All language subtitles for terror.on.the.space.station.s01e01.1080p.hdtv.h264-cbfm_track4_[eng]

MAN: (OVER RADIO) We've got you
loud and clear

on the International Space station.
Welcome aboard.

NARRATOR: Hurtling around Earth
at 17,000mph...

..in the most hostile place humanity
has ever attempted to live...

..the International Space Station.

In a space mission,
the bad guy is the environment.

The environment is trying
to kill you.

Now, 25 years since the first crew
arrived on the ISS,

we reveal the times astronauts' lives
were in the balance.

We're always asking ourselves,
"What's the next worst failure?

"What could go wrong next?"

From toxic leaks...

Do you copy? We're having a hard time
with a leak.

Sooner or later, he's got
to expose the outside of his suit

to his crewmates, who are not
interested in dying horrible deaths.

..to equipment malfunctions...

I don't understand
where it's coming from.

There was a risk that if the water
increased dramatically,

I would drown in space.

..lethal showers of space junk...

You've got orbital debris

that can hit your module
and put a hole in it.

Station to Houston on two.
This is an actual.

..to docking disasters.

We are out of attitude by at least
45 degrees and increasing.

..250 miles above Earth.

The smallest mistake
could spell disaster.

How do we respond to that unknown?

Understanding situations may have
the ultimate consequences.

Split-second decisions mean

the difference
between life and death.

From firsthand accounts
from ISS astronauts

and Mission Control,
who keep them safe...

..this is the untold story
of courage,

science,

and survival aboard the ISS.

And we need to be able to handle
those things when they happen,

because, in space, it will happen.

Low Earth orbit.

Astronauts Chris Cassidy
and Luca Parmitano prepare

the International Space Station
for the arrival of a new module.

They have spent years of training,

planning for every possible outcome
and every possible failure.

But nothing prepared Luca for this.

250 miles above Earth,

Luca's spacesuit has malfunctioned

and is leaking water
into his helmet.

There should never be any water
inside your spacesuit,

especially not in the helmet area.

In the microgravity of space,

liquids behave in unexpected ways.

It's surface tension that drives
the behaviour of water...

..and the water just wants to stick
to whatever it's stuck to.

Chris, you can continue
to help troubleshoot...

In Luca's helmet,

the growing ball of water
is creeping around his head.

It could smother his nose and mouth.

That's the moment, I think, where
it solidified in everybody's mind,

"OK, we're done for today."

In the military, we say
that problems happen at the fold

of a map, at the junction
of grid squares and at night.

And that's exactly how
this was shaping up.

As soon as he started to move,
the sun set.

Everything turns gold,
bright gold, for one split second.

Incredibly beautiful,
and then it's lights out.

Yep.

More water fills Luca's helmet,

causing his communications
to malfunction.

I call Chris, telling him,
"Hey, Chris, I think I'm a bit lost."

But nothing came out,

and I didn't have any return
in my earphones,

so I knew that he couldn't hear me.

Pretty soon, he's not going
to have air

in his helmet to breathe.

If the water increased dramatically,
I would drown in space.

A routine spacewalk has turned
into a life-or-death race

back to the airlock.

The next few moments
will not only decide Luca's fate,

but also the future
of the space program.

The ISS is the largest
and most complex structure

ever built in orbit, a triumph
of international cooperation.

But for those who live
and work here,

every moment of every day
is a calculated risk.

Space is a very hostile,
unforgiving environment.

It's an environment
that we are not designed to live in.

In space,
there's no margin for error.

Radiation,

fire,

contamination,

collision...

..and even drowning are just some
of the dangers astronauts face.

So the International Space Station
is the place that keeps you alive.

The ISS is the culmination
of years of planning,

beginning shortly before the turn
of the 21st century...

..a collective effort
of more than 50 nations

with unprecedented ambition

to build a state-of-the-art
science laboratory in space.

