DAWN OF THE SPACE AGE (SHORT 30minutes version)
script July 2007 including all radio communications.
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00:08
For centuries humans have dreamed of conquering space and soaring through the heavens
and for centuries so it has remained, just a dream.
00:25
But in the twentieth century the phenomanal growth of science and technology created an
unprecendented opportunity
to make these dreams come true
and they did come true, here in the steppes of Kazakhstan
when a train from the industrial revolution pushed it successor to its launch pad, a new revolution
began.
The torch had been passed on.
01:43
In the future people will look back on this day as the beginning of a new Era.
01:50
The day mankind learned how to leave the Earth, October the 4th 1957:
The Dawn of the Space Age.
02:29
The Soviet Union launched an object named Sputnik, higher and faster then anything else before.
It reached such a tremendous speed, that the Earth curved away before gravity could pull it back to
the ground.
02:54
Freefalling around the Earth without any rocket power, made Sputnik into Earth's first artificial
satellite.
Radio amateurs around the world could pick up its signal. Besides beeping it didn't do much. The
main thing Sputnik was saying to the World was: I'm here !
03:16
Many people remember seeing Sputnik pass through the night sky. Even though what they really
saw was one of its much larger rocketstages trailing along behind.
03:27
Sputnik beeping at the World was a wake up call for the United States. The Soviet Union had taken a
technological leap ahead.
This blow to American national pride led to the creation of Nasa, a government organisation with a
mission to get an American in space as soon as possible. The space race was born.
03:57
Just one month later, the Soviets struck again when they launched another Sputnik.
Sputnik 2 was six times heavier, and had a passenger on board:
a dog named Laika.
04:14
Laika was the first living creature to orbit the Earth. Without an Earth re-entry system however she
was doomed.
Laika only survived several hours in space and died of heath exhaustion.
04:37
Following missions returned space dogs savely to Earth paving the way for the first manned
spaceflight.
04:44
Little was known of the effects of weightlessness on the human brain, therefore a completely
automatic capsule was designed: the Vostok, meaning East.
Surprising the World on April the 12th 1961, Vostok 1 carried a man into space.
It was the first time anyone had journeyed beyond the Earth's atmosphere and the first time anyone
had gone into orbit.
The Soviet Union had won the race to space !
05:17
The cosmonaut inside the Vostok, famous for its smile was: Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin.
5:18 (starts talking at the same time as narrator)
I transmitted the telegraph signal "ON"
"I read you well. The flight is going as planned".
05:25
Yuri's thoughts were with his mother: what would she says when she heard that her son was part of
the Soviet space program.
05:33
The flight's only mishap, happened right at the end: the Vostok's retro rocket system had trouble
seperating from the capsule causing a violent tumble and nearly killing Gagarin.
06:39
His ejection from the capsule by a parachute was kept a secret.
06:43
"Hello ! Hello!"
"I am a friend ! I am a Soviet!"
06:47
By keeping it a secret the flight could now qualify as an official space record.
06:58
After Gagarin's success many more spaceflight records were set with the Vostok and the slightly
modified Voshod capsule.
07:07
On March the 18th 1965 the Soviet Union pulled off yet another first: an ingenious inflatable airlock
allowed cosmonaut Alexei Leonov to leave his Voshod capsule and become the first person ever to
walk in space.
07:37
" Diamond-2, we can see you very well, it is time to start your mission".
"So the world is really round".
"I can see the Kaukasus! I can see from the strait of Gibraltar to the Caspian Sea !!"
08:01
But after twelve minutes it all went horribly wrong.
08:05
"It is time to come back in !"
08:07
Alexei was exhausted and his spacesuit had ballooned in the vacuum of space, he couldn't re-enter.
Only by venting some air through a valve on the suit was he able to save his life.
08:24
From 1957 till 1965 the Soviets had almost always beaten their American counterparts in all space
achievements.
Sometimes by only a few months, but that was about to change with the brand new Gemini program.
Earlier in 1961 U.S. President John F. Kennedy had announced a bold challenge to land a man on the
moon before the end of the decade.
08:54
Gemini-8 commander Neil Armstrong and astronaut Dave Scott set out for the first docking in space
with an unmanned rocket stage: the Agena.
09:06
"We're docked, no noticeable ocillations, very smooth"
09:10
Finally the Americans had a first in manned spaceflight.
Immediately after docking some of the most hair-raising moments in space history would unfold.
The combined spacecraft started to roll.
09:27
Neil Armstrong tried to correct manually by using thrusters, but everytime he let go of the controls
the roll would start again and keep accelerating.
09:40
Unknown to Armstrong and Scott the problem was within the Gemini spacecraft, a jammed orbital
thruster.
Convinced the problem was within the Agena, they undocked.
09:56
“We have serious problems !, We’re tumbling and have seperated, we are rolling up , we can’t turn
anything off !”
10:03
Now, as a much lighter spacecraft, the effect of the firing thruster virtually doubled.
