All language subtitles for Americas Secret Space Heroes Series 1 2of6 Lunar Module 1080p

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
In the 1960s, the dream
of a generation comes true.

ARCHIVE: The Eagle has landed!

NARRATOR: Human beings
walk on another world...

[Cheering and applause]

...arriving there in
an incredible spacecraft.

The Lunar Module.

MARTY: It looks like something
that came from outer space.

GERALD: It
turned out to be a bug!

NARRATOR:
Creating the Lunar Module

is the ultimate
engineering challenge.

PAUL: If your Ascent engine
doesn’t work you’re dead,

simple as that.

NARRATOR: It takes ingenuity
and dogged determination.

MARTY: The
technology we had was crude

compared to what exists today.

GERARD: There was always
difficulties and problems.

NARRATOR: From
risking lives on Earth...

[Explosions]

...to saving lives in space.

ASTRONAUT:
Houston, we have a problem.

NARRATOR: This is the
story of the unsung heroes

who build the
world’s first spacecraft

to land humans on the moon.

NEIL: It’s one
small step for man,

one giant leap for mankind.

[♪ theme music ♪]

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: The Lunar Module
is an engineering marvel.

The ultimate Winnebago

made from 30 miles
of electrical wiring...

half a million rivets...

and ultra-lightweight skin not
much thicker than kitchen foil.

It may look like an
unconventional flying machine --

but it’s the culmination
of millions of man hours

of engineering prowess.

PAUL: It was ugly, but it
was beautiful in the fact

that not an ounce was wasted.
It’s all form follows function.

NARRATOR: Between 1969
and 1972 the Lunar Modules

carry 12 Americans
to the moon’s surface

on six Apollo missions.

They are the spacecraft that
make the dream of a generation

come true.

♪ ♪

PRESIDENT KENNEDY: I
believe that this nation

should commit itself
to achieving the goal,

before this decade is out,
of landing a man on the moon

and returning him
safely to the Earth.

NARRATOR: May 1961.

Spurred on by the Cold
War, President Kennedy delivers

to NASA a seemingly impossible
engineering challenge.

To land the
first men on the moon.

At the time Glynn Lunney
is a young engineer at NASA.

GLYNN: We were thinking
that, wow, that is really

an incredible goal to set,

and our minds
immediately turned to,

how are we gonna do that?

NARRATOR: It’s all
the more incredible

as America’s only
spaceflight experience happens

just weeks before the
President’s announcement.

GLYNN: We just
barely got Al Shepard up,

and he flew a couple hundred
miles in the air and came down.

NARRATOR: Astronaut Alan
Shepard’s short suborbital hop

lasts just 15 minutes.

Now the goal lies
240,000 miles away.

Kennedy’s dream
inspires some of America’s

brightest young engineers.

Like Marty Finkelman.

MARTY: Nobody knew for
sure whether we could do it.

NARRATOR: And Stephen Rocamboli.

STEPHEN: Everybody in
the world was looking.

What are the Americans doing?

NARRATOR: Before
anyone can set to work,

NASA must make a
critical choice.

What’s the simplest
and most achievable way

of landing on the moon?

PAUL: When the problem
of landing on the moon

really became serious
and they had to look at it,

the natural assumption is,

look, it’s right there,
let’s just go there and land.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: This no-nonsense
approach uses one giant rocket,

in a method
dubbed Direct Ascent.

The rocket must
be powerful enough

to carry everything
needed to reach the moon,

including a big heavy
spacecraft over 70 feet tall

that lands on the lunar surface
and then lifts off again

to fly back to Earth.

NARRATOR: But as
engineers like Gerry Sandler

are quick to point out --
Direct Ascent has a major flaw.

GERRY: Direct Ascent
required a great deal of thrust

and a boost larger than anything
we could have even imagined

at that time.

NARRATOR: Building a
rocket this large and powerful

is likely to make
Kennedy’s deadline impossible.

NASA needs an
alternative solution.

