Original subtitles

[Jay] How do you create

a busy commuter train station that symbolizes hope

on the site of the 9/11 attacks?

Everything that we did was watched every day.

Every action we took was under the microscope.

[Jay] How do you build a manmade mountain

six feet below sea level

in a country famous for flooding?

It became the biggest swimming pool of Amsterdam,

or maybe the biggest swimming pool

of the Netherlands.

[Jay] And how do you construct a portal

from the hostile desert to the final frontier?

It's the gateway to the edge of space.

[Jay] This is the age of the extraordinary.

[Dr. Agbedor] It's totally different

from anything around it.

It's like a visitor from another planet.

[Jay] Where ingenious engineers have unleashed

unchecked creativity.

Now their secrets are revealed

as we discover the amazing stories of their construction.

[Mat] You look at this building

and your brain just screams at you,

"This building does not make sense."

[Jay] To try and understand...

...how did they build that.

To design a new transportation hub in the Big Apple

on the site of the World Trade Center

is a big ask.

And one that not only called for a big statement,

but also a great deal of sensitivity.

And this groundbreaking project

by one of the world's most exciting architects

has already proven a massive hit

with both New Yorkers

and visitors from all over the world.

[Jay] This is the Oculus.

It has to be a building who brings hope

and belief in the future.

[Jay] To build this unique station,

the team had to overcome one of the worst storms

to hit the Eastern Seaboard of the United States.

[Steve] The water rose and was almost

up above my chest within seconds.

And we realized we had to get out of there.

[Jay] And take on a design so complicated,

they needed to be at the top of their game.

When I saw the plans, my initial reaction

was honestly, was, "How are we gonna build this?"

[Steve] And it really was a challenge

because we were challenging ourselves

intellectually as well as physically

to produce this iconic structure

that would stand the test of time.

[Jay] It took 12 years to build

and cost $4 billion,

making it one of the most expensive stations

in the world.

Soaring from the ground to give the city a sense of hope,

a beautiful white steel sculpture

that represents a dove being released.

So, how did they build it?

New York's skyscraper-filled skyline is world famous.

But on September 11, 2001, it was changed forever.

2,753 people lost their lives in the terrorist attack

which destroyed the Twin Towers,

and also, the World Trade Center Station--

a vital part of the Port Authority Trans Hudson,

or PATH, commuter rail system.

In the aftermath, the city wants to find a way to rebuild.

There had to be a moment of cleaning up the site,

remembrance, respect,

and then asking the world to come in

and tell us how can we do this better.

[Jay] Within a year of the attacks,

work begins on a temporary replacement station.

But it takes two years of delicate negotiations

and fierce debate to decide

what the permanent future will look like

for the 16-acre World Trade Center campus.

[Glenn] Selecting a master plan wasn't just about

putting up towers.

It was also a statement of how we're going to proceed from

something so horrible that occurred to us.

And we were telling the world what we're made of.

[Jay] The final plan includes six skyscrapers,

a museum,

and a memorial to the victims of the attack,

and a new, permanent PATH station

serving a million people a week.

[Glenn] It's one of the most critical

transportation components in Lower Manhattan.

It's the only mass transit system

that connects New York and New Jersey

to Lower Manhattan.

So it enables tens of thousands of people

to arrive to their places of work.

[Jay] To design something as inspirational

as it is functional,

they bring in world-renowned architect

Santiago Calatrava.

Not only is he an architect, he's also an engineer,

but he's also an artist.

He's a phenomenal mind.

[Jay] Known for his beautiful sculptural buildings,

including the City of Arts and Sciences in Spain

and the Innovation in Technology campus

at Florida Polytechnic,

Calatrava wants to make a transportation hub

that's also a work of art.

I understood there was a great opportunity

to do something very special.

It's this idea of bringing hope

and believing that things-- that we will overcome it.

[music]

[Jay] What he comes up with

is an astonishing ribbed structure

designed to look like a dove being released.

First, they will need to find a way

to create a new PATH station

with five platforms below ground.

Throughout the build,

a live subway line will run directly through the site.

So they will have to work out how to protect it

and the thousands of passengers who use it every day.

Above ground, they will need to construct the Oculus

from 476 individual pieces,

building it in three key layers--

the lower frame, the ribcage, and the rafters.

