- His idea is so innovative,
people are eager to steal it.

This was a time before patents,

so pretty much has no protection

as other people move in

to build on what he's done
and steal his invention.

- [Don] So Gutenberg doesn't
profit and dies poor.

But if his goal was to change
the way books are made,

and enable people to read more

and share ideas far and wide,

it's a huge success.

- [Lance] In the decades that
follow, literacy rates soar.

Once less than 10%,
they nearly triple

in some urban areas.

Books are affordable
and widely available

for the first time.

- [Austin] Knowledge can spread
throughout Europe.

It begins with religious tracks

like Martin Luther's
"Ninety-five Theses,"

moves on to scientific documents

like the works of
Copernicus and Galileo.

Pamphlets like Thomas
Paine's "Common Sense,"

help cause the
American Revolution.

- Knowledge equals power,

and it's all possible
because of this machine.

- The printing press
brought ideas to the masses.

Fast forward over 500 years

to the mid 20th century
in Silicon Valley.

The revolution is no
longer about sharing ideas.

It's about creating your own.

[intense music]

- [Don] It's 1967 in Palo
Alto, California.

Bill Hewlett, the co-founder
of Hewlett-Packard,

hears his home phone ring,

and on the other end
is a 12-year-old boy

who is really excited
to talk to him.

- This kid is asking these
extremely specific questions

about frequency counters

for some school project
that he's working on.

The kid really knows his stuff,

and Bill is charmed by him

because he has so much
obvious enthusiasm

for what he's doing.

- He hears in the kid's
voice something special.

Hewlett tells the kid, "When
you're of age and you're ready,

I've got a summer job waiting
for you at my factory."

- [Dolph] That 12-year-old
kid is Steve Jobs,

a computer whiz,

already showing business smarts
that will make him famous.

- [Sami] Less than 10 years
after his call to Bill Hewlett,

we have 21-year-old Steve Jobs
and his buddy Steve Wozniak

in Jobs's parents' garage,

building what Wozniak considers
to be his masterpiece,

a personal computer.

- At this point,

computers have been
enormous mainframe monsters

that take up an entire floor,

like the IBM used by NASA
to put man on the moon.

They were for calculating
the enormous amounts of data

that any large company
needs to process.

- [John] But Jobs has this idea
that he wants to appeal

to more than just hobbyists.

He envisions a society

where everybody has a
computer in their home.

- [Sami] Typically, when you're
creating a product,

what you're doing is you're
trying to fulfill a need,

but this is a market
that doesn't exist yet,

and Steve Jobs wants to
will it into existence.

- Just gonna be very
gradual and very human,

and we'll seduce you into
learning how to use it.

- Essentially, he's following
the "Field of Dreams" rule,

"If you build it,
they will come."

- [Austin] Wozniak works nights

engineering the new computer
basically by himself.

He builds the
circuit board by hand

with no budget
and minimal parts,

always thinking to optimize
for cost and simplicity.

[intense music]

- [Dolph] The result
is the Apple II.

Forget computer
stuff fill a room.

This one's just 15 inches wide,

weighing 11-1/2 pounds.

But the real genius is inside.

- [Don] Inside, Apple II comes

with a built-in
software called Basic.

This is simple
programming language,

and it allows users to
create their own programs

or run commercial software
right out of the box.

It's a big edge.

- [Dolph] This other innovation,
it's built to evolve.

Inside are eight open
slots ready for action.

- [Sami] You can drop in a
printer,

you can drop in a modem,

you can use floppy
discs for extra memory.

It's not just a machine,
it's a foundation.

Woz has essentially
created something

that can grow with you.

- But the real coup de gras,

Woz devises a way to
produce full color graphics.

- [Dolph] The Apple II does

what feels like a magic
trick at the time.

It generates patterns
of black and white dots,

and then the circuitry
already in all color TVs

interprets these
patterns as color.

[intense music]

In June 1977, the Apple
II hits the market.

Computer buffs rush to buy it,

and the inventors get an assist

that helps Apple II
go mainstream.

- Because anyone can develop
software for Apple II,

another company
takes a run at it

and they invent VisiCalc,
the spreadsheet software

and it becomes the
Apple II's killer app.

- [Don] A spreadsheet program
seems so normal to us now,

but it wasn't back then.