They explore a riskier method
called Earth Orbit Rendezvous.

This requires not one new giant
rocket but two smaller rockets,

each launching
part of a spacecraft

to be assembled
in Earth’s orbit.

But two rockets means double the
risk of a failure at launch.

NASA must make a
decision quickly.

Enter a young aerospace
engineer, John Houbolt.

He’s working on a radical idea.

So radical -- it hasn’t been
given the attention it deserves.

PAUL: John Houbolt
was the guy who said,

look, you guys aren’t
thinking about this properly.

Every time I’ve
brought this in front of you

I’ve been dismissed.

NARRATOR: Houbolt
rejects Direct Ascent

and Earth Orbit
Rendezvous in favor of

a more swiftly achievable
method of getting to the moon.

His unpopular idea is called
Lunar Orbit Rendezvous, or LOR.

It uses two small spacecraft.

One, called the Lunar Module,
descends to the moon’s surface,

while the other, called the
Command and Service Module,

remains in lunar orbit.

Once the astronauts
have finished on the moon,

the top stage of the
Lunar Module returns them

to rendezvous with the Command
Module before it’s discarded.

To Houbolt the
advantages of LOR are obvious.

PAUL: You need
one less launcher,

you don’t need the
giant impossible rocket,

and you can dedicate the lunar
lander to do the one function,

this difficult thing that
we’ve never done before --

landing on the moon.

NARRATOR: But for NASA,
LOR has a nightmare scenario.

PAUL: Lunar Orbit
Rendezvous was very scary

because if you
miss the rendezvous,

if this little ballet of
spacecraft trying to join up

doesn’t work, you’re dead.

NARRATOR: But
Houbolt isn’t discouraged.

He gambles his career by
going straight to the top.

He writes a letter to one
of NASA’s senior executives.

JOHN: I fully realize that
contacting you in this manner

is somewhat unorthodox.

NARRATOR: Houbolt goes
on to lambast his managers

for dismissing LOR.

His conviction’s evident
in a copy of his letter.

PAUL: Wow. This is
amazing. Yeah, you see this?

"I’ve been appalled at
the thinking of individuals

and committees
on these matters."

NARRATOR: Houbolt lays it on
the line and bluntly asks...

JOHN: Do we want to
get to the moon or not?

PAUL: I would say this
letter saved NASA from failure

of landing on the moon in time.

NARRATOR: As the clock ticks,
NASA engineers finally accept

the LOR method, and
on July 11th, 1962,

they announce their decision.

Over a year since
Kennedy’s speech, NASA is ready

to choose a contractor
to build the Lunar Lander

and reach for the moon.

One company stands out:
aircraft manufacturer Grumman.

In November 1962,
they win the bid.

But planning the lunar
mission has cost precious time.

Grumman engineers
will feel the heat,

spending the rest of the decade
racing to get to the moon.

♪ ♪

A year and a half
since Kennedy’s promise

to land men on the
moon, Grumman engineers

must turn their design for the
Lunar Lander into a reality.

They have a sterling record in
constructing commercial planes

and fighter jets.

But now they face one
of the greatest challenges

in aviation history --

engineering a machine that flies
not on Earth, but in space.

♪ ♪

The engineers’
initial inspiration comes

from a familiar
flying machine on Earth.

PAUL: Their winning design
was kind of like a helicopter

with little legs, and
the little legs were small,

and they had little pads.

NARRATOR: Grumman’s lunar
lander seizes on the design

of the helicopter
for one critical reason.

The astronauts must be able to
search for a safe place to land.

Almost nothing is known
about the lunar surface,

other than it will be
unforgiving and treacherous.

A young pioneering rocket
scientist, Gerard Elverum,

would be crucial in
finding a solution.

GERARD: There were a
lot of speculation about

what the surface
of the moon was,

whether there was six
feet of dust up on the moon

or whether it was a few inches.

NARRATOR: Engineers know
it’s going to be dangerous.