On the verve of loosing consciousness, Armstrong activated the re-entry jets, and shut off the orbital
thrusters.
10:22
The crew regained control but the mission had to be aborted.
10:43
In absolute secrecy the Soviets too were working on their own moonshot with the giant N1 launcher.
10:52
A complex design with thirty engines on its first stage, that all had to work flawlessly and in
synchronisation.
11:06
Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov was the prime candidate to fly around the Moon, or perhaps even
become the first man to walk on the moon.
11:18
Then unexpectatly the Soviet’s chief designer: Sergei Korolov died. This marked a turning point in the
already underfunded Soviet space program.
Testing of the different stages of the N1 started in 1968, followed by four full scale unmanned
launches.
12:08
The world would: not find out about the N1 lunar program until the demise of the Soviet Union.
12:16
The American lunar program, had its hopes based on the mighty Saturn V rocket from the hand of
Wernher von Braun.
Fearing an imminent flight around the moon by the Soviets in 1968, the Americans took a bold
decision.
With no lunar module available yet to test in space, the first manned launch of the Saturn V would
carry the Apollo 8 capsule to the moon, and achieve lunar orbit.
12:47
The Apollo 8 crew members were: Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders.
They would soon become the first humans to leave Earth orbit and actually go to another
destination in space.
13:22
It was a mission loaded with risks, as they only had a single engine to get in and out of lunar orbit.
13:30
“Minus one minute”
“Minus fifty seconds”
“Minus fourty”
“S-1-C prepass complete Frank”
“Roger you’re all good”
“Minus thirty seconds”
“.........”
“Minus twenty seconds”
“T-minus fifteen”
“fourteen”
“thirteen”
“twelve”
“eleven”
“ten”
“nine”
“We have ignition sequence start”
“The engines are on”
“All engines running , launch commence”
14:36
“three”
“two”
“one”
“zero”
14:52:
“We have commence, .........”
“Lift off the clock is running”
“Roger clock”
“That’s Okay “Fido” all engines”
“Clock starts “Fido”, Roger Clock”
15:21
“Clear the tower !!!”
“Copy tower, Houston copy”
15:26
“Stand by for 1 Charlie”
“Apollo 8 Houston you look good for staging”
“S-1-C cutoff”
“Roger”
“S-2 ignition”
“Roger S-2”
15:42
“Capcom can you confirm tower jettison ?”
“That’s affirmative we did !”
“Copy Fido”
15:49
“First stage was very smooth.. and this one is smoother”
“Apollo 8 you are go for T-L-I over”
“Ignition”
“Roger Ignition”
“Apollo 8 Houston you are looking good here, right down the centerline”
“Roger Apollo 8”
“Okay we’ve got SECO right on the money”
16:06
With the last engine burn, the Trans Lunar Insertion, Apollo 8 coasted to the moon
The United States had made a major advance in the race to the moon.
16:20
“Welcome to the moon Houston”
16:39
“Apollo 8 Houston , one minute to L-O-S all systems go”
“Save journey guys”
“See you on the other side”
16:57
Once Apollo 8 had arrived behind the moon, it had to fire its single engine to be inserted into lunar
orbit.
17:07
The astronauts were now completely isolated from the Earth.
17:14
On Christmas Eve hundreds of millions of people watched the live broadcast from the moon.
Then the crew of Apollo 8 did the unthinkable, they read from the book of Genesis.
17:30
“We’re now approaching lunar Earthrise and for all the people back on Earth the crew of Apollo 8
has a message that we would like to send to you”
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the Earth”
“and the Earh was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep”
“and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters”
18:05
“and God said, let there be light, and there was light”
“and God saw the light and that is was good and God divided the light from the darkness”
18:24
“and God called the dry land Earth and the gathering together of the waters called he seas”
“and God saw that it was good”
“and from the crew of Apollo 8 we close with goodnight, good luck, a merry Christmas and God bless
all of you, all of you on the good Earth”
18:52
It was during this flight, in a back room at the mission control center in Houston, that Neil Armstrong
got word that he would command the first mission to land a man on the moon, seven months later:
Apollo 11
19:06
“Apollo 11 Houston you are go for undocking over”
19:12
“The Eagle has wings”
19:15
On July the twentieth 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin commenced their descend to the lunar
surface, while Michael Collins remained in the Command module.
19:26
The astronauts gave themselves only a fifty percent chance of mission success.
This was to be the most nail-biting descend of all lunar missions.
18:36
“Program alarm”
“1202”
“We’re go on that Flight”
“We’re go on that alarm ?”
“Give us a reading on the 1202 program alarm”
“Roger, we’re go on that alarm”
“Okay all flight controllers: Go No-Go for landing, RETRO, GO, FIDO, GO, GUIDANCE, GO, CONTROL,
GO, TELCOM, GO, GNC, GO, EECOM, GO, SURGEON, GO, CAPCOM we are go for landing”
20:05
“Pretty rocky area”
20:07
Computer overload alarms cause the eagle to overshoot it’s original landing site in the sea of
tranquility.