The bold venture kicks off
on November 20 1998

from Baikonur Cosmodrome,
in Kazakhstan.

A Proton-K rocket carries
the Russian component Zarya,

meaning 'sunrise', into orbit.

And lift-off
of the space shuttle endeavour.

16 days later,
the US Unity module joins Zarya.

(MAN SPEAKS RUSSIAN OVER RADIO)

But it's not until 20 months later,
with the arrival of Zvezda,

which means 'star',

that life-support systems
and living quarters

are finally added.

On November 2 2000,

the ISS welcomes its first residents.

REPORTER: The first crew
of the International Space Station

has reached their home.

NASA astronaut Bill Shepherd
and cosmonauts

Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev

marking the beginning
of continuous habitation

on board the orbiting outpost.

Three spacewalks the following
month configure power systems

and add a framework
of trusses to support

the station's solar arrays
and radiators.

But things are only just
getting started.

Great news, Mario, go for docking!

The space station's early success
is followed by a sobering truth.

Building a home in orbit is
as dangerous as it is ambitious.

And with every new addition,
the risks grow.

Its next module, Destiny,
an American-built laboratory,

will lay the foundation
for US scientific research

aboard the station.

Its installation falls
to two first-time spacewalkers -

Top Gun pilot Robert Beamer Curbeam
and Tom Jones.

When you're first starting,
and you're going out the hatch,

your first thought is,
"I want to make sure

"that I get this right,
that I do everything right."

While their crewmate Marsha Ivins

uses the shuttle's robotic arm
to manoeuvre

the 16-tonne Destiny module
into position...

..the spacewalking pair will assist
with its attachment to Unity

and integration with the rest
of the station.

This is when the game starts,

and you've got
to be serious about it.

It's time to go to work.

One of their primary tasks
is to connect Destiny's

coolant lines to the space station's
cooling system

to regulate the onboard temperature.

Heat doesn't dissipate
in space the way it would here.

It just stays there.

And if it just stays there,

you're going to probably overheat
whatever you have.

Every 45 minutes,

as the ISS orbits the planet,

its exterior is exposed
to direct sunlight,

raising its temperature

to a blistering
250 degrees Fahrenheit.

Then, as the station slips
into the Earth's shadow,

the temperature plummets
500 degrees to -250.

To combat these wild
temperature extremes,

the space station's cooling system
uses loops

of mechanically pumped fluid.

Inside US modules,
circulating water transfers heat

to an external loop filled
with liquid ammonia...

..which then passes through
three waffle-shaped panels

on the station's exterior
to radiate the heat into space.

It's this pressurised ammonia loop

that Robert Curbeam needs
to connect to Destiny.

The pressurised system keeps
the ammonia in liquid form.

Any crystals forming around pipes

or connections are evidence
of leaks.

At Johnson Space Centre in Houston,

Lead Flight Director Bob Castle
keeps watch over Tom and Beamer.

When he's got the suit on,
Bob's completely fine.

But one or two breaths
of pure ammonia,

and you will very likely die
within minutes.

Everyone watches the systems
on the station and on the shuttle

to make sure that everything is still
working the way it should be.

While the team knows
what's expected of them,

in space, any number of things
can go wrong.

When I actually removed the hose,

I saw a lot more crystals growing,
all around the two orifices...

..and I knew I had a problem.

An automatic shutoff valve
has failed.

I felt like I was working
in a blizzard

because there was so much
ammonia coming out.

Beamer immediately reported, "Oh,
it's spewing all over the place."

And then my counterpart,
Andy Algate, said,

"We see the accumulator going down."

Without its coolant,

the Destiny module would
be uninhabitable,

potentially jeopardising the entire
mission of the space station.

That heat must be ejected
from the spacecraft eventually,

or else you will burn up
the spacecraft

and the people inside of it.

We don't know exactly
what the leak rate was,

but I knew we didn't have long.

Beamer needs to find the shutoff
valve upstream and turn it off.