They need to predict how
the Lunar Module will react on

touchdown and design everything
to prevent a crash landing,

which would leave the astronauts
stranded on the moon to die.

Engineers must help avert
this worst-case scenario.

GERARD: Being able to
hover and spend some time

finding where you want to
sit down became very important.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: The
astronauts practice in this --

a NASA test vehicle
dubbed the Flying Bedstead.

It’s inherently dangerous.

[Explosions]

♪ ♪

Elverum is
challenged with designing a way

to allow the
astronauts to maneuver

while descending to
the moon’s surface.

His solution is to
devise a spacecraft engine

that can throttle.

GERARD: It was
brand new technology.

So these two valves
here control the flow rate

coming from the tanks
in the descent stage.

NARRATOR: By controlling
the supply of propellant to the

Descent engine, the astronauts
can control its thrust,

allowing them to
maneuver like a helicopter.

But landing safely on the
moon is only half the problem.

The other half is building an
engine to get them off the moon.

It would be known
as the Ascent engine.

PAUL: The problem
with the Ascent engine,

the difficulty was that
it had to work every time.

That’s a single
point of failure.

If your Ascent engine
doesn’t work you’re dead.

Simple as that.

NARRATOR: Like the Descent
engine, the Ascent engine

must be as simple and
as reliable as possible.

Fresh out of college
with a degree in aeronautical

engineering, Tim Harmon is
tasked with the challenge.

TIM: We had to keep it simple,
and NASA realized that as well.

Not a lot of complexity.

NARRATOR: Keeping it simple
means stripping out as many

moving parts as possible --
pumps, valves and turbines.

But the engineers then
face another challenge.

If you rip the heart
out of a rocket engine,

how do you get it to fire?

The answer lies
with the fuel itself.

PAUL: You use propellants
that don’t need an igniter,

that don’t need a turbine,
a bunch of moving parts,

to suck ’em in
and then burn them.

TIM:
There are certain combinations
of propellants that,

if you mix them, they
automatically ignite.

PAUL: One look at each other
and they explode on contact.

[Explosion]

NARRATOR: It’s pure simplicity.

Push the two
propellants together

in the engine’s
combustion chamber, and bang!

But using these self-igniting
fuels comes at a cost.

They’re so corrosive
that at the end of a test

each engine has to be rebuilt.

It means the final assembly of
an engine can never be tested.

DICK: They’d build an engine
and they would take it out

to a facility that we had
in White Sands, New Mexico,

and they would
fire the engine up.

After they fired the engine up,

they would take the entire
engine apart and clean it

and reassemble it.

That engine would
not be re-fired again

until it was on the mission.

NARRATOR: So when the astronauts
use the Ascent engine,

they’ll be
gambling with their lives.

These two engines control
the two-part Lunar Lander.

The Descent Stage
with its throttling engine

flies the astronauts
to a soft lunar landing.

And the Ascent Stage
launches them safely

back into lunar orbit.

But Grumman’s design
is still in its infancy.

As they begin to build, they
soon start battling against

every space engineer’s enemy.

Weight.

Like the astronauts, the
Lunar Module will be carried

into space by NASA’s
mighty Saturn V rocket.

But there’s only
so much it can lift.

The problem is, the Lunar
Module keeps getting heavier.

DICK:
The weight started to climb,
and we went 20,000 pounds,

we went 22,000
pounds, 24,000 pounds, err...

It was, it was a
constant battle.

NARRATOR: By October 1964
the Lunar Module’s weight

has ballooned to
a crippling level.

STEPHEN:
Whenever you went to work, even
if you made a change, everybody

was saying, well, what’s
the implication for weight?

It was there all the time.

DICK: The LEM being
overweight late in the program

generated what I would
call, uh, a bit of a panic.

NARRATOR: Something has to give.

So Grumman wages
all-out war on weight.

Engineers start by shaving
off every spare ounce of metal.

