Original subtitles

We are the species that explores,

that fashions vessels to carry us into the unknown.

We sailed the planet of our birth,

saw its wonders and made it home.

And it wasn't enough.

We built flying machines

to explore higher, faster, farther.

Heroes flew them beyond what once seemed possible.

And it wasn't enough.

In time, we created special craft

that would ferry us to the edge of space and back.

And as always, there were the few...

brave and brilliant souls...

ready to guide this vessel through dangers

in the name of discovery.

Using the space shuttle,

we built an unprecedented outpost in the heavens.

We learned in the weightless world

of the International Space Station,

peered into the dark night of an infinite universe.

And it wasn't enough.

Now we are fashioning vessels to set off

on our greatest adventure of exploration ever:

to Mars and beyond.

Who knew that 30 years would go by so quickly?

That these unique spacecraft

would leave in their wake

a public captivated

by their achievements...

...a planet poised at the brink

of deep-space exploration.

As an astronaut, I definitely felt

I was saying good-bye to a long-time friend

when the last shuttle landed.

My name is Chris Ferguson.

I was lucky enough to fly on three shuttle missions,

one of them on Endeavour.

So it's no surprise that I wanted to be there

when she was headed for her new home

at the California Science Center in Los Angeles.

From the look of it, you might think it took

as much engineering to get Endeavour

through the streets of L.A. as launching her into orbit.

Watching the orbiter squeeze through the city neighborhoods,

you could feel just how much the shuttle had come to stand for,

almost as if it had taken all of us into space.

I sure don't want the world to forget

this remarkable spacecraft and those who built it,

and the legacy they left,

lighting the way toward our next frontier in space.

MAN They're coming.

The shuttle was the first

reusable piloted spacecraft.

And its engineering and software was so bulletproof,

it could be flown by computers

less powerful than today's smartphones.

MAN Two hundred.

One hundred.

At 235 miles per hour,

the shuttle had the fastest touchdown speed

of any flying vehicle ever built.

When you glide 220,000 pounds of spacecraft

to a no-power landing, the gear hits with a major whomp.

MAN Touchdown.

Conceived in the 1970s

as a kind of winged delivery truck

to build a United States low-Earth-orbit space station...

Give you a payload I.D. of one.

...the shuttle actually flew

more than a decade beyond original expectations.

It was the shuttle program that allowed us to do

real ongoing work in space,

to put delicate equipment into orbit and to retrieve

and fix that equipment when things went wrong.

Orbiters deployed, retrieved and repaired

over a hundred scientific and communications satellites.

And no missions were more important to our understanding

of deep space than the five flights, beginning in 1993,

made to repair and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope.

MISSION CONTROL Hubble affirmative.

You have a go for release.

I think history will view the Hubble Space Telescope

as one of the crowning achievements in astronomy.

The Hubble gave us an unprecedented view

of both our closest neighbors

and of galaxies unimaginably far from our own.

Further space telescope investigations have revealed

that the number of Earth-like planets

capable of harboring liquid water

is vastly greater than scientists once calculated.

In 1995, the shuttles began

a new era of international space exploration

when Atlantis docked, for the first time,

with the Russian MIR station.

Eight inches.

One-oh-point-oh-seven.

One-oh-six.

Four inches.

Now. We have capture.

Altogether,

the orbiters made 11 trips to visit Mir.

These missions established a level

of international cooperation and expertise

that continues to this day.

Though MIR no longer orbits Earth,

the shuttle proved itself as a brilliant reusable tool

that allowed us to live, build and do science

in the weightless environment of space.

But the shuttles' truest legacy

crosses the sky above us every 90 minutes.

The International Space Station could never have been built

without the shuttles' payload and space-walk capabilities.

Space shuttles and Russian Soyuz and Proton rockets

made more than 40 flights

to construct the International Space Station...

a true engineering miracle.

All three of my Orbiter missions were to the ISS.

Modules built by NASA partners in Asia,

Europe and North America, came together above Earth,

over a period of 13 years,

to create a floating world

longer than a football field

and with more living space than a six-bedroom house.

A typical ISS mission requires an astronaut

to live six months onboard.

But some crew members will spend a year

learning even more about the very real physical

and psychological stresses

of long-term separation from Earth.

These missions and the 15 nations

that designed, built and crew the ISS,

forever changed space exploration

into a cooperative international program

and made a true home and science lab like no other.

Wash away my troubles

Wash away my pain

With the rain in Shambala...

ISS system designs and scientific experiments

have spawned a multitude of Earth-useful discoveries,

including breakthroughs

in water purification and robotic microsurgery.