I did find very quickly that it was

going to be a lot harder
than I thought.

The valve is stuck.

When I tried to close it,
it didn't close.

I tried again, it didn't close.

They said it was going
to be about 25lb of force.

I can tell you - I've spent
a lot of time in the gym -

it was not 25lb of force.

It was much, much more.

I tried to close it again.

And finally, after four
or five tries, I got to close it.

Mission Control breathes
a sigh of relief.

With the leak stopped,

the astronauts can connect Destiny's
cooling lines to the station.

The ISS is safe.

What's next?

But now Beamer is covered
in toxic ammonia.

Sooner or later,
he's got to get out of the suit.

And sooner or later,
he's got to come back in the cabin

and expose the outside of the suit
to his crewmates,

who are not interested
in dying horrible deaths.

I thought to myself,
"What are they going to do with me,

"you know, now that I have this toxin
on the outside of the suit?"

I knew that the procedure to go back
into the spacecraft

was going to change.

I just didn't know how.

Tom wipes the toxic crystals
off his crewmate's spacesuit,

using a brush in their EVA kit.

But before he can re-enter
the space station...

..Beamer must burn the last
remaining traces

of ammonia off his suit,
in the baking heat of the sun.

The amazing thing about the procedure

to help me decontaminate
the outside of my spacesuit was

that it gave me the opportunity

to just sit in the sun and watch
the earth go by for 45 minutes...

..which was awesome.

And it was incredible, I loved it.

And you see the Gobi Desert,

you see all the different
parts of Asia.

You see the Himalayas to the south.

You see a little bit
of cloud layer there.

And you just bask in it.

Over the next four days,
undeterred by the experience,

Beamer clocks up 12 more hours
of spacewalks

to ensure Destiny is safely attached.

The Destiny module
is what we refer to as the US lab.

It's really our core lab capability.

So we have freezers,

we have different payload facilities
to conduct science.

This is sort of the heart
of the US segment.

Destiny is designed
for microgravity research

in a variety of fields,

from life sciences
to material science, and more.

Microgravity is not zero gravity.

The Earth still exerts
a pull on the ISS.

This pull is what keeps
the station in orbit,

circling the Earth
in constant freefall...

..creating an environment
that allows scientists

to observe phenomena
that cannot be replicated on Earth.

But the instruments on board
are also designed

to put our own planet
under the microscope.

We have a really unique capability
to look down on Earth.

Our orbital path takes us around 90%
of the Earth's inhabited surfaces.

So this what allows us, over time,
to see how the Earth is changing.

How weather patterns are changing
and affecting our environment...

..how the forest canopy is changing,
and the carbon cycle of Earth.

You have these instruments all

on the same platform,
going over the same area.

So you get a global picture

of the health of what's happening
to our planet.

The new Destiny module
not only provides

a platform for scientific research,

it also increases the habitable

volume of the space station
by over 40%...

..a welcome addition

for those building
and living on the ISS.

After the installation
of the Destiny lab module,

it was fast and furious.

Over the next 21 months,
eight successful missions add

the Canadian Space Agency's
Canadarm2,

a 57-foot-long robotic arm,

Quest, which will serve as
the primary airlock for spacewalks...

..the S0 truss, forming
the station's backbone,

and radiator trusses
to help dissipate heat.

All of this made possible
by an iconic spacecraft.

The ISS could not have been built
without the space shuttle.

Full stop.

But in February 2003,

after 16 successful shuttle missions
to the space station,

disaster strikes.

Flight controllers, here
in Mission Control, have declared

a contingency,
as communications was lost

with the Space Shuttle Columbia
during its descent

from orbit, enroute to a landing at
the Kennedy Space Centre, in Florida.

After more than two weeks
conducting experiments in orbit,

Space Shuttle Columbia
disintegrates on re-entry,

killing all seven crew members.

Those are my friends, you know?
I knew them personally.

I knew them professionally.

Some of them were in my class.