In doing so, they'll create a train station like no other.

But all the time, the team will be under huge pressure

from the weight of building in this location.

[Glenn] Everything that we did was watched every day.

Every action we took was under the microscope.

[Jay] Calatrava's design is announced in 2004.

But before they even break ground,

with the world on high alert

due to continuing acts of terror,

the team reevaluates the building's ability

to withstand an attack.

Every component that was significant

went through a blast analysis.

[Jay] Amendments to the design include

doubling the number of steel ribs

to improve blast resistance.

We had to take care,

that so far as we could,

and so far is possible

to guarantee the station is a safe place.

[Jay] In September 2005, they break ground.

The ambition is to open Oculus in four years.

They start by carefully excavating

to create the underground platforms

and ticket hall.

But with 26 different projects

all a part of the master plan,

needing to work around each other

on the tight 16-acre site is far from straightforward.

It is a Rubik's cube of activity.

And we used to sit there and say,

"Okay, you can go in tomorrow, you can go in the next day."

[Jay] The challenge of sequencing

the different projects

means progress is painfully slow.

And there's another huge problem for the team to overcome.

A live subway line, the 1 line,

runs through the heart of the site.

[Jerry] During this entire construction,

the trains kept rolling.

There were options that you could've said,

hey, if we remove the entire 1 line

and took it out of service for a year,

we could get done a lot faster.

But that was a no go.

[Jay] The team's solution is to protect the live line

with a box.

They will brace it before surrounding it

on all four sides with concrete slabs.

Then, to allow them to excavate

for a passage between the two sides of the station,

they will support the box with piles

that go down 50 feet onto the bedrock beneath it.

Building it is painstaking work.

If this is the box, we drove 500 piles.

Then proceeded to take all the soil with Bobcats,

small excavators, to remove the soil.

[Jay] It adds months to the schedule

and costs around $355 million.

But finally, by May 2008, the box is complete.

[Steve] That was extreme engineering.

The subway line was not affected.

People going through it every day.

And it was very successful.

[Jay] The team's next job is to create the station's

subterranean platforms and ticket hall.

As if building underground wasn't tough enough,

they also have to work around a separate construction crew

directly overhead,

which is racing to complete the memorial in time

for the 10-year anniversary of the attacks.

As the delays stack up,

rising labor and material costs

are also adding to the price tag.

Finally, in 2012,

they are ready to begin work above ground

when the project is knocked completely off course.

[music]

[Jay] One of the most destructive storms

in US History, Hurricane Sandy, floods the site.

[Steve] Like rapids coming into the site.

Not quite Niagara Falls,

but something as dramatic as that.

[Jerry] That water flooded the entire facility

that was under construction.

[music]

[Jay] In New York City, the already delayed construction

of Santiago Calatrava's transportation hub

for the World Trade Center

has been hit by the devastating Hurricane Sandy,

which causes a massive storm surge

to flood Lower Manhattan.

It was 125 million gallons of water

deposited in the site.

[Jay] They need over 50 pumps

working around the clock to extract the water.

It leaves behind several hundred million dollars of wreckage.

It was a lot of damage to mechanical systems,

architectural components, electrical.

Anything that saw that seawater got corroded

and had to be replaced.

[Jay] Underground, the project is knocked back by almost a year

while they rectify the damage.

While above ground, the team pushes on

with building Calatrava's beautiful,

cathedral-like steel sculpture,

which will crown the entrance hall.

But the steel construction team is working against the clock.

[Pat] The project was already behind schedule,

so we were under a lot of pressure,

not only to meet our schedule,

but to accelerate and be finished early.

[Jay] To add to the challenge,

the steel is being cast near Venice, Italy,

by one of the few companies capable of handling

the demanding design.

[Pat] This was extremely complicated to fabricate.

Not only the geometry,

but the architectural look of it as well.

It's all curved plates.

You don't see any bolted connections.

That was very, very difficult.

[Jay] The steel travels

over 4000 miles by sea with ease.

It's the last few miles that prove to be the toughest.

Traffic in New York is already tough enough.

So imagine navigating these hundred-foot-long steel ribs

through Manhattan.