But most important,

the ISS is our springboard to the future,

giving us the knowledge and confidence

to sustain human life as we explore deep space.

Everyone is helpful

Everyone is kind...

Life on ISS is all about getting the job done

and having a little fun.

Everyone is lucky

Everyone is so kind

On the road to Shambala...

And nationality is mostly

about tasting each other's food.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Ah, ooh, ooh, ooh

Ooh, ooh, ooh, yeah

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah...

Through three decades of camaraderie and dedication,

355 people rode the shuttle into history.

They circled the Earth 21,000 times,

and it all came to seem routine...

until it wasn't.

...one minute, 15 seconds.

Velocity 2,900 feet per second.

Altitude nine nautical miles.

Downrange distance seven nautical miles.

This shuttle mission will launch...

My God!

There's been an explosion.

MAN 3 Flight controllers here

looking very carefully at the situation.

Obviously a major malfunction.

In two accidents that stunned the world,

we lost 14 astronauts.

It was a sobering reminder that every space flight

is charged with potential danger.

They had a hunger to explore the universe

and discover its truths.

They wished to serve, and they did.

They were pioneers.

The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted.

It belongs to the brave.

The world mourned, but pushed on,

because the accomplishments of the space shuttle

and the International Space Station

were full of life-changing promise.

In memory of our lost heroes, the global space community

pulled together to reignite the future of both programs.

Who could ask for a better ending to my career

as an astronaut than getting to fly

the last shuttle mission on Atlantis,

and a final visit to the ISS.

Atlantis launch director, air to ground one.

FERGUSON Atlantis go.

And so, for the final time, Fergie, Doug,

Sandy and Rex, good luck, Godspeed,

and have a little fun up there.

FERGUSON We're not ending the journey today, Mike,

we're completing a chapter of a journey that will never end.

You and the thousands of men and women

who gave their hearts, souls and their lives

for the cause of exploration, have rewritten history.

Let's light this fire one more time, Mike.

Though the shuttles no longer fly,

I never miss a chance to see Atlantis

at the Kennedy Space Center.

But I came to KSC to get a look at the next big step

in deep-space exploration, and it's called Orion.

Here, in the giant operations and checkout clean room,

the new Orion multi-purposed crew vehicle

is coming together.

What an impressive vehicle.

Look at that... it's beautiful.

It's gorgeous. I'd love to climb in there.

Orion is a true deep-space exploration craft,

designed to carry astronauts of the future

back to the moon, to asteroids, and even to Mars.

I've always been drawn to explore

and try new experiences.

Maybe that's why I applied to be an astronaut.

I'm Serena Aunon,

and I am one of the newer group of astronauts

chosen by NASA.

Like the rest of my class, I'm absolutely honored

and humbled to be here, and it's great to be a part of this team.

I guess you could say I'm one

of those people for whom the future has always seemed

an unfolding adventure.

So you can go forward and backwards in the procedure

just by using this toggle switch over here.

Yes, that, exactly.

Learning from astronauts,

like Lee Morin, who have already spent weeks in space,

gives you a great sense of confidence.

The Orion mock-up provides astronauts in training,

like Serena, a chance to learn flight procedures,

and also give feedback to perfect new systems.

This should be a piece of cake for Serena,

since my shuttle's ten screens

and more than a thousand switches

have been streamlined to just three screens

and 60 switches on Orion.

Hey, Lee, you can open the helium cross-feed valve.

Okay, we got that, so go ahead and send that command

on the helium cross-feed valve.

All right, copy that.

And the shuttle's hundred pounds

of flight manuals and checklists have been reduced to...

well... zero, since Orion's are all on computer.

Stand by, and we'll evaluate.

But even with all these improvements,

to get Orion into deep space,

we're gonna need a bigger rocket.

When NASA's giant space launch system,

built by Boeing, is complete,

the rocket will stand as tall as a 38-story building

and make more than nine million pounds of thrust,

enough to lift 22 elephants into space.

For deep-space expeditions,

the SLS will need to lift five key mission components

beyond low-Earth orbit.

Since Orion is too cramped

for a six-month journey to Mars,

one solution being developed is an inflatable habitat

to house the crew en route.

A solar electric propulsion device will provide

continuous power for the round-trip journey.

A lander craft will carry the crew from their orbit above Mars

down to the planet's surface.

Months later, an ascent vehicle

will lift the crew back up to the orbiting Orion

for the return trip to Earth.

But even using the most sophisticated

future spacecraft, a two-and-a-half year

round-trip journey to Mars

will present new challenges to the human body.

I wanted to thank the Indiana State Museum for having me here.