I miss them every day.

It caused us to lose seven
very incredible people,

and believe me, they were incredible.

WOMAN: You can just give it to me.

The Columbia disaster,
we later found out,

was due to foam shedding off
of the external tank.

During launch, a falling piece
of insulating foam

struck the shuttle's left wing,

damaging the thermal
protection tiles designed

to shield it from extreme heat
during re-entry.

And what that did was
that allowed very hot plasma

to get inside of the wing
and basically melt

the inner structure
of the spacecraft.

Test simulations back on the ground
reveal the devastating impact

of this seemingly small
briefcase-sized chunk of foam

travelling at high speed.

All shuttles are grounded,

while a full investigation
is carried out,

effectively halting construction
of the ISS.

The only way to reach
the orbiting outpost

is via Russian Soyuz capsules
launched from Baikonur, Kazakhstan.

To conserve vital supplies,
like oxygen and water, on the ISS,

the crew is reduced from three
to just two.

Commander Gennady Padalka
from Russia

and flight engineer Mike Fincke
from the United States formed

the two-person crew of Expedition 9.

I grew up in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania.

It's not a super wealthy city,

but we have all kinds of resources
for education.

So I went to the planetarium,
I went to the library,

I learned, and I knew that I wanted
to become an astronaut.

I met my wife at Johnson
Space Centre, here at NASA.

And like men and women do, we fell
in love and we started a family.

And I still hadn't flown yet.

And then the opportunity came up.

When I married him, I knew
that he wanted to go into space.

And so, I was always going
to support his dream,

even though it was going to disrupt
our planning for life on the ground.

Mike spent eight years training
before this mission...

..a mission scheduled to last
six months.

It's been his ultimate ambition,

but one that involves
personal sacrifice

for himself and his wife, Renita.

It was about two months
into his six-month mission

that we had the baby.

For the first time in history,

an American astronaut is in space
when his child is born.

It will be four months
before Mike returns

to Earth to hold his daughter
for the first time.

During his absence, she will grow.

But Mike's body will
also undergo changes.

While his new baby
is developing muscles quickly,

Mike's muscles will deteriorate
because of microgravity.

Renita and fellow
biomedical engineers

at Johnson Space Centre research ways
to overcome this challenge.

As you're up there longer
and using your muscles less,

you're going to need to find ways

to counteract all the changes
that are happening.

Without exercise,

astronauts' muscle mass can fall by
up to 50% over a six-month mission.

We provide crew members
with aerobic exercise,

as well as resistance exercise,

so we're able to build muscle

as we're exercising,

so that we can make sure
that everybody is fit

for doing what their duties are
in space.

In their role
as the station's caretakers,

the crew must occasionally
carry out physically

exhausting work on the outside
of the space station.

For Mike and Gennady,

this poses an additional challenge,

since, for safety,

spacewalks require two crew members.

This means leaving the ISS

completely unoccupied
during the operation.

One of our planned spacewalks
was to travel to the very end

of the space station,
which is the very aft end of Zvezda.

The plan is to install equipment
in preparation

for the arrival of a cargo vehicle
from the European Space Agency.

The two spacewalkers undertake
a tightly choreographed procedure,

But no matter how much they plan
and practise, in space,

there's always room
for the unexpected.

We're always asking ourselves,
"What's the next worst failure?

"What could go wrong next?"

We need to be able to handle
those kind of things

when they happen
because, in space, it will happen.

Two hours into the spacewalk,
it does.

Gennady and I were just
working away,

doing what we needed to do.

But as they worked,

they were inadvertently
causing a problem.

Our spacesuits were providing
a very little bit

of momentum towards pushing
the space station.

So we were actually pushing it
to go out of orientation.

The two astronauts working
at one end of the station

have caused the entire structure
to tip.

How could this happen?

The stability of the ISS
and its orientation,

or 'attitude', should be maintained
through the use of four Gyroscopes.

