In california on a hot afternoon in pasadena for our monthly Public Lecture series. Im preston dikes. 50 years ago three human beings set out on a journey across a quarter million miles of space to the moon. Two of them set down in a fragile Landing Craft on the lunar surface, and one of them stepped into history uttering a phrase we all know by heart. For that one human being to make that one small step took the focussed efforts of hundreds of thousands of people over the course of a decade. An industry and universities and in government. For their part, jpl and cal tech didnt play the leading roles in the apollo effort, but for all who contributed to apollo, as for all of us who play even a small role in the Space Program today, the true reward lay not in the glory of the moment but in contributing to something greater. Something that mattered. Jpl ease primary role then and now is to help lead the Robotic Exploration of the solar system including technologies that contributed to apollo. Jpl manages nasas deep Space Network. During apollo the deep Space Network was used to receive the astronauts tv transmissions from the moon and also was a Vital Communications backup during apollo, especially during the tense days of apollo 13. Cal tech long a world leader in the field of geology contributed to the Field Training of the astronauts and to the study of the samples they returned. Tonight well hear just part of the apollo story. The road to apollo and how jpl figured into it and how scientists at cal tech and other institutions teased out some of the moons greatest secrets. If youre watching our live web cast, you can submit questions via the youtube chat. We are fortunate to have an Emmy Award Winning producer on the staff. Blaine baggett had space flight, the first nationally broadcast series ever made about the space race. One of his key advisers was apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins who called space flight the real stuff. Blaine turned to astronomy. He was the executive producer of the astronomers. In 1999 he joined jpl is now a jpl fellow working on films about their historic role in the exploration of space. He has received the distinguished service medal, and his birthday just happens to be july 20th, the very day that apollo 11 made the first human landing on the moon. Please welcome blaine baggett. [ applause ] thank you. Good evening. Its fantastic to see you here. Thank you for coming out. Im delighted to see so many of you. By the way, i also my birthday also serves as the day we first landed on mars. So something was meant to be, i think. Okay. The more that i have come to understand the moons of the solar system, the more i appreciate them for their incredible diversity. I want to start with the outer solar system with these moons. High peern looks to me like a seashell. Pan looks to me like a ufo. And if we have any star wars fans out there oh, i dont even have to make the reference, but theres the dark star. But theres more to the moons than just unusual shapes. Moons in our solar system are the prime targets for the search for life. Saturns moon is a beautiful icy world where geysers are constantly erupting. Spraying out into space water ice. Titan, which also orbits saturn, has rivers and lakes. But theyre made of liquid ethane and methane, and we are going to explore titan. On the right is jupiters moon, uropa. Beneath the icy crust is a water world thought to contain more h2o than in all the oceans combined. Here at jpl were hard at work on a mission right now called europa clipper to be launched to this world. These moons and many others, theyre almost 200 there are almost 200 moons in the solar system. They exist in the outer solar system. If we move inward toward the sun, we find a different story. Mores has two very small moons. Venus and mercury have none. Only the earth has a sizable moon and a beautiful moon. Why that is that we really havent the terrestrial planets, we only have one large moon is a great mystery, but i will leave the science of the moon and the engineering it took to get us there to two great pioneers who are with us tonight. Its a great honor and privilege for me to share the stage with them. As for the present, we are in the news not only because of the apollo 11 anniversary. We are in the news about the moon because nasa has declared we are Going Forward to the moon to its the next step on our way to mars. Now, to me time will tell whether this is the latest case of us becoming moon struck and whether being moon struck is going to actually stick again. The biggest question, i think, is whether well have the will that translates into the funding to go. Those in favor of going to the moon have their arguments. First of all, the technologies have come a long, long way in the last 50 years. And what weve learned about the moon in the last 50 years helps to make the case for going again. For instance, once it was thought that the moon was bone dry. Thats turned out not to be the case. Missions by nasa and by the Indian Space Agency have found evidence of water in the polar regions of the moon and craters where sunlight in the shadow of craters where sunlight doesnt reach. These areas are prime real estate for future expiration and settlement. I will show you there you see some examples of the water. Because if you wish to live off the land as nasa says it wants to do with a permanent presence, you need water. And by the way, india, is about to launch its scheduled for a new mission to the moon next week. Its a combination of an orbiter, a lander, and a rover. And what is its purpose . Its going to go prospecting for resources, including water. And then theres china. Its program, its Space Program is growing by leaps and bounds. And china has made no secret of its interests in exploring the resources of the moon. The chinese rover launched in january of this year and is now roving on the moon. And on the far side of the moon where direct communication