[music]

We had to plan what was the hours

that it was going to come in,

what was the route that it was going to be taking.

Work with the city of New York in terms of

whether or not we needed to move traffic lights, signs.

Getting the steel here was nothing short of a nightmare.

[Jay] All the careful planning pays off.

[music]

[Jay] Now they're ready to start the enormous job

of putting the Oculus together.

To do that, they have to commission

two specially designed 185-foot-tall cranes.

Two tower cranes were erected, which I understood at that point

were the tallest ever used in New York.

They had to have a tremendous capacity

in a very small space.

You can see there's a lot of buildings around us.

[Jay] With the cranes set, in December 2012,

they can start to construct the lower part

of the enormous steel frame.

To achieve Calatrava's aesthetic vision,

all 476 interconnecting pieces

need to be lined up perfectly from bottom to top.

Any minor error in the alignment of that connection

can translate right up the line through the structure

and create major issues.

[Jay] Not only that, but any flaw

could make the structure itself unstable.

This whole project was basically like a 3D game of chess,

where we could not make one wrong move.

[Jay] Although they use computer modeling

to help design it,

fitting the pieces on the ground

requires intense attention to detail

from a team of surveyors.

We had a series of control points around the site,

on these buildings, all around us

that had to be monitored continually.

[music]

[Jay] With the lower frame complete,

they start to build the ribcage, working inwards from each end.

The welding alone is an enormous undertaking.

On most jobs, it's measured in inches.

Here, there are 52 miles of work to be done

in the most challenging of conditions.

[Pat] A lot of the welds were done up in the air,

out of man baskets,

so it's not exactly a stable...

You know, you're moving around in a man basket.

So it made the welding very difficult.

[music]

[Jay] Slowly the ribcage takes shape.

As it does, it forms two enormous parallel arches,

which will eventually support much of the weight of the wings.

Each will be completed by a final keystone piece.

When the time comes to fit them, in August 2014,

it's a nerve-wracking moment for the team.

So one of the biggest concerns is closing that gap, right?

Setting that piece in the middle

and knowing that it's going to fit.

We were tracking it the whole way.

We were monitoring it.

But until you see that piece set and see it fit in,

it definitely causes you some stress for sure.

[music]

[Jay] Thankfully they go in without a hitch.

It was amazing how it all fit together.

[Jay] The Oculus is finally ready to receive its wings,

created from 114 pieces of steel up to 80 feet long.

[Pat] I actually started to see

multiple pieces going up per day.

And we were getting consistent production

one day to the next,

and that's when it started to collect that

we were really going to pull this off

and build the Oculus the way it's supposed to be built.

[music]

[Jay] Seven years late,

and at a cost of $4 billion, double the original budget,

Calatrava's Oculus opens in March 2016,

ready for the million people

who will pass through it each week.

[music]

The many hundred, thousands of people

who has put hand to make it possible,

'cause you feel part of an important achievement.

I feel like it uplifts people in the sense of hope.

[Jay] Despite concerns that delays and overspend

might overshadow the result,

for many, the Oculus's soaring sculptural form

represents optimism emerging from tragedy.

It's a tribute to what happened there,

to the lives that were lost.

It couldn't be anything else.

It gives me a sense of pride that I was a part of this.

[music]

[Pat] I could look at this and be proud

that I was a part of rebuilding this area.

I get emotional just thinking about it.

[music]

[Steve] I was blessed to be a small part of it,

and I will take that as a gift from God

for the rest of my life.

[music]

[music]

Across the pond to the Netherlands

and a mountain-like skyscraper.

Its jagged peaks have earned it the name "The Valley,"

as well as turned the way you build an apartment building

on its head.

In my opinion, this is easily

one of the coolest, most unique-looking buildings

ever built.

Even if it does look only half finished.

[music]

[Jay] The Netherlands is famously flat.

In fact, nearly a third of the country

sits below sea level.

So if you want to experience some dramatic Dutch landscape,

you're gonna have to build it yourself.

I love this building. It looks like somebody's

taken a bite out of a skyscraper.

[Jay] This is Valley,

a mix of apartments and offices

in three jagged towers

made from a jumble of boxes.

Looking at this building,

it looks like it's going to crumble and topple over.

