All language subtitles for Superstructures Engineering Marvels Series 1 1of6 Space Station 1080p

♪ ♪

narrator: The international
space station is the
ultimate extreme home.

Don: Space is an environment
where human beings
were not meant to live.

Narrator: The most
expensive structure humans
have ever built...

Here in the most
inhospitable environment
known to man.

Don: The only reason we
can go there is by taking
technology to provide us

with everything that we
need in order to stay alive.

Narrator: With no air,
food or water, 250 miles
above the earth,

it's an epic
engineering challenge.

Morgan: We, as engineers,

are having to figure out
how to make systems that

provide all those functions
that earth provides,
in a tiny little can.

Narrator: To reveal how
the engineers pulled it off...

We're going to
take it apart...

And uncover what's
going on inside.

How the international
space station and its
superstructure secrets

will help our species reach
other planets and beyond.

Costing up to an
astonishing $150 billion,

this is an
unprecedented home.

Amos: The iss
is an extraordinary
feat of engineering,

because not only do you have
to make this big environment

that people can live
in which, you know, is

non-trivial to do on earth,
you have to do it in space.

Narrator:
It comprises millions
of high-tech components.

There are 16 pressurized
modules with living quarters,

sleeping bays,
an observation deck,

and six science labs,
all connected via
airtight tunnels.

And there's plenty
of parking for visitors,

including spots reserved
for russian soyuz capsules,

the iss's lifeboats,
which are on permanent
standby in case of emergency.

Unlike any other structure,

the iss has
to provide everything
its astronauts need.

If it fails...

They die.

Danielle: A human
being can only survive for
three weeks without food,

three days without water
and three minutes without air.

Narrator: For humanity
to successfully venture
well away from earth,

astronauts will need
to be self-sufficient.

If the iss can
solve the challenges,
it will prove humans can

truly live in space.

But before anyone
can take up residence,

the engineers behind the
iss had to get it into space

and it weights
a colossal 460 tons.

The same as about 300 cars.

Danielle: It would be great
if we could just build the
international space station on

the earth and then just
blast it into space.

Amos: You couldn't just
fly the whole thing
up there in one, one shot.

You had to take a piece
at a time and assemble
it together like lego.

Narrator: The iss began
life as just two modules that
had to be connected in space:

One built by america
and the other by russia.

Allison: The first
flight actually launched
in November of 1998.

It hadn't been that long
since the end of communism
in russia and here we were

building a joint
russian/us space station.

So just the
political milestone
that that represented

was pretty significant.

Narrator: After the
intense competition
of the space race,

it's suddenly all
about collaboration.

The orbiting russian
module is known as zarya,
which means sunrise.

Next, the
first american module,
known as unity,

sets off
inside the cargo bay of

space shuttle endeavor.

Man (over radio):
Lift off for the
space shuttle endeavor.

Narrator: Unity is
now chasing zarya through
space at more than

17,000 miles per hour.

Two modules from two super
powers are about to dock.

Don: The first thing we
have to do is to open up
the payload bay doors.

Danielle: Can you imagine
how important it is for
these two modules to mate?

Narrator:
Unfortunately, before
both modules were launched,

engineers spotted a problem.

Allison:
Not all the pieces got to
be integrated on the ground

before they were launched.

Narrator: Neither zarya
nor unity were originally
designed for the iss.

Their docking systems
wouldn't fit together.

Don: The russian hatches
are all round and our
hatches are all square.

Danielle: I mean,
this is fundamental to the
international space station,

and what you have are two
things that don't mate.

Don: And so, what do you do?

Well, you make an adaptor
lego block connector thing.

Narrator: The l shaped
lego thing they came
up with is called the

pressurized mating
adaptor or pma.

Not only
does this accommodate the
different shaped hatches,

it also has a precision

engineered docking
ring for grabbing hold
of another module and

perfectly aligning it.

Vital, if a reliable
airlock is to be made.