A gyroscope is a wheel
or disc spinning on its axis.

The heavier the disc,
and the faster it spins,

the more stable the gyroscope.

That's because a spinning disc
creates momentum perpendicular

to the plane of rotation,
which makes it resist tipping over.

Embedded in the ISS

are four huge gyroscopes,
pointed in different directions,

with 220lb wheels spinning
at over 100 revolutions a second...

..usually enough to keep
the whole station

from rotating in any direction.

The space station constantly
experiences forces

from solar winds
or from the Earth's gravity.

If left unchecked, they would cause
the space station to tilt or tumble.

The gyros counteract those movements.

But they can only compensate so much.

And they're already close
to their limit

when Mike and Gennady push
the station out of alignment.

So the space station went
into a mode that said, "Look,

"I can't control myself anymore.

"I'm not out of control,

"but I'm going to go into what
we call 'free drift'."

So the space station just started
to drift and point up and point up.

And there we are.

And we looked up, and we were
in a very unusual attitude.

And there was... Planet Earth
was zooming below.

Holding a desired orientation
in space is crucial to help keep

the station's solar arrays
locked onto the sun.

This isn't just about efficiency -
it's about survival.

We're completely off the grid.

And in order to keep it powered,

we're collecting as much solar energy
as we can when we're on

the light side of the planet.

When the station slips into darkness
for 45 minutes every orbit,

solar-charged batteries
become crucial

for powering critical
life-support systems.

With the solar panels unable

to charge the ISS's batteries,

to conserve power, Mission Control
turns off nonessential systems.

The only way to get
the space station back

into the correct attitude

is with the use of thrusters,

located exactly where Mike
and Gennady are working.

But there's a new problem.

Gennady and I were working
and talking

to our Russian colleagues
on the ground,

and all of a sudden,
it became very quiet.

The power-saving protocols
have inadvertently cut off

all communication between
the astronauts and ground control.

There was no-one else
to give us instructions.

And Gennady and I said,
"Well, what are we going to do?"

Mission Control has
a terrible dilemma.

To restore attitude,
they must activate the thrusters.

But with no way to communicate
with Gennady and Mike,

flight controllers have no idea

whether their astronauts
are in the firing line.

If a crew member was going
to be moving by them,

that crew member would be blasted
with hot gas

or contaminated because the gas

that the thrusters used
was extremely toxic.

Extremely, extremely toxic. Deadly.

We don't want to be anywhere
near that action.

If we were there in our spacesuits
when the thrusters went off,

we would experience the thrill
of being melted.

Suspended hundreds of miles
above Earth,

the two spacewalkers cling
to an empty,

drifting space station,
unsure what to do next.

As the planet turns
slowly beneath them,

Mike scans the horizon...

..and spots something that provides
a spark of hope against the void.

We saw where we were going.

We were headed over Greece
and headed north and east,

so we knew we were going to be over
what we call 'Russian ground site'.

After several minutes of silence...

(MAN SPEAKS RUSSIAN OVER RADIO)

..success.

Roscosmos manages to re-establish
backup communications.

We heard Moscow. They said,

"Hey, guys, you know
the space station

"is not in good control.

"We need to re-establish control.

"We highly suggest... In fact,
we tell you to move away

"from those thrusters.

"It's not in your interest
to stay there."

So we had to go hand over hand
to move away from the thrusters,

to be safe from any plume damage
or any heat that was being produced.

With the pair clear,
the thrusters are fired.

Attitude re-established.

It was a good view.

We got to look at planet Earth
as we regained orientation

from being pitched up all the way,
being pitched down.

We got the chance to just sit there

and wait as the station
regained its orientation.

Then they said, "OK,
we're back to normal work.

"Get back out there
and finish your job. Stop slacking."

On October 23 2004,

after travelling more

than 78 million miles aboard
the International Space Station,

Expedition 9 hands over command
of the outpost to the crew

of Expedition 10

and makes preparations
to return to Earth.