isnt possible, its an impressive technological achievement. And by the way, i dont know if you know where the rover landed on the far side of the moon, but its in a crater named after theodore von carmen. I hope that name sounds familiar. Its none other than the first director of jpl. And for whom this auditorium and this lecture series is named after. And i cant help but wonder whether the selection of a crater named after von carmen is somehow intentional in terms of where the chinese landed, but im not exactly sure what the message might be. The larger point im trying to make is that we may be at the beginning of a new space race. A space race this time that is a multinational one. A moon rush where the prize is to stake out regions suitable for establishing human presence. So speaking of space races, lets now go back to the first one to understand how apollo came to be. That means we have to go back to 1957 in the launch of sputnik, and to help us well watch a video clip from one of my documentaries called destination moon. I butchered myself to cut it down to show it in a short clip. Hard to do, but better for me to do than anyone else. If we could, can we roll the first clip . Thanks. In october of 1957 the soviet union shocked the world with the launch of the first earth orbiting satellite, sputnik. Americas response, a satellite called vanguard, was also a surprising and spectacular event. Vanguard would be only one in a long string of setbacks for the United StatesSpace Program. On a visit to the u. S. In 1959 soviet premier made sure to underscore the disparity between the two nations. A successful moon rocket harrelled at the arrival in america. A scientific feet capitalized on. It gave Solid Foundation to boasts for soviet achievement. Americas hopes for competing in the race for the heavens rested with the newly formed space agency, the National Aeronautics and space administration. Nasa was given an assortment of technical facilities scattered across the country. One of them was the jet Propulsion Laboratory in pasadena, california. Of all the groups nasa inherited, jpl was a part. This Research Center was then like today managed and staffed by employees of one of the worlds most renowned engineering universities. The California Institute of technology. Jplors were accustomed to a dra tradition of independence. From jpls perspective, nasa was a newcomer with no portfolio. In contrast, jpl had built missiles and the First Successful u. S. Satellite, explorer one. Jpl was led by william pickering. When nasa asked him his ideas for the nations robotics Space Program, he responded with an ambitious plan that called for jpl flying spacecraft to the moon and nearby planets. Sputnik has been called americas technological pearl harbor. It was a shock to the american psyche, and the reactions ranged from the reasonable like placing greater emphasis on science and math in the classrooms for which i suffered, to the extreme, the idea of setting off a nuclear bomb on the moon to demonstrate americas technological capability. A number of wellpositioned people in the United States toyed with this idea. They included the scientists Edward Teller known as the father of the hydrogen bomb. Jpls director at the time, william pickering. Now, what you see here is an air force report, because they explored this idea to great depth creating this report that went on for about 250 pages. One aspect of the report was to consider what science might be derived from measuring the lunar debris scattered by a nuclear explosion. One of the credited researchers on the project was a College Student by the name of ce sayingen. Thats right. Thats the late karl sagan who would become one of the worlds best known scientists and an outspoken critic of the nuclear arms race. Meanwhile, the soviet union continued to surprise and confound. For instance, when there was the first visit of a soviet head of state to the United States, the soviets timed the trip to coincide with the First Mission to reach the moon. Luna 2. Kind of rubbing our nose in it. And just two weeks after that, they launched luna 3. They took this image of the far side of the moon. Its not much by todays standards, but at the time it was a technological triumph, and eisenhower could only grin and bear it. Now, ten weeks after John F Kennedy took office, the soviet union struck again watching the first human in space. Now, in kennedys inaugural address, he suggested a aloud in a speech the soviets and the americans should explore space together, but another launch changed that thinking for a time. A frustrated kennedy wrote this memo directing Vice President johnson to conduct a survey to find a way, any way, to beat the soviet union in the space race. What would it take, kennedy wanted to know, putting up a space lab, a trip around the moon, landing a rocket on the moon, landing a man on the moon, or any other idea. And note kennedys impatience. He wanted to know are the people involved in the Space Program working 24 hours a day, and if not, john, why not . To get the answers to kennedys questions, johnson turned to nasaed a m na nasaed a nasas administrator, james webb. Webb believed the only real hope to have the first person in space was landing an astronaut on the moon. Others argued for a mission to mars, a Human Mission to mars. Well, webbs more practical proposal went out, and kennedy took it to congress, and now made his very famous speech proposing to land a moon on the moon and returning him safely to earth before this decade is out. Whats not wellknown is the phrase before the the story of the phrase before this decade is out. It was a lastminute compromise. James webb was given an advanced copy at the last minute of what kennedy was going to say, and to his shock, the script, the address mentioned that there was a deadline of 1967. Webb convinced the white house to take out the year and say instead the decade is out. Had 1967 stayed in, we would not be saying