This is the moment of truth.

Latches on the inside
of the docking ring finally
make the connection and

pull the modules together.

Astronaut (over radio):
Houston, endeavor,
we have captured zarya.

Narrator: The international
space station is born.

Astronaut (over radio):
It was amazing.

I mean, here we are.

We got airborne,

we had unity in the
bay and when we left,
we left a functioning

space station
ready for the next
module to come up.

Narrator: In the
20 years that follow,

engineers from
all round the world
join the project,

building their own
space laboratories and
bigger living quarters.

But every one
of the modules was
constructed on earth,

and it takes a supreme
international effort to

launch them all
successfully into space.

Danielle: It took a long time
to build the space station.

We have to fly
everything up, we have to
connect all the modules,

put them together, so
that took over 40 missions.

Modules came from
all over the world.

We have the
us modules from nasa,

we have the
russian modules,

we have the
japanese modules and
the european module;

you name it.

Narrator: And it costs
around $10,000 to send
every pound of weight

up here from earth.

Suni: So, right now we're
in the japanese laboratory.

It's one laboratory
out of many here on the
international space station.

This is columbus,
the european module.

It has science
experiments all over.

You can see it looks
a little bit crowded.

Here we are in
the us laboratory.

Again, this is a laboratory
with science experiments
on all of the walls here.

Now we're going into
the russian segment.

Be ready.

You don't need a
passport either.

And what's cool about
this module, it is actually
the very first piece

of the space station
that came up in 1998.

Danielle: It's been occupied
continuously ever since then.

So, if you think for 18
years, there has always been
a human presence in space.

Narrator: Today,
the iss is enormous.

By far the largest space
station ever created.

Jeff: It's actually
big enough, if you have a
good pair of binoculars and

when it's flying over,
right overhead, you
can actually see it.

Normally you
look at a satellite and
it's just a little dot,

but the iss is big enough
that you can actually

see it as an extended object.

Narrator: It's so vast,
in fact, that it would
dwarf times square.

At an astonishing
357 x 240 feet it has more

living space than
a five-bedroom home.

But the larger
the international
space station becomes,

the larger a very obvious
issue becomes, too.

Air...

In space there is none.

Danielle:
It doesn't provide a
life support system for us:

Air, oxygen.

And so, if we have a
home in space, we need
to provide all of that.

Narrator: The average
adult breathes close to
4,000 gallons of air per day.

With a crew that can
be up to nine, the iss must
supply a huge amount of it,

and it's not coming from
outside those windows.

♪ ♪

narrator: Cruising outside
the earth's atmosphere,

the international
space station has to

provide everything
the astronauts need to live.

And breathable air
is first on the list.

Morgan: Their very survival
really depends on the
things that we provide them,

and you're also having
to deal with the fact
that at any point in time,

if one of your system fails,

you have a very limited
amount of time to either
get something from earth

or to get back to
earth as quickly as you can.

Narrator: In a crisis,
an emergency supply of oxygen
can be sent up by rocket.

Man (over radio):
Five, four, three, two, one.

Narrator: With technological
advances, spacecraft
can now rendezvous with the

iss in six hours,
if everything goes to plan.

But even when a cargo
delivery is successful,
there's a price to pay.

The cost of each
mission is colossal:

Almost $200 million.

Jeff: It's expensive to
bring a kilogram of anything
up to the space station and

to spend all that
money just to bring

up water and oxygen would
be an incredible waste.

Narrator: The iss
needs to make its own air.

Danielle: The oxygen
on the iss can come from
a delivery from earth and

then they're stored in tanks,

but the iss is also capable
of generating oxygen on board.

Narrator: On earth,
we take air for granted.

In space, each astronaut
must be supplied with
1.85 pounds of oxygen per day

365 days a year
to avoid suffocating.

In the very heart of the
iss is an unassuming machine
about the size of a trash can.