By the end of the mission,
I was kind of missing things

back on planet Earth.

I was missing my family -
it got bigger while I was gone.

We had a baby,
and I knew I had to go back home.

For almost two years,
ISS has been in stasis,

with no way of getting
new modules up,

its completion relies
on one crucial factor -

NASA's return to flight.

Less than a year
after Mike's return to Earth,

following an overhaul
of NASA's safety practices,

the space shuttle program
is reinstated,

with the first assignment
a mission to the ISS.

On July 26 2005,

the crew of Discovery prepares
for STS-114.

STS-114 was our return to flight
after the Columbia tragedy.

We had made mistakes,
and we were ready to fly again,

with the solutions to be able to show

that we belonged in space
and we could keep going.

OK, here we go.

The fact is, we had to have
the space shuttle

to finish building
the International Space Station.

For mission specialist
Wendy Lawrence,

STS-114 will be her first visit
to the ISS

and fourth and final venture
into space.

The flight will carry supplies
to the station and prove

that the shuttle program
is safe enough to continue.

MAN: (OVER RADIO) I've got you
loud and clear as well. Ready to go.

Seven. Six. Five.

Three engines up and burning.
Three.

Main engines lit off.
Solid rocket boosters lit off.

You literally feel like
you're in your slingshot.

You know when you're leaving
the launch pad.

In the wake of the Columbia
disaster,

NASA implements a series
of new safety protocols -

a redesign of the shuttle's
external tank to reduce

the potential for foam shedding...

..installation of multiple cameras

to cover the launch and check
for any anomalies...

..and an enhanced
in-orbit inspection

of the shuttle, using new
cameras and sensors.

Discovery reaches orbit,
apparently without issue.

Flight day two for us
was the initial on-orbit inspection.

We used the shuttle robotic arm
and the new sensor package

to examine the structural integrity
of the thermal protection system,

to see if there was any damage
that may have occurred.

Meanwhile, on the ground, analysts
scour footage of the launch...

..and discover several
troubling incidents.

A large bird hitting
the shuttle's fuel tank.

A small piece
of thermal tile detaching.

And a large section of foam falling
from the external tank.

Could history be repeating itself?

We looked at the side
of the vehicle.

We looked around our nose cap area,
as well.

Didn't see any damage,
so we were like,

"OK, not great to hear
that foam came off.

"Doesn't look like it hit
a critical area."

The inspection isn't
conclusive, though.

They need a closer look.

And to do that,

they'll need the help of the ISS crew

and a shuttle manoeuvre
never before attempted.

We came to 600ft below the station.

We basically did a backflip.

Inside Discovery,
Commander Eileen Collins initiates

the manoeuvre to pitch the shuttle
360 degrees.

The shuttle was performing
what we called

the 'rendezvous pitch manoeuvre',

to allow the ISS crew to take scores
of high-resolution photographs.

The crew on board the ISS have
a window of just 93 seconds

when the underside is in the sun,

to take high-resolution images
of the shuttle's heat shield.

Those were then downlinked
to engineers

to be able to look for any damage
or misconfiguration of those tiles.

As we came out of our backflip,
we got to watch Space Station

come up over the tail
of our orbiter, Discovery.

And I called that
our Star Wars moment.

This was just so cool. It was like,
"Here's this big spacecraft,

"right next to mine,
rising up over the tail."

While the shuttle crew unload
supplies onto the station,

engineers on the ground pore over
the images of the shuttle,

searching for anything
out of the ordinary.

Engineers identified that there
was a small piece of gap-filler.

What this is is a piece of fabric

that is meant to fill spaces
in between the tiles on the orbiter.

This gap filler had actually
stuck up into the surrounding area

above the outer mould line
of the orbiter.

So there were two
of these gap-fillers sticking out

from in between the tiles,
on the underside of Discovery,

something I'd never seen before.

