The Smithsonian National air and space museum shows us artifacts that tell the story of Space Exploration from the moon to mar mars. Each week american artifacts takes viewers into archives, museums and Historic Sites around the country. Up next we visit the Smithsonian National air and space museum located on the National Mall in washington, d. C. Our tour guide is valerie neal, head of the Space History Department at the museum who shows us artifacts that tell the story of Space Exploration from the moon to mars. Im valerie neal. Were in the boeing milestones of flight hall at the center of the museum and this is the hall where we display the pioneering aircraft and spacecraft that transform the modern world. When this Museum Opened in july of 1976 almost every space artifact on display had recently been in the news. This was very much a museum of contemporary spaceflight and it was for most people their first chance to see what had been lauded in the 1960s and early 1970s during this heroic age of Space Exploration, when humans first ventured off the planet into space and all the way to the moon, when the United States and the soviet union began sending craft out to explore the nearby planets. All of this was exciting, thrilling and people just flocked into the museum to see it. In the 40 years since this building opened we have continued to acquire treasures of space history. We have now about 17,000 artifacts related to space history. We have just over 1,000 of them on display in our two locations, here in the washington area, and then we have another 1,500 on display in other museums around the world. In our tour today were going to look at some of the original artifacts that were the stars of the show when the national air and space Museum Opened and were also going to look at artifacts from history that has been made since then. We will start our tour right here with the lunar module. The icon for the landing on the moon in july 1969. It actually has a companion spacecraft, the apollo command module, and the command module, its Service Module and the lunar module together carried three astronauts, neil armstrong, buzz aldrin and Michael Collins to the moon. The command module very significantly also brought them back safely. This lunar module is an actual lunar module that never flew in space. Its lunar module 2, it was intended to be used in an earth orbital test flight, but the test was canceled as unnecessary and so nasa transferred this lunar module to the national air and space museum. It consists of two parts, the base which has the legs and the rocket engine in it and then the oddlyshaped top, which is the crew module or crew cabin. This was attached to the command module for the flight from earth to lunar orbit and once in lunar orbit the two crew members who would descend to the surface, armstrong and aldrin climbed into the lunar module. Its it separated from the command module where Michael Collins stayed to orbit the moon and it began its descent the mo began the descent down to the surface. 40 feet. Picking up dust. More forward, drifting to the right a little. Okay. Back right. Okay engine stopped. You copy you down, eagle. Quality base here. The eagle has landed. This was a thrilling moment in history. And almost everybody who was alive at that moment remembered where they were, whether watching it on television in their own homes or if they were standing in an Appliance Store watching on a television, people around the world stopped to watch the landing on the moon and the first steps of human beings on the moon. Im going to step off the lem now. Thats one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. After the crew, the apollo 11 crew had climbed out, done some exploration close to the lunar module, collected some samples of lunar soil and rocks, taken some photographs, placed a u. S. Flag on the moon, they went back into the lunar module and this became their vehicle for their trip home. Any launched the small top portion, leaving the base on the moon. They ascended back into lunar orbit, met up with the command module. Exited the lunar module. And once secure inside the command module reunited with Michael Collins. The lunar module fell back to the moon with an intentional crash on the moon because geologists and seismicologyises wanted to track the kind of impact is made on the moon. From a space historians point of view, the two craft, the apollo command module and the lunar module are the icons of the space race, along with the suits worn by the astronauts on the moon, these symbolize that very historic moment in time, july 1969 when human beings first set foot on another body in our solar system. And in effect, won the space race. When children look at in space craft they often say they doesnt look like a space ship, because we tend to think that space craft are always stream lined and maybe look like rockets more than anything else. But this space craft has an interesting design and in many ways its fairly primitive, given the job that it had to do. It didnt need to be stream lined on the outside because it was not going to operate in the atmosphere. It would only operate in the vacuum of space. And it would not be subject to strong gravitational field on the moon. Its actually fairly flimsy in some areas. The legs are obviously strong. The mount for the rock engine is strong. But the craft itself and crew module or crew cabin was fairly spartan. It had two windows. Neil armstrong had command of the craft during the final descent to landing, both of them were standing, fully suited in their space suit and they pretty much filled that interior volume in that position with knows space suits on. It was not really designed for comfort. It was designed for the purpose of landing, giving the crew an exit so they could spend a couple of hours on the surface of the moon and then launching again, along with the precious cargo of lunar soil and rocks to bring back home to demonstrate that they had been there. And to have those