It's this that holds
the secret to keeping
astronauts alive.

Incredibly,
it generates oxygen from
nothing more than water.

Danielle: So, what happens
is you have some water.

You feed some electricity
through that water
and the electricity will

split that water
into hydrogen and oxygen.

Narrator: The oxygen
comes off as bubbles
at the positive electrode,

the hydrogen at the negative.

But again, being
in space turns something
that's straightforward on

earth into a major
engineering challenge:

The bubbles of gas won't
come out of the water.

Jeff: In your high school
chemistry lab, the gas just
bubbles up to the surface

because the gas
is lighter than the water
and, therefore, it goes up.

Gas is not lighter
than liquid in space,

because gas doesn't
have any weight and liquid

doesn't have any weight.

So, you produce gas bubbles
and they just sit there.

And what we generally
do is we centrifuge it,

so you spin it all
around and the liquid,

being denser,
it doesn't weigh any more,

but it still has mass,
so it's denser and it

goes to the outside and
you can then separate
the liquid from the gas.

Danielle: The hydrogen
gets thrown away...

It gets pumped into space
and the oxygen is used
for the iss air supply.

Narrator: There's enough
capacity on board to
generate 5 to 20 pounds

of oxygen a day.

More than enough for the crew.

In the extreme
environment of space,

making air is just
the first challenge.

The iss has to keep it.

But it's under
constant threat of
a breach in its hull.

Danielle: There is so
much space junk up there now.

Morgan: There's the potential
for it to puncture the outer
wall of the space station.

Don: I was taking pictures
out one of the windows and
it was a nice clear window.

I came back some time later
to take another picture
and there was a great big

ding in the window
about 5/8th of an inch

in diameter from a
micro meteorite impact.

We had to take pictures,
close up pictures,

send it down to the ground
and it had to be analyzed to

see whether it was going
to be a threat when we entered.

If you pop
a hole in a space station,
the atmosphere is going to

leave very, very quickly.

Narrator: No atmosphere
means no oxygen
and the consequences of

that are obvious.

So, how does the iss
deal with the threat of
colliding with meteorites?

♪ ♪

narrator: The international
space station is
the largest manmade object

that's ever orbited the earth.

And it's racing around our
planet at 5 miles a second,

but on board that's
hard to appreciate.

Jeff: How do we
sense speed if you're
in a car, for instance?

You know,
you have the road noise,
you have the wind going by,

you have billboards or
trees going by your window.

None of that exists in space.

The only way you get
a visceral sense of how fast
I was going is, you know,

you're going over
the pacific ocean and
then ten minutes later

you fly over
new york and then ten

minutes after that
you're flying over london.

Narrator: If the
iss was orbiting closer
to earth, we'd all see how

terrifying its speed is.

It would cross the
us from coast to coast
in just ten minutes,

lapping the earth more
than 5,500 times a year.

Dava: It's actually
travelling 26,000
kilometers per hour or

17,500 miles per hour.

So you would
definitely be breaking
the speed limit, right?

Narrator: Speed on earth
can be incredibly dangerous,

but in space, at the
velocity the iss hurtles at,

the consequences
of a collision can
be off-the-scale catastrophic.

Jeff: Space debris
is going by you at about
five miles a second,

so if there's a big
piece of debris that happens
to have your number on it,

it's moving so
fast you'd never see it.

Narrator: March 23rd, 2012.

Mission control
radio's the crew.

Man (over radio):
And how about relative
velocity, any idea?

Man 2 (over radio): Checking.

Narrator: Something
is heading straight
for the space station.

Man: The time of closest
approach of this fragment of

space debris is
11 minutes from now.

Narrator: No-one knows
how big this object is.

Don: Well, you do what
you're trained to do and,
and even though you got

woken up in the
wee hours of the morning,

you know what the reason is.

Narrator:
The crew must prepare the
space station for impact.

Astronaut (over radio):
Can you see it?