DICK: We would be
paid $40,000 a pound

for every pound of material
that we could scrape off.

NARRATOR: Every part of
the Lunar Module’s design

is then re-assessed.

DICK: You wanted to
have great visibility,

so they had big windows.
Now, glass is very, very heavy.

NARRATOR: The large
windows are replaced

with smaller, lighter ones.

But now the seated astronauts
can’t see where to land.

GERRY: Somebody came up
with the brilliant idea,

why don’t we just put
restraints on the crew

and have them stand up facing
the window and leaning over,

and get the same angles?

NARRATOR: While descending to
the moon, flying sitting down

or standing up
makes little difference.

It’s an ingenious
weight-saving idea.

Engineers must then find
the lightest materials possible

for every part of
the Lunar Module.

PAUL: The astronauts
lived inside this air balloon

made of metal, and this is
the thickness of that balloon.

The astronauts would be on this
side, where there was oxygen.

On this side was the
deadly vacuum of space.

Twelve-thousandths of an
inch thick is all that was.

NARRATOR: In all,
the engineers shave off

more than two thousand pounds

and transform the appearance
of their Lunar Lander.

Gone are the helicopter-like
windows and seats.

Five legs become four.

The circular
hatch becomes square.

Heavy panels are replaced
with facets of thin aluminum.

By 1967, Grumman
has their spacecraft.

But it hasn’t even
left the workshop.

When it does, the pressure
on the engineers skyrockets.

June 1967, the
first Lunar Module, LEM1,

arrives at the Kennedy
Space Center in Florida.

It’s already
months behind schedule.

And before it can
fly, the Lunar Module

must pass NASA’s stringent tests

to see if it can
keep two astronauts alive

in the moon’s
lethal environment.

STEPHEN: When the LEM
goes down to Cape Kennedy,

you know what the first thing
they do? They take it apart.

Everything gets taken apart.

NARRATOR: What
they find is a disaster

for the Grumman engineers.

The welds on LEM1’s
fuel tanks and fuel lines

have a critical problem.

PAUL: They opened it up,
they tested it for leaks.

It leaked like a sieve.

They couldn’t
believe how badly it leaked.

NARRATOR: The tanks’ welds are
riddled with microscopic holes.

Grumman thought their
welds were up to standard,

but NASA’s tests
are more rigorous.

Unsafe to fly, the
Lunar Module is grounded.

DICK: Well, certainly
it causes embarrassment,

and to have a setback
like that is serious.

NARRATOR: The weld repairs
take the engineers 3 months,

delaying LEM1’s flight further.

Meanwhile, back at
Grumman in New York,

another crisis throws
the schedule into disarray.

It happens toward the end of
1967 during a pressure test.

PAUL: In December,
Lunar Module #5, Eagle,

the first one to land on
the moon, its window blew out

during a standard test.
This was completely unexpected.

[Glass shattering]

STEPHEN: I hear the LEM
has had a window failure.

Oh my God, had a window failure?

Right away I said that would
cause an astronaut to die.

NARRATOR: The
window has a critical flaw

which was missed
in the inspection.

But the broken glass
also poses a major threat.

STEPHEN: There’s plexiglass
and glass all over the interior

of the LEM. There’s, I
could see, wires cut, nicked.

NARRATOR: A single
shard could short circuit,

the LEM electrics, or worse,
severely injure an astronaut

if it’s inhaled.

STEPHEN: I am overwhelmed.
I’m going, oh my God,

what are we gonna do? I
said, shall we scrap it?

NARRATOR: But Grumman
knows that scrapping a

multi-million-dollar spacecraft
simply isn’t an option.

Instead they have no choice
but to try and save LEM5.

So NASA implements a
meticulous clean-up job,

and young engineer Steve
Rocamboli is on the front line.

STEPHEN: We could not even see
what we were cleaning at times.

There were people with camel
hair brushes and filter paper,

and they would go like
this and collect particles

on the filter paper that
were sent to a quality lab

where our inspectors would
count the number of particles

and the size of the particles.