[Crees] Seeing the design for the first time,

it was like, oh my god, how are we going to do this?

[Jay] But building six feet below sea level

in a country notorious for flooding

was always going to be a challenge.

[Crees] For more than a year,

we were looking at a really large swimming pool,

not knowing what comes out.

[Jay] So, how did they build it?

[Jay] It's 2007,

and in Amsterdam, the Netherlands,

Zuidas, the city's central business district,

is growing fast.

But the developers of a new project

want to avoid repeating mistakes made elsewhere.

If you take a look at the business districts

of the last 20, 30, 40 years,

what you mainly see is a cluster of square buildings

quite close to each other

and no trees.

[Jay] As well as lacking green space,

dedicated business areas are often deserted

outside of office hours.

So the developers turn to

an architect who believes good design can change all that.

I think it's super important that our buildings contribute

to a wider perspective,

that they are not selfish.

This is not an office. This is something more.

[Jay] Winy Maas's big idea

is to mix 200 apartments with offices,

restaurants, and public spaces

in a towering structure named Valley

that looks more like a craggy natural landscape

than a building.

To create this manmade mountain,

they'll first need to figure out how to carve out

three stories of underground parking

in a famously waterlogged city.

Then they will need to engineer a structural system

capable of holding up its three irregular towers

and supporting sections designed to hang in midair

like natural rocky outcrops.

To finish off the rugged look,

they'll need to create thousands of bespoke stone tiles

and assemble them like a gigantic jigsaw puzzle.

The finishing touch will come from

glittering glass windows

and 220 different varieties of plants and trees.

[music]

[Jay] It's the summer of 2018,

and the team is ready to break ground.

But most of Amsterdam is built on reclaimed swampland

and sits three to six feet below sea level.

[Gideon] So the minute you start to dig,

you run into water,

and the water needs to be mitigated well

in order not to collapse the building site.

[Jay] In much of the Netherlands,

buildings sit on piles above the waterlogged ground.

But Valley will need to dig down for three stories

of underground parking,

plus foundations to support the towers.

So how will they stop water flooding in the hole?

Well, they won't.

[Corina] Rather than trying to keep all the water out

while you build,

it's actually easier to work under water

using specialist waterproof concrete.

Then you can pump the site dry when you're finished.

[Jay] First, the team sink metal panels,

called sheet piles, around the edge of the site.

Then they dig a 40-foot-deep hole inside,

which they allow to fill up with water.

[Crees] It became the biggest swimming pool of Amsterdam,

or maybe the biggest swimming pool of the Netherlands.

[music]

[Jay] Now, though, this pool

has to be prepared for the pouring of

the concrete foundations.

It means calling in highly trained divers.

We started this project in March 2018.

It took us six months with three to four diving teams.

[music]

[Jay] Their first task

is to sink over 1000 piles 100 feet into the ground

to anchor the building down.

It's difficult and demanding work,

with the teams working in shifts.

[Marc] You dive two hours. You go out.

The next one goes in. And that will rotate all day.

[Jay] Having sunk the piles,

they now need to guide in 30 huge steel baskets

that will reinforce the concrete slab.

These engineers have calculated exactly where they need to go.

But the divers are working almost blind.

I can't imagine many divers on the water,

they can see anything.

They have to be careful.

A diver can't go underneath the basket

to check everything because that's too dangerous.

[Jay] It takes six months,

but at last, the preparations are safely done.

[Jay] Now they're ready for

the next massive challenge, pouring the concrete.

[Marc] You have a concrete specialist.

They pour about 820,000 cubics of concrete a year,

so they know what to do.

[Jay] A mixer pumps a continuous flow of concrete

through a long pipe guided by the divers.

[music]

[Jay] After a nervous wait

while the concrete sets under the water...

it's time for the moment of truth

as they finally pump the site dry.

[Marc] The moment the water goes down,

everybody's looking at it and seeing, okay,

it's okay or it's not okay.

[Jay] As the last drops of water are removed,

they can finally see if the reinforcing steel

has been correctly positioned.

[Marc] Baskets are all in the right spot.

The concrete is on the right level.

And it's okay. It's good for us.

[music]

[Jay] Now work can begin

creating Valley's jagged boxy structure.