Yeah. Oh, oh, oh, yeah.

Don: You go through
and you close every single
hatch on the station,

which takes about 45 minutes.

Man (over radio):
And from which direction?

Yeah, we don't know.

Narrator: The hatches can
withstand a sudden loss of
pressure that would come from

the hull being breached.

Man (over radio): Coming
up on the six-minute mark.

Narrator: If
there is a puncture, any
loss of air could lead

to a serious emergency.

Man (over radio):
Coming up on the three-minute
mark until the time

of closest approach.

Narrator: The crew
take no chances.

They make for the
escape vehicles.

Don: We floated into
our soyuz spacecraft with
initial preparations for

undocking if
space station were to be hit.

Man (over radio): We've
got one minute for a tca.

Don: And you just
kinda hunker down and hope
it doesn't hit you and you

just sit there and wait.

Man (over radio):
It looks like that's it.

Narrator: Fortunately,
this time it's a near miss,

but the iss
cannot rely on luck.

Allison: The international
space station is designed to
work in the low earth orbit,

which is full of space debris.

Danielle: A lot of space
junk is human made.

You know, they
are things that, that
we have put up there...

Satellites largely.

Narrator: Nasa has identified
more than half a million
orbiting objects that could

pose a risk to the integrity
of the space station's hull.

Jeff: Luckily, most of the
stuff that's big enough
to hurt us we can track.

There are a few objects
up there which are too small
really to be tracked well,

but they're big
enough to do damage.

Narrator: The iss is
constantly bombarded.

Most of the debris is tiny,

but even a half-inch
fleck of paint
could inflict the same

damage as a motorcycle
crashing at 60 m-p-h.

To be a viable home,

the iss has to be able
to take the hit without
losing all its air.

Amos: The iss, basically,
has a bullet-proof vest.

So, just like a
bullet-proof vest which has
different layers of kevlar

that can rip as
a bullet enters it,

the iss has different
layers in its outer skin.

Narrator: The
space station's skin is
known as whipple shield.

The outer wall
is made from a thin sheet
of aluminum less than

1/10th of an inch thick.

Beyond that is a blanket
of woven material and a
further thin wall of aluminum.

It seems too delicate
to protect the iss
from a direct hit.

Jeff: It turns out that a
solid piece of metal does not
offer as much protective power

as if you cut that
metal into very thin sheets,
spread them out a little bit.

Narrator: When there's
an impact with a high-speed
micro meteoroid, it hits

the outer wall of
the iss and pulverizes.

Some fragments pass through
the first layer of aluminum,

which disperses
some of the energy.

Then there are layers
of kevlar and nextel,
a ceramic fiber that's

stronger than some metals.

As the fragments
hit this blanket, they
break up even more and

don't have enough energy
to penetrate the hull.

Jeff: It's kind of
counterintuitive when
you think about it.

You know, that a whole
bunch of sheets of aluminum
foil could somehow give

you more protection
than putting them all together.

But that's the way
it is in space.

Narrator: The whipple
shield has protected
the space station from

micro meteoroids
for over 20 years.

But it's ineffective
against anything larger.

If a large object
on a potential collision
course is identified,

the only option is to move
the whole iss out of its way.

Allison: Space command
monitors most of the space
debris that is out in orbit.

They notify our mission
control here at nasa.

We look at that and
we have a green zone, a
yellow zone, a red zone.

Narrator: Objects that
fall within the red zone
have a one in 10,000 chance

of hitting the iss:
Too dangerous to ignore.

Allison: If
we think that something is
coming within the red zone,

the space station

can adjust its orbit and
give itself a little boost
to get out of the way.

Narrator: Small thrusters
change the iss's trajectory,
but using them is expensive.

Danielle: Now, these
thrusters, you can think of
them almost like tiny rockets

and those rockets are
using propellant and that
propellant isn't infinite.

Narrator: It all has
to be sent up from earth,

at a cost of $10,000
per pound of propellant.