NARRATOR: NASA’s
criteria for cleanliness

is agonizingly stringent.

First, every inch
of the spacecraft

is photographed in detail.

Then, every
fragment of glass collected

from each photographed area is
removed from the Lunar Module...

placed under a microscope...

and precisely measured.

STEPHEN: If you had so many
particles of a certain size

and density then it
would be a problem.

NARRATOR: After a 3-month
clean up, NASA finally declares

the Lunar Module is
safe for its astronauts.

As Kennedy’s
deadline bears down,

the milestones come thick
and fast for the engineers.

The millions of hours they
have spent on the Lunar Module

begin to pay off.

In March 1969 Grumman’s
spacecraft is finally ready

for its first
manned test flight.

MISSION CONTROL:
The engines are armed;

4, 3, 2, 1, 0...
we have liftoff.

NARRATOR: Apollo 9 blasts off
with three astronauts on board.

In Earth orbit, the
bug-like spacecraft practices

undocking and docking
with the Command Module.

APOLLO 9: I have
about 370 feet. Okay.

NARRATOR: The test
is a complete success.

Two months later, Apollo
10 takes the Lunar Module

even further,

this time descending
to within 9 miles of the moon.

ASTRONAUT: Very pretty.

NARRATOR: Now it’s
time to head all the way

to the moon’s surface.

♪ ♪

On July 16th, 1969,
Apollo 11 thunders skyward

from Cape Kennedy.

MISSION CONTROL:
Liftoff. We have a liftoff.

32 minutes past the
hour. Liftoff on Apollo 11.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Four days later, in
lunar orbit, Apollo 11’s crew

powers up the fifth
Lunar Module, Eagle,

ready for its
descent to the surface.

MISSION CONTROL:
Go for undocking.

ASTRONAUT: Roger,
Eagle has undocked.

MISSION CONTROL:
Roger, how does it look?

ASTRONAUT: The Eagle has wings.

MISSION CONTROL:
...over.

NARRATOR: After seven long
years this is the opportunity

for the engineers to
beat Kennedy’s deadline.

Now their spacecraft
must carry two astronauts

on humanity’s most
dangerous journey.

DICK: I was
concerned about everything.

The money was on the line
now. We were going to the moon.

NARRATOR: Their
worries are well-founded.

Eagle’s flight will be
far from plain sailing.

July 20th, 1969.

Astronauts Neil Armstrong
and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin

begin man’s first
journey to the moon’s surface

aboard their Lunar
Module called Eagle.

Now it’s crunch time for
the engineers who built it.

MISSION CONTROL:
You got a fine-looking
flying machine there, Eagle.

NARRATOR: Will Eagle
withstand a lunar landing?

MISSION CONTROL: Okay,
everybody, let’s hang tight

and look for landing radar.

NARRATOR: The
mission hinges on a computer

to guide them down
to the lunar surface.

But it has just 1
megahertz of computing speed,

over a thousand times
slower than a smartphone.

Such a small amount
of processing speed

could prove a showstopper.

NEIL: Program Alarm.

BUZZ: 1202 alarm.

NARRATOR: 1202 is
a computer alarm.

Neither astronauts nor
most in Mission Control have

a clue how it will interfere
with the lunar landing,

including flight
director Glynn Lunney.

GLYNN:
Oh, yes. I mean, it caused
a lot of concern to people

because they all knew that
it was a risk to the landing.

They had to decide
whether to continue and land

or whether they had to abort.

NARRATOR: They’re within just
40,000 feet of the surface.

But everything the
engineers have worked for

hangs in the balance.

One navigation
engineer, Jack Garman,

knows what the 1202 alarm means.

He’d seen it before
in a simulation landing.

GLYNN: What it amounted to
was the computer was issuing

an alarm that says, you
are asking me to do too much;

you have overloaded
me, the small computer.