today that nasa met kennedys goal. But now lets turn to jpls role in getting footprints on the moon. Even before kennedys speech, jpl was working on two moon projects. The first was called ranger. It was designed to be a spacecraft that takes close up images of the moon before crash landing. But even crash landing on the moon turned out to be a lot harder than expected. I will be asking someone to relive the pain for us live about those days. But for right now, let me summarize what happened. Ranger one didnt work. Ranger 2 didnt work. Ranger three didnt work. Ranger four didnt work. Ranger five didnt work. At this point, the lab stood down and regrouped. A year later they launched ranger six. It worked perfectly except in the last few minutes when its camera refused to turn on. No pictures meant another failure. January 30th, 1964, was jpls darkest day. And in exactly this room, crowded almost as probably as many people as you see right now in this room, were people listening to what was going on live. And imagine what they felt like. Well, lets see if they had better luck with ranger seven. As you watch, be aware that youre sitting in the same room as some of the people, some of the footage youre about to see of some of the people. Okay . Roll the next one. You have six rangers which fail. With each failure the pressure on jpl became more intense and after number six this was really a catastrophe. I had no fear that the lab was going to fall apart. It was quite the opposite. Everybody pulled together and basically what can i do to help . Six months after the debacle of ranger six, jpl was ready to try once more. It had required working three shifts a day, seven days a week. The next one, seven, was a severe strain on everybody, because it had to work. And if it hadnt worked, theres no telling what jpl would have been like or what would have happened to jpl. It was a sobering experience. Launched through the 66hour crews was a textbook flight. Three days after liftoff, jpls auditorium was once again filled beyond capacity with people and tension. Magnetic tape recorders were started at 1307 at both pioneer and echo sites. We are anticipating turn on momentarily. We have full power on f channel. Roger. All recording. All tape recorders are recording. Video is very strong and seconds to impact. Video is still good. Three, two, one. Impact. Impact has occurred. All video data good right up to impact. Transmitters were functioning properly. Roger. When impact occurred, the auditorium erupted in a great cheer. People shook hands and hugged one another. Some wept. One hardnosed engineer likened the event to a spiritual experience. Some people had smuggled in some champagne and champagne bottles were opened. It was a great celebration. Finally the now humbled jpl work force had succeeded at the moon. The Television Camera recorded some 4,000 images that arent much to behold today, but at the time they were as a scientist in the room declared at the time, 1,000 better than any image of the moon from earth. Now, the rangers, by the way, heres some headlines just to give you some sense of i think i think it reveals the sense of anxiety that was relief. The relief of we have finally succeeded. Im interested in the two hurt in the minor riot at the glendale bar. I dont know the story about that. Ill have to look that up. Any rate, so after ranger came surveyor. Surveyor was a more complicated mission. It was about soft landing on the moon and staying alive on the moon for some time, and well, lets just watch the video. I think that will tell more than i can. John, if we can roll that, please. Of all the questions nasa wanted answered, the most important was knowing what the surface would be like for apollo astronauts. Was it solid . Or would layers of dust act like lunar quick sand and swallow them whole . Nasa had hoped the answers would come from surveyor. This was jpls First Experience in overseeing on behalf of nasa the work of an arrow space company, but the contractor was struggling for good reasons. Surveyor was far more technically challenging than the rangers. This spacecraft not only had to soft land on the moon. It had to do so autonomously. It was also expected to send back images and science data from the lunar surface, not for a day but for weeks. That was a difficult, trying period, because we were growing up at the same time that hughes was growing up. And we didnt always mesh. A trying time. Grand baja ma is tracking. As shown by the animated diagrams on the monitor, the atlas sentar separation has occurred. 63 hours after launch, surveyor 1 was only 1,000 miles away from the moon with the speed increasing as the moons gravitational attraction beckened. Holding steadily. It was supposed to enter a fixed rated descent. So that happens. Normal. All signals good. 100 feet. A certain distance above the surface, the engines are all supposed to shut off. And then thereits supposed to to the surface. The engines dont shut off. And you could hear a pin drop. It worked. Were down. Its still transmitting. For the first time an american spacecraft achieved a soft landing on another celestial body. Surveyor one operated for six weeks. It sent back more than 11,000 images before the battery ceased to work. And nasa had the answer to its question. The lunar surface was solid, and suitable for landing by the apollo astronauts. This is my favorite surveyor image, because every single time i look at it, what i see in it is almost Neil Armstrong stepping off the lunar module, but its not. Its the shadow of surveyor one on the moon. Now, i do not want this evening to be guilty of committing the sin of omission. So i want to acknowledge the soviets were the first to land on the moon with luna 9. It used air bags which we adopted to go to mars, so it can be argued that this was not actually a soft landing, and at the time it wasnt large enough to erase doubts about whether the lunar surface would be able to bear the weight of