materials for scientists to begin analyzing to better understand the moon. Its also amazing to think that the Computing Power required in that day to send these craft to the moon and to program them for the descent and the launch was done with fairly primitive computer programs and memory was minuscule compared to the memory we have now. And its often said that the Computing Power we hold in our hands every day with our smartphones is vastly more than it took to send people to the moon and back. It gives you a sense of the ingenuity of the engineers in that day to devise the solutions to get people to the moon and back safely. So we have seen the iconic artifacts from the heroic age of space flight in the 1960s. Just feet away from it is a much more contemporary, this craft designed not by nasa but but by a company headed by burt ratan, an ingenious designer. It was the first privately developed craft ever launched launched into the space, return to earth. Launched again, return to earth with a human onboard. And by doing that in the year 2004, space ship won won the ansarix prize, a prize of 10 million posted to encourage commercial development of space craft that could be used for space tourism. Space ship one operates as a suborbital craft. Doesnt go into orbit but like alan shepard in 1916, goes up makes a loop into space and glides back down to a landing like an airplane would land. There is a mother ship that is the actual transporter aircraft. And space ship one snuggles under it. The mother ship flies it around here in the atmosphere. And then its released from that. And after its released is when the rock engine ignites and shoots straight up. Space ship one is a very innovative design. It has a hybrid rocket that is part liquid propellant and part solid propellant. It can old hold three people though in the prize winning flight it had only the pilot and ballast to indicate the weight of two other people. And it has a very distinctive design. As you can see right now, its in a configuration with its wings up at about 50,000 feet 40 to 50,000 feet the swings are down and its stream lined looking. But as it shoots up into orbit and reaches the threshold of about 100 kilometers or 62 miles, the wings pivot up. And that stabilizes the craft for that loopover in orbit. And the loop lasts about six minutes during which the pilot and any passengers would be able to experience weightlessness. If they wanted to unbuckle the seat belts they would rise out of their seats. They can look through the round windows and get a wonderful view of the curve tour of the earth and the blackness of space. As the craft begins to descend the feathered wings is what theyre called, the feathered wings stabilize the space craft just the same way that the a badminton birdie or shuttlecock is stabilized so the nose stays pointing downwards and it is more stable. It also creates drag and slows it down quickly so it doesnt need the bulky heat shield. Once in the atmosphere, in the part of the atmosphere where there is enough air that it can fly aerodynamically again. The wings pivot down again into the streamline position. And the whole thing glides back down to a landing on a desert or runway. This little star spangled craft is reminiscent to me of a race car. Sleek and aerodynamic. It looks speedy and sporty. And it just looks like the kind of craft that a person who wanted to go up into space for a quick look and a quick experience of weightlessness might want to climb in and go for a ride. Most of the space craft that are in the collection of the National Air Space museum come from our space agency, nasa is our principal donor. At the end of nasas need, the agency will transfer space craft, space suits and a Great Variety of other equipment to the museum so that it can be preserved and displayed. And even used for research. Space ship one is a different case, in that it came from private enterprise. And so in in case we worked directly with the owner, manufacturer designer, burt rutan and his Business Partner paul allen, unof the cofounders of microsoft. And we approached them after the first flight in june of 2004 and said, regardless of whether you win the x prize or not, we think space ship 1 deserves to be in the National Collection because it was the first privately developed space craft piloted by a human being to go into space and return. You might notice a small dent in the nozzle of the engine on the back of space ship one. And that is not damage caused by delivering it to the museum or suspending it from the rafters. Rather that buckled in space during its first test flight when the engine ignited and just the heat and the force of the engine ignition buckled the nozzle. For the second flight and the third flight, a different nozzle was used. And they also made some corrections to the ignition sequence so they didnt have the buckling problem again. But when we asked to have space ship one delivered to us for the National Collection, we asked to have it returned to its original configuration from its first flight. The first flight wasnt the prizewinning flight, but it was the record breaking flight. And so they went to the trouble to reinstall the dented engine nozzle on it. Our next stop will be sky lab. And were going to look at that. Because it is one of the original artifacts on display here since before this museum open. Sky lab is so large that it was brought into the museum before the building was closed out. Now im standing in front of a model of sky lab thats as tall as i am. But the real sky lab orbital work station behind me absolutely dwarves the model and me. Reaching from the floor up into the skielts of this building, two stories tall. Sky lab was the United States first space station. It was placed in orbit in 1973. And in 1973 and 74 three different nasa astronaut crews spent time aboard it, three men at a time. One group there one month another group for two months. The third group three months. The whole point of the sky lab missions was to get some