NARRATOR: There’s no way
of rebooting the computer

to cancel the alarm.

The question is, can
the computer keep up

and navigate a landing?

If not they must
abort the mission.

ASTRONAUT: Give us a reading
on the 1202 program alarm.

PAUL: Jack Garman is looking
down at his little cheat sheet,

and he realizes that
this alarm problem is one

that cropped up
unsuspectedly earlier on

in one of their
test training places

and realizes, oh, we
can still keep flying

as long as it’s this alarm.

TOM: Jack Garman
said, ignore the alarms.

Everything is okay. The
vehicle is safe to land.

MISSION CONTROL:
We’re go on that flight.

NARRATOR: Jack Garman and
the other young engineers

save the astronauts
from a last-minute abort.

MISSION CONTROL:
You’re go for landing, over.

NARRATOR: Apollo
11 is back on track.

MISSION CONTROL:
Go for landing.

NARRATOR: The fragile spacecraft
closes in on the lunar surface.

But heart rates in Houston
are about to rocket once again.

GERARD: As they looked at where
they were supposed to land,

they found that the
whole terrain was filled

with boulders and rocks.

NARRATOR: So Armstrong
makes a crucial decision.

He accelerates and
flies horizontally

to clear the boulder
field, using up precious fuel.

MISSION CONTROL: Two
fuel only... critical...

NARRATOR: Eagle’s fuel
gauge is critically low.

NARRATOR: But incredibly,
unbeknownst to both astronauts

and Mission Control, the
fuel readings they’re seeing

don’t match what’s
actually left in Eagle’s tank.

It all comes down to
something called fuel slosh.

PAUL:
Fuel slosh was an unexpected
problem on the spacecraft.

Because the tanks
are round at the bottom

and the
spacecraft is moving around,

the propellant is
doing this kind of stuff.

And there’s a little
indicator at the bottom

that gives ’em an idea of
when they’re at low level.

On Apollo 11,
because of the slosh,

it was uncovered about
almost 40 seconds early.

NARRATOR: The indicators
falsely show a low fuel level.

But astronauts and
Mission Control are unaware

of the problem, and
in a race against time.

PAUL: That’s 40 seconds
less time for Armstrong to find

a place to land,
which was crucial for him.

MISSION CONTROL:
75 feet...

NARRATOR: Engineer Dick Wilde,

monitoring the life support
systems, sees the drama unfold.

DICK: A minute and a half
remaining, a minute remaining,

30 seconds remaining,
and the guys who were

managing the fuel supply
were jumping up and down,

and one of them yelled
out, for everybody to hear,

"Land the goddamn thing."

GERARD: And I was
sitting back there saying,

"Armstrong, set it down. Set it
down. Don’t abort the thing."

ASTRONAUTS:
Picking up some dust...

Okay, engines stop! In a
descent. We’ve had shutdown.

MISSION CONTROL: We
copy you down, Eagle.

Tranquility Base
here. The Eagle has landed!

ASTRONAUTS:
Roger, Tranquility, we
copy you on the ground.

You got a bunch of
guys about to turn blue.

We’re breathing
again. Thanks a lot!

MISSION CONTROL: Thank you!

DICK: They landed it with
seconds of fuel remaining.

That was excitement.

NARRATOR: In reality Armstrong
has 40 seconds more fuel

than everyone thinks.

To the engineers it
seems the astronauts

have just escaped certain death.

GERARD: The feeling I had
when it happened is, it’s done,

never could be undone, you know.

These are the first guys to land
on another body from Earth.

And you can’t take
that away from me,

and it was my engine
that allowed it to happen.

NEIL: It’s one small step for
man, one giant leap for mankind.

NARRATOR: A decade-long struggle
for the Lunar Module engineers

has finally paid off.

But one engineer is still
waiting with bated breath.

Tom Moser designed the
US flag for Apollo 11.

TOM: I didn’t think
it was a show stopper.

I thought doing something
like that was something

that was pretty straightforward.