They start with a fairly standard concrete core

and supporting walls.

But some of the apartments are designed to stick out

from the building as much as 32 feet.

These dramatic overhanging sections

demand fresh thinking.

With the regular construction,

we had very rigid rules on what we could do,

how far we could cantilever out, and what not.

But we wanted this super-spectacular image.

[Jay] To achieve the architect's vision,

the engineers design lightweight,

yet strong prefabricated steel frames.

[Gideon] We have 11 of what we call specials.

These are steel structures that

really cantilever super far out,

about 10 meters out.

The steel structures were bolted to the concrete construction.

[Jay] When the time comes

to hoist them into position and attach them,

it's an anxious moment for the team.

[Gideon] I still remember the first one.

It was very exciting

to see if all the connections actually fit.

And the contractor did an amazing job there,

so...all 11 of them fit perfectly.

[Jay] It's now 2020,

and with Valley's rugged outline becoming a reality,

Winy Maas is working on the finish.

I remember choosing the material.

And that should be stone

so it looks like a mountain.

[Jay] To make it look natural,

they plan to use 40,000 pieces of stone tile

in a variety of shapes and sizes.

The shop contractor for the natural stone,

he came to us and he said,

"I need at least one year, a full year of engineering

in the drawings."

And we don't have that time.

[Jay] How will they finalize the design

without tearing apart the schedule?

[Jay] In Amsterdam,

engineers are trying to arrange 40,000 stone tiles

on the jagged surfaces of a building

inspired by a mountain valley.

They develop a special 3D software program to help.

We managed to get all of these different tiles

put inside of the 3D model

and optimize as much as we can

to make as many standardized tiles as possible

while giving this, like, random appearance.

[Jay] Planning time goes from a year to months,

with the prefabricated tiles arriving on site

as a giant kit.

[Gideon] There were all kinds of crates

and ordered and numbered,

because everything was really cut to size

for that specific part.

That was quite a logistic puzzle.

[Jay] Fitting them

is an epic challenge for the team.

I think you had more than 100 installers

here on the job site.

That's not normal for us.

[Jay] As the cladding contractors

slowly work their way down the building...

Valley begins to emerge from its scaffolding cocoon.

And it was like a very slow unwrapping of a present

that took weeks and weeks and weeks.

[Jay] Finally, in 2022,

Valley is properly revealed to the world.

Three jagged towers reaching over 300 feet.

[Jay] Containing offices, restaurants,

and 200 extraordinary apartments.

The apartments really just seem to defy gravity.

[Jay] 271 trees

and 13,500 shrubs

have been planted all over Valley,

each with their own irrigation and drainage.

It's funny to see the amount of bees that come to this building.

[Jay] Creating a vertical park

that's open to the public 24 hours a day.

[Gideon] As it ages, it grows more beautiful.

You see the plants developing more and more.

You see people using, really, the space.

[Jay] For those who live and work here,

this building has been a revelation.

[Gini] The energy is really good

because you have, like, everything here,

like my friends, the restaurants.

You can have, like, your coffee in the morning.

[Peter] This building is one of a kind.

Sometimes I'm sitting on the terrace

with a good glass of wine

and thinking, "How did it happen?"

[laughs]

I hope that this building shows that we can break boundaries.

[Crees] This is, for us,

the most iconic building we have ever made.

If you talk about legacies, this building is a legacy.

[music]

Over New Mexico,

strange things have been going on in the desert,

where many believe aliens landed back in 1947.

Well, almost eight decades later,

you can say the tables are finally turning,

and it's the aliens who might soon be getting a visit

from humankind

via the world's first purpose-built

commercial spaceport.

The countdown's already begun,

so helmets on and prepare for liftoff.

[Jay] For millennia, we've been looking to the stars

and wondering what's out there.

In the 20th century, mankind broke through Earth's atmosphere

for the first time.

Now, in the 21st,

the state of New Mexico is taking space travel

to the next level.

Welcome to Spaceport America.

[music]

It's the gateway to the edge of space.

[Jay] Designed by some of the world's

best architects.

All I heard was "Foster and Partners."

And it told me, all right, this is gonna be something

that's going to be a once in a career challenge.

