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It is still one of the greatest technological achievements of mankind.
The symbol of our success and a cruel reminder of our failures.
But when it rises on pillar of steam and fire above Cape Canaveral,
as thousands years ago we gaze up at the heavens and the secrets of its stars
On "Discovering America": an exclusive pass to NASA.
You will board the space shuttle
You will go where engine flames melt the launch pads.
You will see mission control center in Houston
and secret tunnels under launch pads at Cape Canaveral, where no video cameras have gone before.
You will transport the shuttle to the launch site
You will see the last seconds of the heroic crew of Columbia and Challenger
in the only existing video tape of their tragic flight.
Max Kolonko -- "Discovering America"
At the launch, the ground shakes miles away.
When they reach full power,
they generate 20 times more energy than the largest power plant in America.
SHUTTLE MAIN ENGINE fuel -- hydrogen and oxygen, weight -- 3.2 tons (each) temperature -- 3,300 °C
The exhaust flames of engines hits the place where I stand, almost melting concrete surface
thrusting clouds of steam with the speed of a space super locomotive.
Before it appears at the launch pad,
this 1,200 tone giant, burning 148 gal/mi, is needed to set the shuttle at the launch pad.
But the launch pads hide also this secret --
the underground tunnels not accessed by any TV crew until now.
Since the first mission in 1981,
this vehicle has transported almost a thousand people,
66 satellites, and thousands tons of payloads in more than a hundred flights.
SPACESHUTTLE weight -- 2,000 tons; height -- 190 ft, time to the orbit -- 2 minutes first flight -- 1981, crew -- seven, built -- 5, lost -- 2
But the success came at the highest price.
Out of the intitial 5 shuttles, America lost two in some of the greatest tragedies in the history of space exploration
One of these dramas on "Discovering America" -- in our exclusive look at NASA Space Shuttle Program.
NASA's Secrets -- part 1 producer: Yvette Williams
This is Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
It covers 220 square miles (570 km2) of a peninsula, 4 hours' drive from Miami.
Its main components are: launch pads A and B,
The Vehicle Assembly Building, where the orbiter is prepared for launch,
and landing facility -- one of the longest runways in the world, at 2.84 mile (more than 4.5 km).
Smooth as an ice rink with surface matching the curvature of Earth.
There is also the famous Cape Canaveral nearby.
It's here, where the history of the American space program began with a launch of German V-2 rocket.
Today, the wind blows across rusting launchers..
This is how Complex 34 looks like today..
It is a place of a tragedy and nearly the death of the U.S. space program,
after Apollo 1 was burned down during a test flight.
Three of the astronauts: Gus Grissom, Ed H. White, and Roger Chaffee --
burned alive inside the capsule, whose hatch nobody was able to open.
The tragic history of ups and downs of the American space program is visible here everywhere.
It's somewhere here, where in two dozen of boxes, rests what's left of Challenger after the disaster
which broke apart 73 seconds into its flight falling toward the ocean.
KSC is so large, that you need a map to get by
It borders a wildlife park
Surrounding lakes, the source of water needed for launch are full of fish.
Fishing is forbidden and the law is executed by this gentleman.
Indeed,you can almost pull out local inhabitants from under the wheels.
NASA is proud of the fact, that their center, with cutting edge technology,
lives in a coexistence with flora and fauna,
which is the only thing which moves around without a pass
These two launch towers- my first stop
appear after a few minutes of drive.
Before next launch strict precautions are mandatory
In the nearby tanks, there is enough fuel to send us all to space and beyond
in an accidental explosion.
At the next gate, #.1 man at KSC joins me.
Steve Bullock is the chief manager of the space shuttle launch pad A.
We step into exactly the same elevator, which the astronauts will take in the next few days.
To the level 195.
one can only imagine, what astronauts must feel
in their last minutes on Earth before they step into the shuttle
I can feel the presence of the history.
This elevator ride took some of the greatest space explorers:
John Glenn, Scott Parazynski, but also the crew of Apollo 11: Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins.