It's what changes Apple II

from being something that sits
in the home of a hobbyist,

into something that's sitting
on the desk in every office.

- [Sami] The Apple II still
retails

anywhere from 1,300 to $2,600

depending on how much memory
is put into the computer.

In today's money, that'd
be equivalent to about

anywhere from 6 to $13,000.

- [Dolph] Expensive? Maybe.

But that doesn't stop people
from opening their wallets.

By the end of 1980,

Apple sells over
100,000 Apple II units.

In the coming years, that
number climbs to 6 million.

- [Sami] The Apple II is
more than a computer.

It is essentially
the tip of the spear

for a brand new
technological revolution,

which is personal computers.

- If Gutenberg's Press
made the world literate,

then Apple II helps make
the world computer literate.

It takes this massive
intimidating device

and turns it into something
friendly and accessible.

- In combat, time
is the real enemy,

especially during the Civil War,

when it takes forever to reload
your musket after firing it.

But what if there is something
that could change all that,

a rifle that could
fire again and again,

could it change the
rules of engagement?

Thanks to one young gunsmith,

that's just what happens.

[intense music]

- [Hakeem] It's April 6, 1862,

thousands of
Confederate soldiers

are creeping through the
dense Tennessee woods.

They sneak up on
Ulysses S. Grant's army,

and the forest explodes
with fire and fury.

- [Dolph] The Battle of
Shiloh is about to begin.

- It's a brutal surprise attack.

Grant is struggling to bring
order out of the chaos.

- [John] Grant's
troops are armed

with a front-loading
rifle musket.

The problem with
a rifle musket is,

each time a volley is fired,

it takes something like 20
to 30 seconds to reload it.

- [Don] In the time it takes
you to reload and fire,

your enemy can
close the distance

and you end up with a
bayonet in the chest.

[intense music]

- [Hakeem] The battle lasts for
two days.

And after he receives
reinforcements,

Grant is finally able to
beat the Confederates back.

But the death toll
is astonishing.

- [Dolph] 23,000
are dead or missing.

The carnage teaches both
Confederate and Union leadership

that they need a faster rifle.

Turns out one exists.

- [John] Two years before
the Battle of Shiloh,

Christopher Miner Spencer,
the 27-year-old gunsmith,

patents a rifle that he thinks

is going to change
the nature of warfare.

[intense music]

- [Dolph] The Spencer repeating
rifle holds seven rounds

in a spring-loaded magazine.

Every time the shooter fires,

all he needs to do is the hammer

then pull down the lever
to advance the next round.

[intense music]
[gunshot fires]

- Spencer's rifle uses
preloaded cartridges

that contain the gun powder
as well as the round,

and you load it into
the back of the rifle

- [Hakeem] In the 20 seconds it
takes

for an expert with a
muzzle loader to reload,

Spencer's rifle can
fire seven times.

That's a huge
tactical advantage.

[intense music]

- [Don] By 1861, the Civil
War breaks out,

so he figures the Union
Army's gonna be super excited

to scoop up his new rifle.

- [Dolph] He's wrong.

The Union Army's
bureaucracy moves slowly.

So Spencer takes his
rifle on the road,

demonstrating it personally
to Yankee commanders.

One Colonel John T. Wilder
of Indiana is intrigued.

- [John] Colonel Wilder has seen

what the Spencer
repeating rifle can do,

and he wants it for his unit.

But the army isn't
supplying these weapons,

so he gets his men together
and they pay for it themselves.

[intense music]
[cannons booming]

- [Dolph] In June 1863,
14 months after Shiloh,

Wilder and his men put the
Spencer to the ultimate test

at the Battle of Hoover's Gap.

- [Don] The Confederates are
expecting standard muskets

and small arms.

So they are absolutely stunned

by the rapid firepower
of Wilder's troops.

- [John] Colonel Wilder's unit

armed with the Spencer
repeating rifle

is charged with
advancing into the Gap.

Not only do they do that,

but they manage to
advance another 2 miles

beyond what they
were supposed to.

- One Confederate general
estimates Wilder's brigade

to be five times
larger than his forces.

When in fact,

Wilder's brigade is actually
outnumbered, four to one.

- In the aftermath
of the battle,

Wilder's force now becomes
known as the Lightning Brigade

because they move like lightning
across the battlefield,

and they fight like lions

because they're armed
with the Spencer carbine.

