The moon. So its actually fairly flimsy in some areas. The legs are obviously strong and mount for the rocket engine is strong but the craft itself and particularly the crew module or crew cabin was really fairly spartan. It had two windows. Neil armstrong had command of the craft during the final descent to landing. Both of them were standing. They were fully suited in their space suit and they pretty much filled that interior volume in that position with those 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 their 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 and 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 program them for the descent and launch, was done with fairly primitive computer programs and memory was minuscule compared to the memory we have now. 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 device 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. Our next stop will be sky lab and were going to look at that, because it is one of the original arti facts on display here since before this opened. It was so large 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 dwarfs the model and me. It reaches from the floor up into the sky lights of this building, two stories tall. Sky lab was the United States first space station, 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 was there for one month. Another group for two months, and the third group for 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 developed this tremendous capability to launch spacecraft all the way to the moon. We still have a couple of powerful rockets on hand. Can we repurpose them and do Something Else . So the decision reached was to take the third stage of the gigantic saturn five rocket that powered the spacecraft 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 this experience of living and working in space. The actual element thats behind me is the full cylinder that is marked by this wide white band here. You can see from the cutaway there that its two stories on the inside. Those were two floors where the astronauts could actually live. In the missions to the moon and earth orbit, they had been in spacecraft that were essentially cockpits and had no more room than a sports car. But sky lab was like having a house, it actually had rooms. There was a galley ward room where they could prepare food, meet around a table, eat together. They still were eating out of plastic bags and tin cans, but at least it was more home like and more sociable. They had sleeping quarters, three bunk areas about the size of closets but 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 of 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 didnt have to deal with the mess of taking care of their bodily functions. It had a sink where they could wash up and shave. It even had a shower, it was essentially a tunnel like sheath that an astronaut pulled up around him and then could use water from a sprayer inside that container, but then the trick after the shower was all of the water had to be wiped off, wiped off the body, wiped off the little enclosure. They finally decided it took it was more trouble than it was worth. They would just take sponge baths. But there was also room for them to have 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. It was so big that they could run track around the perimeter of it and do tumbling around the perimeter of it, just running and tumbling across the tops of the lockers. That was for fun but they used that space 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. Then below their living deck floor, there was the remainder of one of the propellant tanks and that became their big trash can. There was a hatch and they could put their trash through the hatch and it would go down to that lower level. The orbital workshop then was the largest part of the sky lab space station but above it there was an air lock module that enabled them to go outside and service this big observatory the solar observatory, which was a wonderful scientific facility attached to the orbital workshop. And using the instruments, variety of cameras and detectors on what was 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 and how its just roiling with activity all the time and spewing out big explosions of matter and it has holes in it and it has storms on it. It was an amazing thing to get this new information through the telescopes on sky lab. 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 back home again. This whole thing is 22 feet in diameter. And again, 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 provide them with plumbing and comfort and room to move around, a window to look out and enjoy the views of the earth, this 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. 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 earth orbit. This behemoth behind me is actually the backup sky lab space station. It is flight ready. Nasa built two of them in case they wanted to do two sky lab missions or in case there was some hardware problem with the first sky lab orbital workshop. We did make a modification to it. Ordinarily we dont modify flight ready hardware but in this case, we cut a passage way two doors into it, and laid down a sort of hallway right through the middle of this living quarter so people who visit the museum can walk inside sky lab, they can see the living quarters, they can look into the bathroom, they see a mannequin at the table with some food out on the table. The shower is set up there, the exercise bicycle in plain view, they can see the trash air lock right there. If they look up, they can just be wowed by the amount of free space there is. I mentioned that sky lab was occupied in 1973 and 74, the last crew to leave sky lab, buttoned it up and put it in sleep mode with a view towards a future crew possibly coming back. And then nasa got busy developing the shuttle. So what happened to sky lab . Well, gradually over time its orbit began to deteriorate somewhat and started dropping lower and lower. There was an early plan to use the Space Shuttle to go up and rendezvous with it and boost it back up to a higher altitude so that it could still be available for use. But the shuttle wasnt yet ready to fly. So what happened is after the orbit diminished, nasa had to bring this back in a controlled reentry. In 1979, sky lab was brought back down and it streaked into earths atmosphere like a meteor and broke up over the indian ocean. And a few pieces fell into parts of australia and were recovered. But fortunately no one was hit, no one was injured, no property was damaged. Now i paused here at sky lab because this was still news in 1976 when this Museum Opened. People streamed in here literally by the millions that first year. They were thrilled not only to see the old aircraft but to see the new spacecraft, to see what had been happening in space that they had seen on the news and heard about. And this is one of my favorite parts of the museum because this is where we display the three rovers that have been doing Major Research on the planet mars over the last 20 years. The first rover to land and operate successfully on mars was one identical to this one. It was part of the Pathfinder Mission of 1996, and a little rover named sojourner was put down on the surface of mars, and it operated long beyond its expected lifetime, exploring around in the vicinity. You can see it has six wheels, and theyre a kind of wheel called rocker wheels that will enable it to go over rocks without tipping over. Its about the size of a microwave oven, if you imagined a microwave oven having wheels. It has solar panels on top to keep it powered. It was really a little geologist that was put down on the surface of mars to do some of the kinds of investigations that a human geologist would do. Its equipped with a device to touch up against