Right this way, they stepped into the Saturn V rocket
in their historical spaceflight to the Moon.
30 minutes before the launch only five people of selected staff have access to this place.
This door is called "the gate to heaven" by astronauts, why?
Because it is the last thing they see on Earth before they step into the shuttle
Let's go inside and see how they do it.
This is what's called "the white room."
Here, at three hours before the launch, astronauts put on their space suits
45 minutes before the launch, they are there -- inside the shuttle
The whole drill is monitored by these video cameras.
When the astronauts come in and go to space, we don't want any dust here,
because in zero gravity it all instantly floats around them.
So everything in here has got very clean: as clean as an operate room in a hospital.
In six hours before the launch, 21 people can occupy this place, where I am now.
Whole launch pad is surrounded by 3 km (1.9 mile) safety zone.
Eventually, the arm moves away.
At 7 minutes and 30 seconds before the launch, the role of a man ends.
Henceforth, a supercomputer is in charge of a spacecraft.
At 6 seconds before the launch, the three engines start an ignition sequence.
Hydrogen and oxygen are supplied by the orange tank, which the spacecraft is attached to.
The tank is 15 floors high and weighs over 750 tons.
Each of the three engines burns an equivalent of 20 car fuel tanks a second
and produces over 20 times more energy than the largest power plant in America.
In six seconds, the engine of the spacecraft reaches 2000 °C (3600 °F).
Now the two white-colored, rocket boosters ignite
They burn aluminum.
Since now, nothing can stop the shuttle
Two thousand tons of the most excellent technology of mankind slowly get off the ground.
NASA's Secrets -- part 2 producer: Yvette Williams
Kennedy Space Center, Florida, Launch Pad 39-A.
30 days to the launch left
There is only a crew of 21 here now
Those tanks contain liquid hydrogen. Smoking is strictly forbidden,
as well as the use of any kind of a device able to give off a spark.
We drive to the place, where life ceases to exist during the launch.
This is called "the flame trench," we need to examine the deflector.
It's here the shuttle's engines thrust exhaust
Here, along with the pad manager -- Steve Bullock, we are going to carry out a routine inspection of the launch pad.
Steve: There you have about a meter of this firebrick set down on the concrete structure.
Max: So here, we have the fire-resistant layer a meter deep?
Steve: That's right, the entire force of the rocket boosters goes this way.
This is how it will look later
All the area is covered by steam and flames speeding toward us.
Steve: The flame deflectors you see there -- the shuttle is right above them.
The shuttle exhausts come this way
and out
A look at the surrounding fence tells you how strong a force it is.
After each launch,holes are meticulously repaired
The net is being repaired all the time.
The blast of exhausts tears also away loose pieces of firebricks
and everything which is not attached. An extremely dangerous occurrence.
Before the launch,the entire area is subjected to a detailed inspection, to avoid unwanted projectiles
Eventually, I get to the place I never dreamed I would be.
I am at ground zero of level zero.
There is always a burned smell in the air here.
It feels you are in the middle of a huge stove.
Steve: You are in the place, where the booster is.
It is right here, a tremendous 500 pounds deflector throws away a wall of fire
coming out from the shuttle's engines.
This thing is made of a steel coated with a protective layer of a high temperature-resistant concrete, which melts anyway
and forms an almost wrinkled surface, which must be repaired after every launch.
You see the "white room" above, where the astronauts get ready before they enter the shuttle.
It is that white box with red pipes below it.
One can only imagine what happens here at the time of the launch.
Even my unprofessional inspection quickly reveals finger size holes.
To my eye, teh entire wall needs to be replaced.
Steve reaches out and easily detects a significant loss in the wall.
A hole that you can almost shakes hands though it, but it will not be replaced.
Steve: No, we won't replace this. We will only cover it with a fire-resistant concrete as it has been started over here.
Life is not easy for NASA inspectors. All these space games are very expensive and very responsible.