- [MJ] After this dramatic
demonstration

of the effectiveness and the
advantage of the Spencer rifle,

Union officers began
demanding these things

for their own units.

- [Dolph] And yet the rifle

still doesn't gain
much traction.

Union brass worries
it's too expensive,

plus they just ordered thousands
more single-shot rifles.

Spencer can't believe
it, and hatches a plan.

- [Hakeem] In his frustration,

Spencer decides to just go
over all the military's heads

and write directly to their
boss, Abraham Lincoln.

- [Martin] The President is a
veteran.

The President knows how
to handle a firearm,

and Spencer is thinking, "If
I can just get the President

to see what my
rifle is capable of,

well then the Army
will adopt it."

And Lincoln eventually
agrees to see Spencer.

[intense music]

- [Don] On August 18, 1863,

carrying one of his
repeating rifles

and plenty of ammunition,

Spencer arrives
at the White House

and walks straight into
the President's office,

and Lincoln likes what he sees.

- [John] The next day,

Spencer takes Lincoln
to this cornfield,

which is roughly where the
Washington Monument is today,

and they take turns firing
his model 1860 rifle

at a marked piece of
wood as target practice.

- [Martin] After firing the
weapon himself,

the President realizes that
this is a unique design,

that this offers a capability
to Union fighting forces

that the Confederate military
does not have and cannot have.

Lincoln instructs the
ordinance department

to move quickly in
adoption of this weapon.

- The war department ignores
the President's recommendation

because they're concerned
that Spencer's repeating rifle

is gonna lead to unprecedented
demands on ammunition.

- Less than a year later,
after Abraham Lincoln fires

and replaces his
head of procurement,

well, the US Navy puts in a
large order for those rifles,

and the US Army quickly follows.

- [Dolph] Finally, the Spencer
repeating rifle company

ramps up production,

delivering over 100,000
rifles for the US military

over the course of the war.

For mounted cavalry units,

this repeater is a
match made in heaven.

- [MJ] With seven rounds ready
to go,

this gives cavalry
troops a major advantage.

They can ride into battle and
not have to stop to reload.

They can keep moving.
They can keep firing.

They can keep their
enemy on their toes.

- [John] Union Major General
James H. Wilson says

there is no doubt
that the Spencer rifle

is the most effective firearm

ever placed into the
hands of a soldier.

One man armed with this weapon

is as effective as three
with any other arm.

- [Don] In a final bit of irony,

assassin John Wilkes Booth

is armed with a
Spencer carbine rifle

when he is captured and killed.

The very same weapon

Lincoln himself helped
make a wartime standard.

- In the late 1700,

cotton is a problematic
crop for farmers

in the American South.

It's so tough to clean,

that turning a profit
is challenging.

Then the young inventor comes
up with a simple machine

that turns cotton and
the country upside down.

His name, Eli Whitney.

[intense music]

- [MJ] It's 1793, and Eli
Whitney is a guest

at the Mulberry Grove
Plantation in Georgia.

He was traveling
south for a tutor job

that unfortunately fell through.

So when his friend invites
him to stay at a plantation,

he jumps at the idea.

- [Dolph] Whitney
notices right away

that harvesting cotton
is brutally hard work.

- He sees enslaved people

working to separate the
cotton seeds from the fiber.

It's just incredibly
time consuming.

- [MJ] The main cotton
grown in the south

is called short staple cotton.

It's really easy to grow,

but it has these
really sticky seeds

that are really tough to
pull out off the fibers.

You have to do it one by one.

- [Natalia] It could take a
worker one full day

to clean 1 pound of cotton.

His friend, whose family
owns the plantation,

tells him that this
inefficiency is the reason

that cotton will never be
a major crop for the south.

It just takes too
long to process.

- [Austin] He is walking the
grounds,

and then as the story goes,

he sees a cat
attacking a chicken.

[chickens clucking]

- [Hakeem] The chicken is in a
coop that's fenced in,

so the cat is trying in vain

to get at the chicken
through the fence,

but all this cat can
get is a few feathers.

The rest of the chicken is
staying safe in the coop.

[chickens clucking]
[intense music]

- [Dolph] For an inventor,

moments like this can
lead to big things.

- [Hakeem] As Whitney watches
the cat

pulling feathers
out of the coop,

he thinks to himself,

"What if a machine could do
the same thing for cotton?"