a rock and determine what chemical elements are in that rock. It had a camera for guidance. It could also pick up information about the ambient environment of mars. So you can think of marie curie is the name of this one. And sojourner as the first geologist to step foot on mars and to go roaming around so they could explore a broader area. This is actually the backup to the Pathfinder Mission. This one could have gone to mars itself. Ten years later, after the Pathfinder Mission, we had another mission that landed a somewhat larger rover on mars. And this is a model of spirit and opportunity. This is an engineering model, though, and isnt really ready to go to mars. You can see the growth since the first rover. This one is more like the size of a golf cart, perhaps. Again, it has the special wheels so that it can operate well on the uneven terrain. And its equipped not only with the solar panels to keep it powered up, but with larger and more sophisticated instruments. It has a robotic arm that extends out. It has almost a head here at the front, at the top of this long neck. And thats where the cameras are for its movement around, enabling scientists here on earth to see where its going and to see what its seeing. And it has various other scientific devices on it, and again, a kind of mars weather station to determine whats the ambient environment like, what is the wind like, what are the temperatures at different times during the martian day. What is it like when a dust storm blows up . And passes through. So again, this is a more capable geologist now thats on the surface of mars. But one that is mimicking some of the capabilities that a human being has. Spirit and opportunity were launched to mars in the year 2004. And opportunity is still operating, still roaming around on mars, sending out good data, again, outliving its life. So now well have a look at the third rover thats on the surface of mars. And this one landed in 2012 and is still working today. This is a model of curiosity. Curiosity has just grabbed public attention because first of all, its so big. Its like having a car on mars. And this is the one that had the very dramatic landing sequence where it was dropped from a crane that was descending from the orbital spacecraft. And it was called seven minutes of terror to get it down to the surface of mars without it being damaged. But it was a very successful landing. And curiosity has been roaming for kilometers on the surface of mars. Its studying planes. Its on the rim of a crater. Its going down into the crater to have a look at what the surface geology is like there. And the main mission of curiosity is to follow the water. Scientists have a lot of evidence that at some point in the past mars had a lot of water. And the evidence is in sedimentation on mars and in portions of land that look as if they have been washed over by water which then evaporated. And so the thrust of the curiosity rover is to investigate sites that seem to have had an abundance of water at some time in the past. Once again, this is a surrogate for a human geologist, much larger in scale than the pathfinder and the spirit and opportunity rovers. Much sturdier structure. A chassis that really is the size of a compact car. Again, a suite of cameras and weather station instruments on board. And this one is also a chemistry lab. There are several devices on here that can do analysis of the chemicals in the soil and in the rocks. Its really being a very exciting mission. And it has no end in sight. I think the public has become very fond of these rovers because they sense that they are surrogates for us and maybe pathfinders for us. Theyre doing the initial reconnaissance of the surface of mars so that if in the future humans actually go there, theyll know a lot more about the terrain and also know a lot more about sites that might still harbor moisture, if not actual water. And this pattern replicates what we did when we went to the moon. We started with missions that first flew past the moon. But one of the next things we did is set a lander on the moon just to determine how strong is the soil. Can something land there, or will it sink in . If humans are going to land, will they be able to walk on the moon . And i think were quite confident about mars that humans will be able to move around on the surface of mars very well. The rovers have demonstrated how easy it is to do that. One other thing about the rovers is they dont operate alone and preprogrammed. There are whole teams here on earth that are charting out their itineraries and scheduling their activities. And when they are working on the mission, in their heads, they are on mars with the rover. And they even wear watches where they set their watch to martian time. The martian day is 24 hours and 39 minutes. So their day is just enough longer than ours that for the people working on earth, each day they start work 39 minutes later. The days creep ahead for them. So when this Museum Opened in 1976, we were wrapping up a golden age of human exploration with the Apollo Missions to the moon, and we were launching into the first golden age of planetary exploration with the missions of the 1970s to mars and to the outer planets. Were now in another golden age of planetary exploration, particularly on mars with curiosity rover so actively exploring there. So were right in the present moment here when were with the mars rovers. And i wonder what we might see here in 10 years or 20 years as planetary exploration continues, with great success, we hope. And there is much talk about having a Human Mission to mars by about 2030 or so. If that should happen, that will probably be the stellar attraction in the museum by the time the next major anniversary rolls around. Were back live now at the Smithsonian National air and space museum where the museum today is celebrating its 40th birthday. It was 40 years ago today that president gerald ford dedicated this museum. In about a half hour, well bring you live coverage of the events celebrating that anniversary. In the meantime, we want to hear from you. Our phone lines are open. 2027488900 for those in the eastern or central time zones. If you live out west, 2027488901. Send us a tweet at cspan history or join us on facebook at facebook. Com cspanhistory. As we move outside to inside, one of the displays, and there are so many inside this fabulous museum, is moving beyond earth. And an example of the evolution of americas Space Shuttle program. And joining us again is valerie neal. We saw you just a moment ago in the tape portion. You are the curator, the chair of the Space History Department here at the museum. And lets talk about the shuttle program. No other country had Something Like that. Well, briefly, the soviet union did. They built a craft called buran that mimicked our Space Shuttle. But it was several years later. They flew one test flight and then retired it. They didnt really have a need for a shuttle craft. But they were very worried about what we might use ours for. And they thought they should have one too, just in case. But really, in the annals of space history, the u. S. Space shuttle is unique. Its the only operational craft thats reusable. Its the only craft that was the size of a cargo freight hauling truck out on the highway or an air freight carrier. It was much more capable than any other spacecraft has been, and very likely any other spacecraft ever will be. Not enough room here for one of the Space Shuttles. The enterprise, correct, is at the dulles facility . Well, we now have discovery at our center near Dulles Airport. We have the Space Shuttle enterprise for a number of years. The prototype Space Shuttle. But when it came to an end we requested a shuttle and we were fortunate to receive discovery the oldest of the Space Shuttles. And we turned enterprise back over to na