Small faults can amount to tremendous problems with tragic consequences.
A piece of a foam insulation broken off from the bearing tank had cost seven lives of Colombia's crew.
Broken o-ring seal killed the brave astronauts of Challenger 73 seconds into its flight.
But still an oversight can happen.
Everybody here remembers how one careless technician had left a set of pliers, which went into space.
And thus, when I encounter a piece, which does not belong to the landscape
I immediately inform Steve on my founding.
This is how the same place looks like from the above.
The spacecraft's engine has left that black, burned surface.
Here, another NASA's secret has been revealed
Steve: These pipes thrust out cascades of water.
Everything below the booster rockets gets flooded by a 30 meters high waterfall,
so the sonic wave produced by the engines is absorbed
Water is transported from the local reservoir inside those two meter diameter pipes.
It's the water which makes the launch possible.
as booster rockets create a strong sonic wave
Indeed, even if you stand half a kilometer away of the launch pad,
you can feel the ground shaking during the liftoff.
Everything around shakes.
In his room, Steve has images pinned to the wall
after he had to pick them up from the floor after every launch.
The sonic wave produced by the rocket boosters at the liftoff is so strong,
that it would have tear the shutle apart before it'd even get off the ground.
For this reason, at six seconds before the liftoff, what can be seen on this picture, cascades of water begin to fall
Over three and a half of million liters per minute (15,500 gps).
they flood the entire launch pad and it's the water which absorbs the sonic waves,
and the water -- to be more precise: water turned into steam --
is responsible for what seems like smoke which appears at every shuttle launch
Kennedy Space Center, 30 days before the launch
Today, the spacecraft will be transported to the launch pad
This place is VAB -- Vehicle Assembly Building,
a high rise building, whose the only inhabitant is the shutlte
The object is surrounded by a barbed wire fence and under constant surveillance of armed guards.
At NASA, where everything is numbered,
Bill Johnson has a pass number 1.
As if in a science-fiction movie --
I recognize the tracks of the crawler.
And here I stand eye to eye with the biggest transporter ever created by mankind.
This is what the crawler looks like. It carries the shuttle to the launch pad.
The heaviest and the slowest vehicle built by mankind.
Crawler-transporter: weight -- 2,700 tons, speed -- 1 mph, distance to the pad -- 5 hours, year of production -- 1965, fuel consumption -- 148 US gal/mi, built -- 2
You don't want to go home by this vehicle -- 1 mph, 148 gal/mi
Here I will have a unique opportunity to lay my hands on the steering wheel as it moves to the launch pad.
Each shoe of the track weighs a tone.
Each track has 57 shoes.
The crawler has eight tracks. NASA has two crawlers.
They are identical, but people here named them: Hans and Franz.
When the crawler is ready, a spacecraft is positioned vertically.
A huge hydraulic crane lifts the 68-tone orbiter.
Then it is mounted onto the external fuel tank. An extremely responsible job.
All procedure takes 36 hours non-stop
Finally, the gate opens,
the shuttle rolls out to the launch pad.
It takes 5.5 km (3.5 mi) to get the shuttle to the launch pad,
over two, 30 meter wide highways.
Underlying ground consists of solid rock filled with asphalt
and over 1.5 meter of small stones crushed by crawler's tracks.
The crawlers travelled that way many times.
If they walked in a straight line starting in New York, in 1965,
they would be reaching the suburbs of Warsaw today.
At each corner of the crawler, there is a control room.
The engines are literally groaning around me
Someone asks me something, I just nod - and soon after I get behind the crawler;'s wheel,
where for just a few brief moments I have a unique opportunity to put my hands on this giant's steering wheel.
In 2011, NASA retired the Space Shuttle Program.
Atlantis, Discovery, Enterprise, and Endeavour were moved to the museums in New York, Los Angeles, and Kennedy Space Center, Florida.
Thermal protection tiles from the orbiters were sold to schools for 25 each.
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