[intense music]

- [Dolph] Whitney's
machine is the cotton gin,

and he keeps the design simple

so it's easy to operate
and mass produce.

- [Hakeem] He designs a
system of rotating wire teeth

that can pull cotton
through a mesh.

The seeds can't pass through,
so they're left behind.

- [Austin] After the seeds are
separated,

a cleaning brush separates
the fiber from the mesh.

- [Dolph] The machine itself
is just a small wooden box

about the size of a footlocker.

Whitney wants the
gins to be compact

so you can easily get
them to customers.

- [Hakeem] After perfecting
this prototype,

Eli Whitney forms a partnership
with Phineas Miller,

and together, they patent
the world's first cotton gin.

- [Natalia] Instead of selling
the cotton gins outright,

Whitney and Miller decide
that what they'll do

is install them and then
charge a processing fee.

So Whitney and Miller are the
ones who own the machines.

- [Dolph] It sounds great,
but there's one big problem.

- [Austin] Farmers don't wanna
pay

to subscribe to
someone else's machine.

They wanna own the
device themselves.

- [Dolph] Whitney and
Miller's business is a bust,

but as imitators
flood the market

with their own cotton gins,

cotton production explodes.

- [Hakeem] It's impossible to
overstate

how much cotton
production soars.

The agricultural landscape
of America's deep south

is transformed,

and it positions cotton as a
dominant export of America.

- [Austin] Before
the cotton gin,

the country produces around
3,000 bales of cotton per year.

By 1860, it produces
over 4 million.

- [Dolph] And all this success,

it comes with a
horrible consequence.

- Usually, when an industry
is mechanized in this way,

you see a reduction
in need for manpower.

With the cotton gin,
the reverse happens.

- As more land is clear to
make way for growing cotton,

more manpower is
needed to plant it,

maintain it, and pick it.

- [Natalia] The crop becomes so
profitable

that it just drives
up demand for cotton.

This in turn, expands the
institution of slavery.

So the cotton industry
and the abolitionists

are now at odds
with one another.

- [Hakeem] In a way, Eli Whitney
could have never predicted

that his simple invention would
have this butterfly effect

that would lead to the
increase in American slavery,

and ultimately, to
America's Civil War.

- In the early 1940s,

as Hitler tightens his grip
on Europe in World War II,

one question looms
over the fighting,

"How do you feed millions in a
world decimated by conflict?"

[plane engines revving]

- By the end of 1941, the
Nazi Empire is at its apex.

It has troops at
the gates of Moscow.

It has troops up at northern
Norway near the Arctic Circle.

It has troops in the
desert in North Africa,

and of course, all along
Hitler's Atlantic wall

in France, Belgium, and Holland.

So this is Germany
at its most powerful.

It controls all the food
sources in this area.

- [Martin] This means that
agriculturally productive

areas of Europe
that had once functioned

as Europe's breadbasket,

are now under Adolf
Hitler's direct control.

- [John] During World War II,

people in much of the
world are starving

in cities under
siege like Leningrad.

And even in unoccupied countries
like the United Kingdom,

there's heavy
rationing going on.

- [Martin] This produces two
crises.

One, is a civilian crisis

where you have to feed
all of the civilians

who are under occupation.

And then the second part
is, a military crisis,

where you have to feed

all of the millions of
women and men in uniform.

- By the time we get to the
end of 1941 and into '42,

the United States of
America is now into the war,

and this is a huge game changer

because the United States
is not under direct threat.

And as such, American
farmers have the luxury

of still being able to grow
their crops, particularly wheat.

- [Dolph] But it's not as easy
as just growing more food.

You need the manpower
to harvest it.

- Harvesting wheat has always
been a logistical nightmare.

I mean, you could have
equipment that you pull along,

but the really
fine detailed stuff

like separating the
wheat from the chaff,

that has to be done by hand.

It takes days, even weeks,
to clear a single field.

- [Martin] Timing is critical
when it

comes to harvesting wheat.

There is only a
brief window of time

during which wheat
can be harvested,

after which, it is
no longer useful

to even go through the
effort of harvesting it.

- On top of everything
else, because of the war,

a lot of the men are
off fighting somewhere

or they're working in a factory,

so there's a serious
lack of manpower.

- [Dolph] What the Allies need

is a machine called
the Combine Harvester.