This brings engineers
face to face with the
greatest challenge of all:

How to reduce the
station's reliance on earth?

The iss can't
be self-sufficient if it
relies on thrusters to move.

But a clever trick
hidden at its center
means it doesn't have to.

Narrator: The international
space station has a problem.

It orbits the earth every
90 minutes and has to
be regularly reoriented.

Using thrusters is one
option, but that uses
up precious propellant.

Jeff: With the space station,

if here's the earth,
we, we want to keep

the station usually...

I mean, there are
sometimes exceptions...

But usually you want
to keep the station in the
same relative orientation

towards the earth,

so that the cupola is
looking down at the earth.

And in order to do that,
of course, the space station
is gonna be rotating once

every orbit around the earth.

Narrator: What the iss
needs is a way to move that
doesn't use propellant.

Danielle: The solution
for keeping the iss
in the right altitude and

also on track in direction
is to use gyroscopes.

Narrator: This is one of the
iss's most innovative secrets.

At the center of the
sprawling space lab there's
a quartet of small casings,

each about the
size of a small cupboard.

They're known as control
moment gyroscopes or cmgs.

But how can they move a beast
the size of a football field?

Don: They're really,
really clever in that you
can change the altitude of

the station without
firing any thrusters.

Narrator: The four cmgs
are mounted on a truss near
the very core of the iss.

Inside each
casing is a flywheel
spinning at 6,600 rpm.

The flywheels create
a lot of angular momentum
and simply by changing

the rpm or tilting
the plane they spin in;

they transfer that
momentum to the iss and
the whole thing moves.

Jeff: If I were sitting
here in a chair and I had a
gyroscope spinning around in

this direction and all of
a sudden I put a brake on
and slowed the gyroscope,

the chair would
start to spin around.

You know, I would slow the
gyroscope around and then wow,

I would do a big spin
because that angular momentum

has to be conserved.

Danielle: So, these four
control moment gyroscopes
can move the whole of the

international space station
and there is not one single
drop of propellant used in

order to make that movement.

Narrator: But they do
use electricity, as does
just about every piece

of equipment on board.

To supply the iss's
total power requirement,
a whopping 75-90 kilowatts,

engineers cleverly
exploit the ferocious
power of the sun.

The station generates
all its electricity for free.

Jeff: The solar panels
on the space station are
absolutely essential,

because they provide
all of the power that
the station needs.

Narrator: The panels
have to be enormous,

which would have made
them impossible to transport

had nasa engineers not
come up with a genius way
to get them into space.

Danielle: What's really
impressive about the
solar panels,

not least their size,

you know, around half
an acre per array,

but the fact that they are
actually folded and

then once they're in space,
they were able to be unfolded.

Now, that's an amazing
thing to do in space.

Narrator: Together they
can generate 120 kilowatts.

Ample for all the iss's
needs and the equivalent
of powering 40 homes.

Jeff: In order to maximize
the power you're getting you;

you have to keep the
solar panels continually

pointed at the sun,
which means as the
station is moving,

the panels have to turn.

Don: And so we have gimbals.

The solar panel we can gimbal
this direction and then
we can gimbal this direction.

Narrator: One of the iss's
greatest engineering triumphs,

it's been generating
its own power for over

177,000 hours
and counting.

That enables
round-the-clock
air conditioning,

fundamental to
astronaut survival.

Danielle: This cannot go down.

It's not like a power cut
in our homes where, you know,

we can get a torch or
light a candle or something.

If this goes down,
astronauts will die.

Narrator: When the
iss enters the shadow
behind the earth,

the temperature can
drop to below anything

ever experienced
on our planet.

Without the
protective cocoon of
the space station,

the ferocious cold
would kill astronauts
in a matter of moments.

Conversely,
when in sunlight,

the temperature can soar.

Danielle: Temperature and
managing temperature on
the iss is very important.