NARRATOR: Moser has engineered
a horizontal pole for the flag

designed to stop
it from hanging limp

in the moon’s zero atmosphere.

TOM: The rod had an
improper coating on it.

So it wouldn’t
extend all the way.

So it looked like the
flag was waving in the breeze.

NARRATOR: The
flag’s support pole is

a little-known
engineering failure.

And leads many to believe the
whole mission is a conspiracy

staged here on Earth.

TOM: There’s no atmosphere,
there’s no wind up there.

So how could it be
waving? It wasn’t waving.

It was just, it was not
able to unfurl all the way.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: The astronauts explore
the moon for just a few hours.

Now comes the part that
engineers are secretly dreading.

The moment the Lunar Module must
help bring them safely home.

MISSION CONTROL: 9... 8... 7...

NARRATOR: If the
Ascent engine doesn’t work,

they’ll be stranded on the moon.

MISSION CONTROL: ...
6... 5. Ascent proceed.

PAUL: They just calmly said,
"Mission. Beautiful ride."

Everything was fine.

ASTRONAUT: Beautiful...
Very smooth, very quiet ride.

PAUL: And that was
totally not adequate to express

the engineers’
relief at that moment.

It was really a big deal.

ASTRONAUT: Houston,
request manual start override.

DICK: It went flawlessly.

When Apollo 11
lifted off from the moon,

my job was over. Pride
was probably the word.

DICK:
I went outside and I looked
up at the moon and I said,

"I have just witnessed history.

And I have been
a part of history,

and I will never look at
the moon the same way again."

And to that, to this
day that is still true.

NARRATOR:
Apollo 11’s resounding
success makes history.

The Lunar Module has
performed faultlessly.

But its greatest
test is yet to come,

during the most epic
drama in Apollo’s history.

ASTRONAUT:
Houston, we have a problem.

MISSION CONTROL: Stand
by, 13. We’re looking at it.

NARRATOR: In April
1970 the Lunar Module

is heading to the
moon on Apollo 13.

On board are
astronauts Jim Lovell,

Fred Haise and Jack Swigert.

The goal is to
explore the Lunar Highlands.

But fifty-six
hours in, Apollo 13

suffers a crippling explosion.

[Explosion]

Engineers in Houston, including
flight director Glynn Lunney,

face their nightmare scenario.

GLYNN: Somebody turned
around to me and said,

"Err, Glynn, you
better get out there."

When I get back
in all the panels

had warning lights on ’em, and a
lot of them were blinking red.

I mean, it was like somebody
turned everything upside down.

NARRATOR:
The Service Module is losing
power and bleeding oxygen.

ASTRONAUTS:
We are, we are venting
something out into space.

NARRATOR: There
is only one option.

To abort the lunar landing

and try to bring the
astronauts safely home.

GERRY: We were 200,000 miles
already out towards the moon,

so we knew we had to do things
that we hadn’t done before,

or even tested before.

We knew we had to use
the LEM as a lifeboat.

MISSION CONTROL: I figure we’ve
got about 15 minutes’ worth

of power left in
the Command Module.

NARRATOR: With the
Command Module out of action,

the astronauts retreat

into the attached
Lunar Module, Aquarius.

MISSION CONTROL: So we want
you to start getting over into

LEM and getting
some power on that.

You ready to
copy that procedure?

ASTRONAUTS: Okay.

NARRATOR: With its own
oxygen and fuel supply,

Aquarius is the crew’s
only hope of survival.

But whether the Lunar Module
can save them all comes down

to the engineers.

Immediately they face
a critical situation.

DICK: We knew that the
life support consumables

aboard the Lunar Module
were really only designed

to keep 2
astronauts alive for 50 hours.

That defined our problem for us.

NARRATOR: Now the
Lunar Module must cope

with three
astronauts for eighty hours.

The danger?

The Astronauts are
slowly suffocating

on their own
exhaled carbon dioxide.