- It's not just a clever name.

It combines multiple processes
that were once done by hand.

- Combines cut the wheat, they
separate it, they store it,

and get rid of the waste,
all in one operation.

- [John] Combine harvesters
are not a new idea.

The first combine harvester

was built by an engineer
named Hiram Moore in 1835.

The problem is, these
things are absolutely huge.

They take teams of like 20
horses or tractors to pull,

and they have to be accompanied

by whole teams of farm workers.

[intense music]

- [Dolph] Then in 1941,

a Canadian company,
Massey-Harris,

comes up with a radical idea,
"Who needs horses or men?"

They introduce an entirely
new version of a harvester.

It's called the Model 21.

It cut, separates, and store's
wheat like previous combines.

The difference, this
one is self-propelled

and needs only one driver.

- The number 21 is
not towed by horses.

It's not towed by a tractor.

It is tractor and
harvester all in one.

It's its own beast,
and it's fast.

- [Martin] Model 21 is so
efficient

that with one pass across
a field

that's ripe and ready
for cultivation,

it can bring in
the entire harvest.

- [Dolph] Under the hood,

the 21 packs a six
cylinder industrial engine

that pumps out up
to 60 horsepower.

Those old combines
that needed 20 horses,

this engine triples that.

- [David] It can do eight
acres in just an hour.

Three times what
human beings can do.

This is a revolutionary
game changer.

- [Dolph] But
there's one problem.

There are wartime
restrictions on steel use.

How are they gonna build
a fleet to combines

when most of the steels
being used to build tanks,

planes, and ships?

- Joe Tucker, sales manager
for Massey-Harris USA

has a bold idea.

He has the audacity to
go to the war department

and ask them for
a release of steel

in order to finance the building

of 500 new combine harvesters.

- [John] He sells them hard.

Tucker tells the
war production board

that the Massey-Harris
Model number 21

is capable of harvesting more
wheat than any other machine

and with less fuel
and less manpower.

- [David] So the war production
board,

they have a decision to make.

What he's asking, it's gonna
require a lot of steel,

but they realize that their
armies move on their stomachs

and they need food.

And as a result,

they agree to going with
the Massey-Harvester 21.

- [Dolph] Farmers get to
buy the 21 for a discount

with one condition.

They have to bring in
2,000 acres of grain

for the war effort.

- [Martin] Tucker calls it
the Harvest Brigade.

This fleet of
self-contained harvesters

go out across the country

following the harvest
like a military mission.

- They send scouts out
by car, by airplane,

to find wheat fields just
as they're about to ripen,

and then they go
out and harvest it.

- [David] The combines are
deployed everywhere,

like an army onto a battlefield.

These machines start invading

almost every single wheat field

between the Dakotas and Texas.

And while you have the shooting
war going on in Europe,

you got the grain war
going on in America.

- [Austin] By the time the
harvest is done,

the brigade brings in over
1 million acres of grain.

That's 25 million bushels
of wheat and other grains

that weren't available
before to feed soldiers,

to feed the starving of Europe.

It is a massive success.

- [Dolph] The war production
board is so impressed,

it orders 750 more harvesters.

They stay in
circulation for decades,

changing farming and cementing
the machine's legacy.

- [David] When you think
about World War II,

you think about all these
incredible sexy machines

that win the war.

The Sherman Tank, the P-51.

So at the end of the war,

who would've believed

that one of the most
decisive of all machines,

is the Massey-Harris 21.

- For many machines,

progress means making
things more complicated,

and a whole lot more expensive.

But in 1908, Henry Ford
turns that idea on its head.

He decides to build a car
that's simple and cheap.

His gamble does more
than reinvent autos,

it builds a new way of life.

- [Lance] At the beginning
of the 20th century,

getting around America
is still a challenge.

If you wanna get around locally,

you're still talking about
horses and carriages.

If you live in a city,
there might be a trolley

that's only useful for
getting around town.

- [Hakeem] There
are automobiles,

but really, it's the
wealthy that own them.

By 1908, only 1% of households

own or have access
to an automobile.

So automobile owners
are literally the 1%.

- Because cars are so expensive

and so few people
can afford them,

the ability to own a car,

it's like telling people
you own a spaceship.

You are next-level wealthy
if you have one of these.

So the manufacturers just start
making nicer and nicer cars.