If you imagine the
extreme temperatures that
you can get on the iss

if you're facing the sun

or not could be
plus 250 degrees or
minus 250 degrees.

Don: So, you have these
huge temperature extremes,

simply because of being
sunlit or being in the shade

and it's something
that you have to keep
in mind when you're doing

your engineering.

Narrator: Of these
threats, overheating is
the hardest to manage.

Jeff: With lots of people
and electronics inside
a spacecraft, you tend to

generate more heat than
you know what to do with.

And so the problem in general,
at least in earth orbit,

is that you've got
to get rid of heat.

Narrator: If heat
built up uncontrollably
inside the iss,

it would become
a deadly incinerator.

So, cooling the station
is a crucial priority.

Don: Standard ways of
cooling that we're used
to on earth don't work.

Convection does not work.

Conduction does not work.

Narrator: Conventional
air-con would be ineffective.

Scientists had to come
up with a cooling system
for radiating heat away

from the iss.

It needs to be liquid-based,
but there's a dilemma.

Danielle: Ideally what
you'd like to be able to
do is just put it through a

water cooling
system and then get
rid of that excess heat.

If they tried to get rid of
that excess heat using water,

the water would just freeze as

soon as it went
outside into space.

Narrator: Water
is not the solution.

Curiously, gallons
of a deadly poison is.

Hidden inside the hull
there's an intricate network
of pipes picking up the heat,

but they do carry water.

The secret is the water goes
through heat exchangers where
ammonia-carrying pipes take

the heat outside the iss.

Huge radiators finally
dissipate it into space.

Ammonia is used
because, unlike water, it
doesn't freeze until minus

107 degrees fahrenheit.

It remains liquid
and flows through
the radiators,

even when the iss
is behind the earth.

Don: Ammonia is used as
a heat rejection system
because it is one of the

best thermodynamic
fluids to use
as a heat rejection fluid.

Unfortunately, it's
incredibly toxic and kills
human beings on contact.

Narrator: In may, 2013,
for reasons unknown, ammonia
is spotted leaking out

of one of the cooling pipes.

There is no alternative
but for astronauts to climb
outside the iss to fix it.

Astronaut (over radio):
Fireflies coming out
of our space station.

Narrator:
The international space
station has a network of

vital cooling pipes that
are filled with ammonia:

A substance so
toxic it can kill.

Danielle: Now,
there was a time in 2013
when chris hadfield and

his crew spotted a leak
from the ammonia pipes
and they had to react very,

very quickly to stop that leak.

Narrator: The leak appears
near one of the solar panels.

There's only one
viable response to this
critical emergency.

Astronauts chris cassidy
and tom marshburn must exit
the iss and investigate.

Astronaut (over radio):
Sunlight,

I am putting my visor down.

Narrator: They discover
ammonia spewing out of
what they think is a pump.

Astronaut (over radio):
Fireflies coming out
of our space station.

Narrator: If they
can't stop the flow,

they might have to
evacuate the space station.

Astronaut (over radio):
You've got a monitor
for an ammonia leak.

If some reason a
flowing leak is observed,
immediately stop turning.

Narrator:
The pair attempt to
replace the suspect pump...

Hard work in cumbersome
spacesuits and they
must avoid contact with

the potential lethal ammonia.

Astronaut (over radio):
Be careful no to put your
hand inside that window and

also the seals
on fgdc are no touch.

Astronaut 2 (over radio):
No touch on the seals.

Don't penetrate the window.
Copy all.

Narrator: Five and a
half grueling hours later,

the astronauts return
to the iss unharmed.

Astronaut (over radio):
That's affirmative.

The ammonia valve is closing.

Narrator: It was fortunate
that the leak wasn't water,

because along with oxygen,
water is one of the

precious commodities
people cannot live without.

It's so precious, in fact,
that inventing equipment to
recycle it was one of the

space station engineers
highest priorities.