[Jay] And built in a tough, remote landscape.

[Grant] The desert is incredibly powerful,

totally arid.

Very, very beautiful.

[Jay] A sleek 110,000-square-foot terminal

now rises up from the desert,

ready for voyages into the unknown.

So, how did they build it?

[music]

[Jay] It's the turn of the 21st century,

and the state of New Mexico

is looking to future proof its economy.

It decides to go boldly where no state has gone before.

-Fire. -Fire.

[Jay] And build the world's first airport for space tourism.

There was a lot of potential benefits

from having commercial space here

in terms of employment,

in terms of fostering the overall high-tech environment.

[Jay] The hope is that companies

like Virgin Galactic

will put space travel within more and more people's reach.

The current price is 600,000 US dollars,

which is a lot of money.

If they can get that down to $15,000,

then the market is just enormous.

People spend $15,000 on a cruise,

so I think a lot of those same people

would be happy to spend that money to go to space.

[Jay] The project will be funded by money

allocated by the state of New Mexico

and local taxes

and built in a remote corner of the Chihuahua Desert,

180 miles south of Albuquerque.

To design something special,

they turn to a London architectural firm.

When people said "spaceport,"

no one really had in mind what a spaceport would be.

Do you refer back to Space 1999 TV show?

Do you relate back to 2001?

Do you look at Star Wars?

[Jay] For inspiration, Lord Foster and his team

look to the unique surroundings.

You have this extraordinary desert landscape.

So on the one hand, you want to respect that.

You want this building to grow out of it literally,

to be part of the landscape.

But at the same time, it's about flight.

And if you look at this building from above,

it has almost a birdlike quality.

[music]

[Jay] The team finally settle on

a low-lying, simple design

that will blend in with the surrounding desert.

The building will need to be engineered

so that it can be column-less and self-supporting

in order to house the enormous spacecraft inside.

The team will have to make sure it's able to survive

the huge changes in temperature,

from below freezing at night

to over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the day.

And they need to be able to get the spacecraft off the ground,

which in the thin desert air means

a runway that's long enough

while being strong enough to support

their enormous weight.

All this will need to be done

while making the minimum disturbance to the desert

and the archaeology it holds.

[music]

[Jay] The project gets the go ahead in April 2008.

But before any construction work can begin,

there's an important job that has to be done.

Because although the site is a barren desert now,

thousands of years ago,

it was a hub of early human activity.

Some of the oldest archaeological remains

that we have for humans in the New World are here.

And they're well preserved.

And they haven't been collected.

They haven't been built over.

They haven't been plowed up.

[Jay] Each area of the site

needs to be carefully checked

by a team of archaeologists

while the crew has to wait to break ground.

Any place that we were going to actually disturb the surface,

we were required to conduct surveys.

It's a time-consuming process.

Meanwhile, we're under the gun to meet contracts.

[Jay] The survey uncovers thousands of artifacts,

leaving as much as possible undisturbed.

Finally, in June 2009, construction begins.

The team's first challenge is building

a very special runway.

Because to make space travel commercially viable,

instead of using rockets to launch the spacecraft,

here, aircrafts will carry shuttles to 50,000 feet

before releasing them at the edge of the atmosphere.

They use specially designed, massive carrier aircraft

called White Knight 2.

They're like two jumbo jets stuck together.

[Jay] To get these jets safely off the ground,

the runway needs to be almost two miles long,

200 foot wide, and 44 inches thick.

It's built up in layers like strata of rock.

There's a soil-cement mix on the foundation,

then asphalt, then another layer of concrete.

[Jay] Each of these layers has to be laid flawlessly.

Any crack or bump could have dangerous repercussions.

You can't have any loose aggregate

close to the surface. That's very important.

You can't have any potholes. You can't have anything

that could possibly be sucked in by the jet engines.

[music]

[Jay] But will the searing desert heat

threaten the flawless finish?

[Jay] In New Mexico,

construction workers are creating the runway

for the world's first purpose-built

commercial spaceport.

It needs to be finished with a layer of flawless concrete.

But achieving this in the desert will be anything but easy.

If it's too cold, it won't cure properly.

And if it's too hot, it can dry out and crack easily.

[Chris] This valley that we're in is a harsh environment.