So they just figure we'll
just make it more expensive,

we'll make less of them,
and we'll make more money.

- Models like the
Cadillac Model G,

the Packard Model 30,

have luxury features
like hand-tufted seats,

woodgrain interiors,
electric starters,

and custom paint jobs.

- [Lance] These cars almost
had the opulence

of a Gilded-Aged parlor room,

and they were status symbols

that might cost up to
4 to $5,000 a piece.

That's up to 10 years salary
for an average worker.

- [Dolph] One man
thinks differently.

When he looks at a car,

he doesn't see a luxury machine,

he sees the opportunity
for a revolution.

That man of course,
is Henry Ford.

- [Lance] Car manufacturing
is a risky business.

By 1908, Henry Ford has already
gone out of business twice.

Ford's first company
fails in 1901,

really because he's more an
engineer than a businessman.

- [Hakeem] His second company,

the Henry Ford Company,
crumbles in 1902,

when he battles
with his investors

over the company direction.

He wants to focus
on affordability,

but they want luxury.

- When Ford leaves,

his former partners decide to
rename the company, Cadillac.

[intense music]

- [Dolph] For Henry Ford,

there would be no
sweeter revenge

than building the ultimate
affordable car for the masses,

and dominating the entire
car industry with it.

- [Lance] By 1908, Ford makes
his big swing with the Model T.

[intense music]

Ford designs the Model T
for practicality first.

That's his no
Packard or Cadillac.

It uses a crank start

to save on the cost of
the electric starter.

- The Model T is simple.
It's just utilitarian.

Basic seating, it's
got a 20 horsepower,

four-cylinder engine,

and it runs on gasoline,

which is widely
available at the time.

- Fewer than 10% of roads
are paved in America in 1908.

So Ford designs the Model T

to have sufficient
ground clearance

as well as reliable suspension

that can handle all of
the bumps and potholes

of the roads of that time.

- [Rutledge] In a world of
luxury cars

that you really need to be
a specialist to work on,

the Model T is
designed to be simple,

that anyone could work on it.

If you can operate
your tractor at home,

you can take the cylinder
head off of this car

to get out the carbon deposits

that build up pretty
easily on there.

- With all his
cost-cutting features,

Ford is able to introduce
his two-seater Model T

for just $825.

It's aggressive, and he
sells 10,000 of them.

But he realized it
has to be even cheaper

if he wants to start
his revolution.

- [Dolph] To reach his goal,

Ford focuses on efficiency,

and unveils arguably
his biggest innovation,

the moving assembly line.

- This means that now,
the workers can stay put

and do the one job
they've been trained in

over and over again as
the cars move past them.

This results in an
increase in efficiency

and a massive drop in accidents.

- [Kavitha] Custom features
drive up

the cost of manufacturing,

so Ford aims to keep the
parts as standardized

and interchangeable as possible.

- Ford realizes that
black paint dries faster,

and it takes fewer
coats and less buffing.

So he announces

that his customers can have
any color car they want

as long as it's black.

- [Lance] By 1914, the Model T
goes

from taking 12-and-a-half hours
to make, to just 93 minutes,

all by using less manpower.

- [Rutledge] The result of all
of this efficiency,

is that Ford continues
to drop the price

on the Model T as time goes on.

- [Dolph] The Model
T drops to $550.

And by the time Ford makes
his ten millionth car,

half the cars in
the world are Fords,

and they're still
getting cheaper.

- [Rutledge] By 1925, the price
of the Model T had come down

to just $260 for a car.

This is amazing, right?

It also means that
every single person

that's working on the
line to build the Model T

can also afford one.

This is a game changer.

- [Dolph] Over 15 million
model T's are built and sold

during its 19-year
production run.

- In the end, Henry Ford
did get his revolution.

Not just because he
dominated the competition,

but because in making
cars so accessible,

he took what was once a luxury,
and made it a necessity.

- By the early 1970s,

machines carry
Americans to the moon

and to victory in
the space race.

So NASA turns to a new goal.

What if their engineers
could build a machine

that lets us not just visit
space, but actually live there?

[intense music]

- [Lance] It's March of 1973,

and America watches
as NASA counts down

the launch of its
first space laboratory.

It's called Skylab.

- If NASA wants to look way
forward to longer moon missions

and to missions to
other planets like Mars,

it needs to understand the
long-term health effects

of space travel
on the human body.