Danielle: It's so important
that we recycle as much of the
water on the iss as possible,

and that includes things
just like the water in the air.

Narrator: The end goal
is for spacecraft to recycle
100% of their onboard water.

That's far from
straightforward, because
much of it starts off

inside the astronauts.

Layne: Water vapor comes
from the individuals
as you breathe.

You exercise,
you sweat and then it
comes off of the surface.

So that's the water
vapor that gets out into
the air and we're constantly

ventilating the
air through the module.

Narrator:
Water vapor from the air
is collected in a condenser.

Every droplet is valuable.

Nothing is wasted.

Even urine is recycled.

Samantha: Let's say up
here on iss and you need
to go to the rest room.

You want to come to this
cabin and the first thing
you want to do is grab this

piece of equipment and turn
this water switch 90 degrees
to the open position.

What that does is it
turns a fan which
creates a suction effect

in this hose so that

you can use this yellow
element for your number one.

Narrator: After an astronaut
uses the unusual facility,

water products flow to
the life support rack

where filters get to work:

The start of a
sophisticated process.

Morgan: So, the way the
space station turns urine
into water is that the

urine goes into what we call
the urine processing assembly.

Narrator: There are
a number of stages.

The first is treating
the urine to prevent
buildup of bacteria or

other dangerous microbes.

Layne: That urine that
we collect from the crew,

we have to add chemicals
to it in order to process it.

Raw urine in and of
itself would be a problem,

because over time
it becomes rancid and

that's definitely
a bad situation
on the space station.

So that's why this
is a dark fluid instead
of what you would normally

think of as urine.

Narrator: Clearly,
that is not drinkable.

It needs to be distilled,

where pure water is boiled
off to leave the toxic waste

products behind.

Jeff: And then it goes through
another cleaning process;

there's lots of filters.

And then
some of the water is made
available for drinking,

and that's why we have the

expression that
the water recycling system
is coffee to coffee.

You can think about that.

Layne: The water
that gets to the crew now
is effectively cleaner than

any water that
we drink here on earth,

even that nice bottled
water that everybody
likes so much.

It's cleaner than that.

So this is the end
point in the process.

Astronaut (over radio):
It tastes really good.

Allison: In water recycling
we are really trying to get to
the point where we can recycle

up to 90 or 95% of the
water on the space station,
which is really vital,

not only for going
someplace like mars,

but also has
consequences here on earth.

Narrator: Recreating
the conditions that support
life on earth is one of

the pillars of the iss.

But much of its equipment
is still operated by
mission control in houston.

The iss will have to break
free from that if we're ever
going to conquer deep space.

Man (over radio):
We're gonna have you go to
the ticker shroud removal.

Astronaut (over radio):
Okay, copy.

Narrator: The
international space station

provides its own life
support, but it's partly

controlled from earth.

Man (over radio):
Go up a bit, up a bit.

Astronaut (over radio):
Affirmative.

Yeah, I've got it.

Okay swanny what do you want?

(inaudible)

allison: Our flight
controllers on the ground
can control the robot arm and

move that from the ground.

Narrator: That requires
constant radio communication.

A major challenge,

because radio waves can't
penetrate the earth and

the iss is often behind it.

Man (over radio): What a
beautiful piece of hardware.

Leslie: We can have
significant loss of signal
with the space station.

We're talking the order of
maybe 12 to maybe 40 minutes,

maybe a little bit longer.

Narrator: In the early
apollo space missions,

they tried to fix the
problem with a fleet of jets

that bounced radio
signals between each other,

ground bases
and space capsules,

but it was expensive
and unreliable.

The iss uses a more
sophisticated system.

Leslie: There are various
assets that we are able to
use to communicate with the

international space station,
so one are via satellite.

Narrator: A network of high
orbit satellites relay radio
data between the iss and

ground bases in several
countries across the globe.

Leslie: In mission
control we're looking
at various video feeds.