The nights get down below freezing.

The days get above 100 degrees, 106 degrees.

[Jay] The team tries to beat the weather

by working in short bursts

when the conditions are most favorable.

But even then, the desert climate

ruins some of their work.

[David] We had to pull out

a significant amount of concrete here.

That always breaks people's hearts.

It breaks the spirit, too.

[Jay] It means that building the runway

takes 15 months.

But eventually, by December 2010, it's complete.

[David] This job was the most challenging that we ever had

for the weather conditions by far.

If you can place concrete here, you can place concrete anywhere.

[music]

[Jay] Now the team can turn its attention

to the main spaceport terminal,

which has to house both the spacecraft

and launch planes.

[Man] You are clear to unstrap.

[Jay] And also offer the paying amateur astronauts

an out-of-this-world experience.

Those who are going to take off into the fringe of space,

they walk through the hangar

that contains these extraordinary aircraft.

[Jay] Designing a building that will allow

those massive vehicles in and out

creates its own unique set of headaches.

So you can't have the columns

that you would normally have inside of a building

that would hold it up.

What we're trying to generate is a very long-span structure

that is basically column free.

[Jay] The answer they come up with

is to build a super-strong steel frame

that will allow the roof to be self-supporting.

Now normally, that wouldn't be too complicated to construct.

Your traditional airplane hangar,

they're often just literally a large box.

[Jay] Here, though, the architects have specified

a stunning, undulating curved roof,

which will blend in seamlessly with the surrounding desert.

It's a very organic shape,

so right away you knew that this was gonna demand

a lot of innovation.

[Jay] The problem is

that if they fabricated in bespoke curved pieces of steel,

the cost of the frame will be enormous,

and the budget set by the state of New Mexico can't bear it.

[music]

[Jay] The team's solution is ingenious.

They design the steel frame

in cheaper, short, straight sections,

which, when joined together

and topped with corrugated metal,

insulation, and a rubber membrane,

will give the impression of a smooth curve.

Thanks to the clever, cost-effective design,

the frame quickly comes together.

You've been looking at it on a computer screen

and on a sheet of paper for months,

or, in this case, years.

And then you see it in real life.

You know, it works.

[Jay] While work continues creating the hangar,

the team turns to its final challenge--

they need to find a way to help the building

manage the extreme climate.

It's crucial to regulate the temperature

inside the building.

The structural elements need it.

The technology needs it. And the people need it.

[Jay] They look to the surrounding desert

for the answer.

[Lord Foster] How do you take advantage of the fact

that below that very hot surface, it's cold?

In the same way we go into the basement of a building

on a hot day here in London, it'll be immediately cooler.

You're below the ground.

[Jay] To stabilize the temperature

inside the terminal,

the answer is to half bury it.

They build up walls around Spaceport

to create thermal mass.

That's a natural capacity of some materials,

like earth, to hold on to heat and release it slowly.

[Jay] It's a technique pioneered in the 1970s

in the earthships,

off-grid ecohouses built in the desert.

But here, the engineers have a neat trick up their sleeve

to make them work even better.

Within the earth, there's a labyrinth.

There's a series of large concrete pipes

that just meander back and forth.

[Jay] During the freezing cold nights,

cool air is drawn through the huge earth bank,

which is warmer and heats it up.

But during the day, the reverse happens.

Hot air drawn in cools as it passes through the pipes,

maintaining a stable temperature inside.

[music]

[Jay] In 2019,

10 years after breaking ground,

Spaceport America's gateway to space

is ready for takeoff.

[music]

[Bill] It was quite an amazing sight to see.

The building, it's just almost overwhelming

when you actually see it.

[music]

So when you arrive, you're going into

what feels like you're going into a cave, almost.

And then you come into the main terminal

with this fantastic view across the landscape.

[Jay] In 2023, Virgin Galactic's

first tourist space flight takes off.

If you look at space and risk, in any new technology,

it's a huge gamble for everybody.

But here we are, with 32 new astronauts

in the last year,

seventh commercial flight.

[Kelly] We can actually see the spaceport while we're up there.

I can look down and, clear as a bell,

see the runway, the facility.

Every time we do a space flight, it is incredibly emotional.

[music]

[music]

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