The problem with this is,

as this re-enters
the Earth's atmosphere,

this could actually cause
the smooth flow to hit

that gap-filler
and then become turbulent,

which creates downstream heating

and puts extra heat stress
on the orbiter tiles.

The flow might come back together
in a way,

where it now becomes almost
like a blowtorch,

and it might burn through one of
the thermal-protection-system tiles.

This could turn the shuttle
into a fireball.

The gap-fillers protect the tiles

from vibrations on launch,
but are not needed for re-entry.

The decision was made
that these two gap-fillers

really need to be removed
before we'd come back for landing.

MAN: (OVER RADIO) One hour
and ten minutes. The IMU aligned.

The underside of the Space Shuttle
orbiter was not designed

to have astronauts there -
there were no handholds whatsoever.

Really, the only way for us
to have done

the gap-filler removal was to have

a crew member on the end
of a robotic arm.

(MAN SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY OVER RADIO)

I got to fly the station robotic arm
for that EVA.

Steve Robinson was on the end
of the arm,

and I flew him to where no astronaut
had ever been before,

on the underside of the Space Shuttle
orbiter, beneath the belly.

Once Steve locates the gap-fillers,
he must remove them.

After a two-week,
5.8 million-mile journey in space,

on August 9 2005,
Discovery sets off for home.

WOMAN: (OVER RADIO) See circuit
breakers coming back in?

MAN: (OVER RADIO) OK,
we did see that.

Only now will the team find out
if the fix worked.

Discovery's altitude now, 72 miles.
Speed, 17,000mph.

And now, all of a sudden,
you're coming back to gravity,

something you've spent
virtually your entire life in.

And it's not pleasant.

The shuttle's immense speed,
as it re-enters Earth's

atmosphere, superheats the air,

tearing molecules apart,
creating a plasma.

Temperatures outside soar

to a blistering
3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

As Discovery descends
into the atmosphere,

it will perform a series
of four banks to dissipate speed.

Well past the point of no return,

all the seven crew members
can do now is trust

that their inspection was thorough
and the repair is sufficient.

Main gear. Touch down.

Nose gear. Touch down.

And Discovery is home.

Let me tell you, when Discovery
touched down on the runway,

we knew that it had been a flawless
re-entry profile.

There was a sense of both relief
and accomplishment of all the teams

that had shown that we could
again fly the space shuttle safely.

With the shuttle program reinstated,

construction of the ISS
can now resume.

Over the next six years,

19 shuttle missions
and 94 spacewalks.

Numerous parts and modules
are bolted on

to the International Space Station.

Among them, Columbus,

a cutting-edge science laboratory
from Europe...

..the Japanese Kibo laboratory...

..with an exterior facility
to conduct Earth observation,

communication,
and material science research...

..the Poisk Mini-Research Module 2,

Russia's first major addition
since 2001,

and the Tranquillity module,

with its now world-famous
observation cupola.

In May 2011, the ISS
is finally complete -

a $150 billion space laboratory.

When we humans really want to...

..we can take that proverbial sword

and we can truly beat it
into a ploughshare.

We can do some pretty
remarkable things together,

peacefully,
for the benefit of all humankind.

We've opened some of the secrets
of the universe,

all the way from science and physics
to how to work together as humans,

how to...how to plan
and overcome difficulties together.

It was a milestone many, many,

many people had been working to
to achieve its original goal,

which to be a place where you could
do scientific research

in a very unique environment,
that of microgravity.

But what makes it unique
also makes it perilous.

In space, you are constantly at risk
of dying for a multitude of reasons.

Survival in space
is on a knife's edge.

Very quickly, you can have
an out-of-control situation

from a very innocuous start.

I have a lot of water.

Over the next 15 years,

events on the ISS will test
the powers of human ingenuity

to its limits,

to keep astronauts alive and prevent
the space station from breaking up.

This was like riding
a bucking bronco,

and we've got to make it
the full eight seconds,

except this time it was in orbit
around the entire Earth.