So we have the
first board over here we
call it the six-pack and

the international
space station allows,

at a minimum,
six down link video
channels and then we can be

following the crew,
what they're doing
during their day.

Woman (over radio):
Station houston on space
to ground two, you have a go

for step six ingressing dragon.

Astronaut (over radio):
Copy that.

Narrator: The live links
are so reliable and fast,

there is now less
than a second's delay when

astronauts communicate
with earth.

Rob (over radio):
Hi dad. Hi dad.

How are you?

Astronaut (over radio):
Hey rob.

Hey bud, how's it going?

Leslie: Currently you
are looking at what
we call the world map.

It would show that the
international space station
is currently about to start

swinging north of antarctica.

Another cool feature
about the world map that
we keep in front of the

control room
is the fact when other
missions go on launch,

we'll also see those
vehicles, where they are

relative to the
international space station.

Man (over radio):
Three, two, one.

Engine ignition.

Lift off of the
falcon nine rocket.

Narrator: The iss
may still be in our local
space neighborhood,

with the luxury of near
instant communications,

but it's also our
first stepping stone to

reaching other
planets and beyond.

Man (over radio):
Science for today and for

deep space
exploration tomorrow.

Narrator: Inside this
rocket is an experimental
new module known as beam.

Man (over tv): The
first human rated expandable
structure to be flown in space,

now attached to the
international space station.

Narrator: After docking
with the iss, astronauts
test its unique feature.

It blows up like a balloon.

Everett: It's an inflatable
module that's attached
to the space station.

It's kinda unique in the
fact it is inflatable.

Man (over radio):
It looks great.
It looks pristine.

Narrator: Pressurized air
pumped into the extraordinary
new module transforms

it into a rigid structure.

Everett: One of the
things about beam is that
because it is collapsible,

you don't need
as large of a launch
vehicle to carry it.

Also, potentially
less weight, because of
less structure with it.

Narrator: If successful,
the iss's brand new living
quarters could lead to much

bigger space structures.

Ultimately, the plan
is to house far more than
the 220 people that have so

far been to the space station.

Jeff: We've been very
privileged: We've seen our
home planet from a very

different perspective.

First of all, it's
incredibly beautiful.

I mean, you look
at the thin blue line
that's our atmosphere,

you look at the aurora,
you look at thunderstorms,

you look at
the beautiful oceans.

When you start looking a
little closer, there are
some troubling things.

You basically see the
impact that humans have
had on our planet and

that can be
pretty scary at times.

Narrator: The long game for
humanity could be to stop
being a one-planet species.

The iss is the first
step towards that future.

Dava: In the future we're
gonna have hundreds, thousands,

I hope it's
ten thousands of people
living and working in

lower earth orbit.

Narrator: Research on
the iss is heavily-geared
towards improving life

for astronauts who
will travel much further
than ever before.

Dava: It's phenomenal,
so it really is the
world's great laboratory.

Allison: On space station,

a lot of the
experiments that they're
doing are human-based

experiments
in order to learn more
about the human body,

so that we can endure a two,

two-and-half-year
mission to mars and back.

Narrator: From fitness
to food production,

the focus is on long
term self-sufficiency
for astronauts.

Allison:
And we are developing
the orion capsule here,

which we'll be
launching in the first
manned mission in 2022.

Man (over tv):
And lift off at dawn.

The dawn of orion and
a new era of american
space exploration.

Narrator: Missions
in the coming years are
only possible because the

international space station

has solved so
many of the problems
that space presents.

Don: The future for
space is bright and it's
going to be exciting.

Allison: Everybody is
excited and feel like as though
in this development phase

you can really
make a difference.

Narrator: The iss is an
incredible superstructure.

A piece of earth-like
habitat floating
above our planet,

where every
component has taken

breathtaking engineering.

It's now a vital
springboard for deep space
travel that generations

to come might thank us for.

Captioned by cotter
captioning services.