GLYNN:
Everybody knew immediately
that we had to figure out

something to do
about the carbon dioxide,

because we didn’t have enough
carbon dioxide scrubbers,

filters, to last us all the
way back in the Lunar Module.

NARRATOR: One solution might be
to use the CO2 scrubbers from

the Command Module to filter
the air in the Lunar Module.

But there’s a
potentially deadly problem.

DICK: The kind of failure that
occurred had not been forecast.

Their canisters were
square, ours were round.

Typical square
peg/round hole problem.

NARRATOR: Only the ingenuity
of the engineers on Earth

can save the astronauts.

GLYNN: The engineering
guys came on and said,

"Glynn, we already have a
team of people working on that.

We’ll have an answer
for you in several shifts."

NARRATOR: In just a
few hours they must do

the seemingly impossible --

engineer an adapter that
lets the Command Module’s

square filter
operate in the Lunar Module,

replacing the
spent cylindrical one.

But they can only use equipment

that’s available
to the astronauts.

It is a huge challenge to
improvise a low-tech solution

and save the
astronauts from asphyxiation.

NARRATOR: The
engineers’ design is ingenious.

They use cardboard
from reference manuals...

plastic cut from a
garment stowage bag...

a spacesuit air hose...

duct tape...

and a sock.

DICK: I said, "Hey, this is
gonna work. This is gonna work."

NARRATOR:
Swigert, Lovell and Haise

assemble an
identical version in space,

with just hours to spare.

MARTY: And all of a
sudden they see the level

start to come
down. I said, "Wow!"

NARRATOR: The
adapter is a triumph.

GLYNN: Very good.
We felt exhilarated.

We all loved the Lunar Module.

NARRATOR: Two days later,

when the astronauts
splash down in the ocean,

the engineers are elated.

[Cheering and applause]

GERARD: Thank God three
guys did not lose their life.

It was nip and tuck all
the way, but it worked.

MARTY: I don’t
think I had a drink.

I could have used one though.

NARRATOR: The Lunar
Module hasn’t only performed

far beyond its design limits.

It has rescued the crew of
Apollo 13 from certain death.

♪ ♪

In all, six Lunar Modules
land twelve men on the moon.

The last three each
transport a Lunar Rover,

allowing the astronauts
to travel over 56 miles

of the lunar surface.

In total they
spend over 72 hours

exploring this alien world.

In 1972, Harrison
Schmitt and Eugene Cernan

are the last two
astronauts on the moon.

EUGENE: May the spirit
of peace in which we came

be reflected in the
lives of all mankind.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Humans
haven’t returned since then.

But now scientists have the moon
in their sights once again.

In 2009, NASA
launches an unmanned satellite

called Lunar
Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO.

Carrying a
high-resolution camera, LRO

is revealing the moon
in unprecedented detail.

Exploiting
resources at the lunar poles

may offer challenges for future
generations of engineers,

as lunar scientist
Paul Spudis believes.

PAUL: One of the interesting
things we found about the poles

is it’s sort of a
unique environment.

It has areas that are lit
more than half the lunar day.

You can generate electrical
power in order to create

sustainable human
presence on the moon.

NARRATOR: Engineering giant
solar panels would provide

the power needed
to build lunar bases.

And mining water
frozen in lunar rock

could provide the
hydrogen and oxygen fuels

to propel future rockets,

turning the moon into our first
off-planet refueling station.

PAUL: So we’re
going the next step.

We’re going to sort of
the exploration stage.

Think of it as an
early mining town.

NARRATOR: While it’s
been mapping the moon,

Lunar Reconnaissance
Orbiter is also revealing

remnants of Apollo’s legacy...

... lying silently
on the moon’s surface.

GERARD: I have six
engines sitting on the moon.

I wish I could see them, but
I know they’re all up there.

They’ll be there
for a million years.

NARRATOR:
These are the indelible
reminders of a generation

of engineers who dared
to explore another world --

and succeeded.

♪ ♪