experience in living and working in space. When the Apollo Program came to an end there was still some hardware left over. And nasa thought, what can we do with this . We have developed this tremendous capability to launch space craft all the way to the moon. We still have a couple of the powerful rockets on hand. Can we repurpose them and do Something Else . And so the decision reached was to take the third stage of the gigantic saturn five rocket that powered the space craft away from earth on a trajectory to the moon and turn that into a habitable module a sort of miniature space station that crews could live in while they were getting in experience of living and working in space. And the actual element thats behind me is the full cylinder that is marked by this wide white band here. And you can see from the cut away there that its two stories on the inside. And those were two floors where the astronauts could actually live. In the missions to the moon and the missions in earth orbit they had been in space craft that were essentially cockpits. They had no more room in them than a sports car. But sky lab was like having a house and actually had rooms in it. There was a gallie ward room where they could meet together eat together. They were eating out of plastic bags tin cans but this was more homelike and social. They had three little bunk areas about the size of closets. But still each member had a private area to retire for some solitary time. And some sleep without being confined to the flight seat in a capsule. And most important, it had an actual bathroom. It had an actual toilet. In all the previous missions, the little known dirty secret is that the astronauts were using plastic bags to collect their waste. But finally they had a toilet. And they didnt have to deal with the mess of taking care of their bodily functions. It had a sink where they should wash up and shave. And it even had a shower which was essentially a tunnellike sheath that an astronaut pulled up around him and could use water from a sprayer inside the container. The trick was after the shower all the water had to bewood wiped off the body and the enclosure. And they finally decided it was more trouble than it was worth. They would just take sponge baths. But there was also room for an exercise bicycle and to have some experiments set up. And then they had a huge attic above the living area where their extra supplies were stored and a lot of the systems elements were there. But it was so big that they could run track around the perimeter of it and do tumbling around the perimeter running and tumbling across the tops of the lockers. That was for fun but they used it for serious reasons too. And they were testing out a jet backpack that might be used on space walks and they were able to operate that in that attic space that was so commodious. And below the living deck flar there was the remainder of one of the pro pelant tanks. That became the big trash can. And that was the hatch and they could put the trash through the hatch and it went down to the lower level. The ash itle workshop then was the largest part of the sky lab station. But above it tlfts an air lock module enabling them to go outside and service the big observatory, the solar observatory, which was a wonderful scientific facility attached to the orbital workshop. And using the instruments, a variety of cameras and detecters on what wassed called the apollo telescope mount we got our first really detailed views of activity on the sun. And we understood for the first time how dynamic our sun is, how its just roiling with activity. It has holes in it and storms on it. And it was an amazing thing to get the new information through the telescopes on sky lab. And then here at the top one can see the docking port for the apollo command and Service Module, which was essentially the shuttle craft to bring the astronauts to sky lab and bring them home again. The whole thing is 22 feet in diameter. And when you think of the ingenuity of turning a stage of a rocket, which is basically a big fuel tank, into a home that people can live in and you can provide them with plumbing and comfort and room to move around, a window to look out to enjoy the views of the earth, this in was a kind of turning point in our Space Program. Sky lab was the test run for what the next big thing was supposed to be. And from the late 1950s and early 1960s on, planners in the United States had foreseen an eventual space station. In fact the original plans were to build a space station in earth orbit first and then go to the moon. But president kennedy reversed that and decided to send the United States to the moon first as part of the cold war competition with the soviet union. So in the back of everybodys mind there was still a space station. Sky lab was the first step toward what now has become the International Space station, a huge new facility in earths orbit. Now this behemoth behind me is actually the backup sky lab space station. It is flight ready. Nasa built two in case they wanted to do two sky lab missions or in case there was some hardware problem with the first sky lab. We did make a modification to it. Ordinarily we dont modify flightready hardware. But in this case we cut a passageway two doors into it and laid down a sort of hallway right through the middle of the living quarters. So people visiting the museum can walk inside sky lab, see the living quarters, look into the bathro bathroom. They see a mannequin at a table. The smour is et up. The exercise bicycle in plain view. They can see the trash air lock right there. And if they look up they can be wowed by the a free space there is. I mention that sky lab was occupied in 1973 and 74. The last crew to leave sky lab buttoned it up and put it into sleep mode with a view toward a future crew possibly coming back. Then nasa got busy developing the shuttle. So what happened to sky lab . Well, gradually over time its orbit began to sbrrt somewhat and started dropping lower. And lower. And there w