It is an absolute pleasure.

As a medical doctor with a specialty in aerospace medicine,

I am particularly interested in keeping astronauts healthy

as we head into deep space for long periods of time.

Our experience with more extended weightlessness

on the ISS has shown us that the human body will face challenges

during lengthy journeys to deep space.

Key issues are muscle and bone loss,

which can start after just a few days of weightlessness,

along with degrading of vision for some astronauts.

We now know that exercise is the antidote

for most problems caused by weightlessness.

And I mean exercise...

about two hours a day.

But, even so, the first explorers to Mars

will need to rest at least a few days

after landing on the planet to readjust to walking,

though Mars has less than 40% of Earth's gravity.

Radiation is another risk in deep space.

Radiation from our sun's solar storms

is one source of danger.

But cosmic radiation, which permeates all of deep space,

is another ever-present challenge to human health.

Sections of Orion, as well as the transit habitat,

will have to serve as a shelter

in the case of a major solar flare.

In the Arizona desert,

an Orion mock-up is being drop-tested

to evaluate reentry systems.

On returning from deep space,

Orion will enter our atmosphere

more than 50% faster

than shuttles or Soyuz capsules,

and generate five times more heat,

so perfecting her parachute deployment

and heat shield is key to crew survival.

At the Kennedy Space Center, Orion is being prepped

for an uncrewed test flight into deep space.

This new vessel marks the first step in over 40 years

to put humans beyond low Earth orbit.

A journey to Mars is on the horizon

because of wide-ranging international efforts

by both governments and private enterprise.

Companies from Boeing and Lockheed

to newcomers like SpaceX, Sierra Nevada

and Orbital Sciences

are developing spacecraft

to service the ISS and beyond.

Some private groups foresee a technically simpler

one-way mission to colonize Mars.

Already thousands have volunteered

to live permanently on the Red Planet.

The demands of going to deep space

will push old designs to new limits.

- Looks good. - Looks good. Hey.

- New glove. Should be good. - Sounds good.

My name is Lindsey Aitchison

and I am a spacesuit project engineer

at NASA Johnson Space Center.

I first started thinking about space flight

when I was four years old, when I first came to JSC

to take a tour at the visitor's center.

We have pictures of me just sitting inside this spacesuit,

and I just knew that's what I wanted to do.

No, dad-gum it.

When the Apollo suits were first done,

those were very short-duration EVAs.

We didn't have a lot of mobility in that suit,

so when you see those astronauts hopping around

on the lunar surface, it's not because they themselves

are clumsy or that the gravity is just impossible to deal with.

We didn't give them enough mobility in the suits.

So we learned a lot from that.

For the next generation suit,

there's still a lot that we don't know

about what it's going to be like to live

and work on Mars every day.

Once there, you'd be doing EVA,

walking outside on the planet about every other day.

Once we have the hardware in-house, we become the experts

of how that hardware works, what it does,

and how it meets the needs

for our next phase of our mission design.

We actually get into the suits, because the best way

to understand how a spacesuit moves

is to be inside of it and work it yourself.

I'll be asking Richard to perform specific tasks.

And what I'm looking at is: What is his gait like?

And so I'm watching how the bearings in the hip move

and how the bearings in the waist move.

And by comparing natural body motion to suited body motion

we can start to tweak the design of the suit

to make it more natural.

So that's what we're focusing on for exploration...

is how do you walk, how do you bend, how do you kneel,

how do you do all those geology-type tasks?

So, one of the big problems they had in Apollo

was all of that dust on the lunar surface.

It stuck to everything.

When the guys would come back inside of the lunar module

at the end of their EVAs, taking off their suits,

there was dirt everywhere... there was dirt on themselves.

It was just gross, right?

And that dirt is actually pretty harmful... the lunar dirt...

specifically, to breathe in for long periods of time,

so, long-duration missions, we wouldn't want to

bring that dirt inside with us all the time.

All right, Richard. Nice job.

Time to come on in.

So one of the key concepts we're looking at

for lunar and even Martian missions

is using what we call a suit port.

The idea of a suit port is that you have this plate

that becomes your pressure seal between the vehicle

and your suit, so when you're not using the suit,

it stays outside the entire time.

It is physically attached to the vehicle

so you can come in and out of your space suit

without ever having to physically

go into an air lock like we do today.

Welcome home, Richard. How'd the suit feel?

Feels good.

Outstanding. Strong work out there.

Driving a space exploration vehicle on dry land

is great training for deep-space missions of the future.

But driving a mini-sub was even more exacting.

No, there are no liquid oceans on Mars,

but before setting out for the Red Planet,

astronauts may make test missions to nearby asteroids.