- [Dolph] A towering
Saturn V rocket,

the same one that
put man on the moon,

launched a Skylab into orbit.

- [Natalia] Minutes after
takeoff, Skylab is crippled.

Its shield and
panels are torn off,

causing the station to overheat.

- [Dolph] The crew recovers
and keeps Skylab in orbit,

but the problems persist,
and six years later,

it crashes back to Earth.

[intense music]
[crowd cheering]

In 1993, president Bill Clinton

sees an opportunity
to take the baton.

The US teams with other
countries, including Russia,

for a new project,

the International Space Station.

[intense music]

- [Lance] In November of 1998,

the first module, Russia's
Zarya,

launches successfully,

[person speaking indistinctly]

followed a few weeks later
by America's Unity module,

delivered by the Space Shuttle.

- [Dr. Sutter] The ISS will be
built modularly

in low Earth orbit,

like the world's
greatest Lego set.

Astronaut Ross, and
colleague, Jim Newman,

performed the painstaking task

of connecting the
Unity and Zarya modules

over three grueling
spacewalks, totaling 21 hours.

[upbeat music]

- [Dolph] It takes
over 30 missions

and a decade of space
walks to finish the ISS.

It is substantially
complete by July 2011.

- [Nehemiah] Today, the
International Space Station

looks like an enormous
metallic dragonfly,

and its solar arrays
stretch 240 feet across.

- [Don] When you first see
images of the ISS,

it doesn't look real.

I mean, it looks like
it's out of a movie.

As reality sets in,
you begin to realize

people are living in that thing

all the time.

- [Dolph] The station itself

is roughly 357 feet end to end,

about the length of
a US football field,

and weighs nearly 420 tons.

This is the largest structure

humans have ever
assembled in space.

- [Dr. Sutter] The ISS looks
like a modular spy.

It's this central long truss

that supports these
vast solar arrays

that converts sunlight
into electricity

for powering the station.

- [Lance] They rotate like
sunflower petals

towards the sun,
and there are backup batteries

for the time when the station
is in the Earth's shadow,

which blocks out solar power.

- [Dolph] Branching
off the main section

are pressurized modules,

thus serve as living
spaces, science labs,

and control areas.

The ISS orbits Earth so fast

astronauts see a new
sunrise every 90 minutes.

- [Natalia] One major challenge

is keeping this massive
space station in orbit,

and not having it suffer
the same fate as Skylab.

- [Don] The station exists in a
continuous state of free fall.

So every so often,

a thruster has to kick
in to maintain altitude.

Otherwise, it's gonna fall
straight back to Earth.

- This free fall creates a
near weightless environment.

Everything inside the ISS,

astronauts, tools,
droplets of water,

are affected by microgravity,

and that's why you can see
astronauts floating so easily

from compartment to compartment.

- [Dolph] But that lack
of gravity causes issues.

- [Nehemiah] Tests show that
astronauts

lose up to 20% of
their muscle mass

after being in space
for just weeks.

- [Dr. Sutter] They've come up
with diet and vitamin regimens,

but the most critical component

is two hours of exercise a day

done with resistance training.

And since they're
in zero gravity,

they're working out
with the equivalent

of 600 pounds of weight.

But they don't know if this
protocol will be enough

to solve the problem.

- [Dolph] In 2015,

NASA launches its
most ambitious study

of a long-term space flight,

using identical twin astronauts.

- They call it the Twin program.

Astronauts Scott
Kelly spends 340 days

at the space station
orbiting in space.

His twin brother Mark,
remains on Earth as a control.

The results are astonishing.

- [Don] Despite the exercise
regimen and the countermeasures,

Scott experiences a
loss of bone density

and muscle breakdown.

He arrives back on
Earth two inches taller

because his spinal
discs have expanded.

- [Lance] What is most
astonishing

is that he has
changed genetically.

His genes, in terms
of bone formation,

DNA repair, and oxygen
are actually different.

Long-term space travel
affects the human body

on the cellular genetic level,

and some of these
changes are permanent.

And without the
International Space Station,

science would never
have known that.

- Whether it's the first pages

rolling off the printing press,

or the ISS charting a course
to our future in space,

through our time,

trailblazers have
invented new machines

to reshape the world.

These change agents didn't
wait for permission.

They kick down the door.

[intense music]