20:14
“sixty seconds”
20:15
Flying above boulders as big as houses, and running low on fuel, Neal took manual control, and
searched for a spot to land.
20:27
“Down two and a half”
20:28
Flying with only seconds of landing fuel left, was beyond anything they had trained for.
20:35
“three feet down two and a half, picking up some dust”
“three feet two and a half down faint shadow”
“four forward, four forward drifring to the right a little”
“Down a half”
“thirty seconds”
“Contact light”
“Okay engine stop”
20:58
“We copy you down Eagle”
“Houston Tranquility base here, the Eagle has landed”
21:06
“I’m at the foot of the ladder, the LM footbeds are only depressed in the surface about one or two
inches”
“I’m gonna step of the LM now”
21:19
“That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind”
21:29
“Neil this is Houston, do you copy about the contingency sample over ?”
“Okay are you gonna get the contingency sample there Neil ?”
“Right, I’m trying to get a rock in there”
21:39
“Beautiful view, isn’t that somthing ?, magnificent site out here”
21:45
Buzz joined Neal on the surface about 20 minutes later.
21:50
“Magnificent Desolation”
21:55
While Neil and Buzz were on the moon there was a Soviet visitor nearby.
The unmanned Luna 15 was the Soviets Union’s last minute attempt to return lunar samples to the
Earth before the Americans did.
If successful the samples would arrive on Earth hours before the return of Apollo 11.
22:21
“ha ha ha, dum the dum dum dum”
22:27
Five more successful lunar missions succeeded Apollo 11, Just four months later Apollo 12 made a
precision landing on the moon.
22:38
“Do you know what I feel like Al ?”
“What ?”
“Did you ever see those pictures of Giraffes running in slow motion ?”
“That’s exactly what I feel like”
“ha ha ha”
“Say, would you Giraffes give us some information about your boot penetration as you move across
there, what you’re doing now, and what you had there back there at sharp crater ?”
22:59
The astronauts visited Surveyor 3 a robotic lander that had landed several years earlier.
23:05
“Okay we’re moving forward Joe”
“Roger”
23:10
From Apollo 15 onwards, walking turned into driving.
These extended missions carried a foldable rover
A thirty eight million dollar dream machine.
23:25
Commander Dave Scott was the first to drive it on the moon.
23:28
“I’m glad they’ve got this great suspension system on this thing, Boy !”
23:39
“Oh, look at the mountains today Jim when they are all sunlit isn’t that beautiful ? It really is”
“My golly, that’s just super, you know unreal”
23:50
“Wow hang on”
24:00
“This is really a rock and roller ride isn’t it ?”
24:05
“Three- Two- One ignition We’re on our way Houston”
24:13
In December 1972 Apollo 17 ended the greatest exploration in human history.
24:22
Having missed out on being the first on the moon, the Soviet Union focussed on building stations in
space. They were first again with the Salyut space station, but the most successful of all was their
MIR space station, allowing nearly ten years of continuous human presence in space.
24:45
“T-minus twenty seconds and counting”
24:48
After Apollo NASA’s manned space program focussed on the re-usable Space Shuttle, the most
complex machine ever build. The Space Shuttle looks like a large flying pick up truck that lands as a
glider at the end of its mission.
It has deployed and fixed satellites, operated as a self launching space station and delivered entire
modules to permanent space stations.
25:14
“We have booster ignition and lift off”
25:27
“Roll program”
25:32
“Houston is now controlling”
26:00
The Dawn of the Space Age started with two nations who watched eachothers achievements with a
combination of envy and admiration.
The admiration led to cooperation.
26:14
At the dawn of the twentyfirst century we’re marking the permanent human presence in space with
the International Space Station.
26:25
It’s main use is research under micro gravity, commonly known as weightlessness.
This can lead to new discoveries in Medicine, Materials and science which people all over the World
could benefit from.
26:40
The Space Station also provides us with more inside on the effects of long duration stays in space on
the human body.
This experience will be invaluable for future human exploration of the solar system.
26:58
Yet changing politics and the space shuttle Columbia tragedy delayed the construction of the
international space station.
27:07
It might require a little more patience before we can steer back to a destination oriented space
program. Which allows humans to leave low Earth orbit once again.
27:28
But there is a new star on the horizon, not funded by any government but by the biggest industry in
the World:
Tourism !
27:45
In 2004 space ship one captured the Ansari X-prize.
A prize aimed at spurring development of low cost space flight for us all.
Now the common man can become a space tourist.
28:20
The score is space ship one government zero.
28:26
At some point in time just watching the planets on our computer screens will not be enough.
Instead of gazing in awe at what our ancestors achieved, we could become the first life form that
lives on more then one planet.
28:42
It can be done right now, we just need to be willing to invest in these new Worlds, dare to take risks
again and most of all, we just need to make the bold decision to live the dream and go !