A mini-sub resembles the kind of craft

we will use to explore asteroids,

and the ocean matches the zero gravity of space.

This NEEMO 16 mission marks

the 16th time NASA has trained at the Aquarius lab,

which is anchored 60 feet underwater,

off Key Largo in Florida.

NASA aquanauts live in the lab for up to two weeks

without coming to the surface.

This allows us to work the entire day

and only decompress once

at the end of the mission.

Any mistakes here can have real consequences,

exactly as in deep, inhospitable space.

Since asteroids appear to have changed very little

since they first formed,

they could tell us a lot about our early solar system.

Ultimately, we may develop space tools to capture

and reposition a small asteroid to orbit our moon.

This would allow for easier study,

and also develop our ability to deflect a larger asteroid

that was on a collision course with Earth.

This Olympus inflatable habitat,

designed by Bigelow Aerospace,

is a look at the future of living in space.

Jay, this is amazing. How big is that?

Thanks. Yeah, it's really big.

It's about 2,250 cubic meters interior volume, which is

a little over twice the size of the International Space Station.

And it looks like it's, like, 40 feet tall or somethin'.

Yeah, it's probably 45 or 50. It's really big.

Once you get into space, y-you just inflate it with air?

Right, we bring up huge compressed air tanks

that bring up large volumes of air.

Um, this expands out so the inside is about 16 meters

in diameter, and the outside's a lot bigger than that.

It's surprising that an inflatable habitat

can protect its crew against micrometeorites and radiation,

but that's what tests have shown.

The immense volume of Olympus

will provide ample work areas

as well as living space to help maintain crew morale.

Supply craft to provide food, fuel,

and radiation-protective living space will be landed on Mars

well before the first human expedition is launched.

We don't know exactly what all the spacecraft will look like,

but concepts are under active development.

Our infatuation with space exploration

is as limitless as space itself.

Without the shuttle, there would be

no International Space Station,

the vital test bed for a future human expedition to Mars.

And that mission is closer than you might imagine.

NASA projects we will get to Mars in the 2030s.

In other words, within the career

of today's young astronauts.

So any of these movies that you see where people survive

even for 20 seconds...

Why go to Mars?

Why not just send more and more sophisticated robotic vehicles?

I think to explore beyond what is known

is simply at the core of our DNA.

And only a human mission can tell us definitively

if we can survive and establish future settlements on Mars.

Astronauts exploring the planet may notice

and learn things robots could not,

things that could help take us

to the next frontiers beyond Mars.

Every 26 months, there is an optimal window

for launching spacecraft to Mars.

But even using the planets' orbits to shorten distance

and increase speed, with currently planned propulsion,

the trip to and from Mars will take six months...

each way.

Someday, even more exotic plasma or fusion propulsion

could shorten the journey.

But the first explorers to Mars will not have that luxury.

Orion can transport up to six passengers,

but for a first trip to Mars,

it would likely carry no more than four.

While going to and from the Red Planet,

Orion and the inflatable habitat

will be the astronauts' life support home for flight control,

science, and that all-important physical exercise.

Going to Mars...

getting there, working there, coming back...

will take nearly three years.

I wonder how that will feel,

to be away from home and friends and family for so long.

There is no 911 in space.

When Orion nears Mars, the spacecraft is two years away

from any possibility of help from Earth.

Even radio communications will take 40 minutes

to send and receive,

so any equipment failures or other emergencies

must be solved by the crew alone.

Nearly four decades of robotic exploration on Mars

has blazed a path for humans to follow...

...craft like Pathfinder and Curiosity.

Maybe I'll get to kick the dust off their tires.

Though it will be incredibly exciting to land on Mars,

our ongoing training in sophisticated simulator labs

means it won't feel entirely unfamiliar when we get there.

Later explorers to Mars might travel hundreds of kilometers

to mine their own water and hydrogen

to make fuel for their return to Earth.

But first visitors will have their hands full

making the discoveries that only a human mission can accomplish.

I don't know if I'll ever get to walk and work on Mars,

but I may already know some of those who will.

Someone who dreams of it,

just like me.

Humankind has forever been drawn toward the unknown,

by the simple innate conviction

that, to see the long-hidden side of the mountain,

to brush the infinite depth of the sea, might reveal

where we come from and who we are.

When humans do touch and explore Mars,

it will be among the greatest achievements in history.

But even that won't be enough.

We are the species that explores.

We will fashion new vessels

to carry us still deeper into space,

venturing from our life-giving home

to uncover the secrets of the cosmos

and our own unimagined possibilities.