National Geographic: Destination Space Page #3

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broadcast of Ariane Spaceflight #126...

launching... for Panam Sat... this evening...

first launch of the new year.

The show's gonna be a good one.

We hope you'll stay with us.

The ground crew is under pressure to

maintain its long string of successes.

And I have to say it's

a very, very exciting business

when you have once a month

this huge thing flying into space

and all these people working on it.

Another successful launch.

And so the party begins in earnest.

Being on the equator

for launching satellites

is such a tremendous advantage

that our competitors are desperately

trying to find an equatorial site.

To compete with Arianespace,

a secretive rival will journey to one

of the most remote places on earth.

Using extraordinary gear

that belongs in a James Bond movie,

they will create their own

equatorial launch site

in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

In Long Beach, California a company

called Sea Launch

has assembled a dream team

of scientists and mariners.

Their mission:
to launch satellites

from a platform at sea.

Mission Director Steve Thelin marvels

at the talent Sea Launch has assembled.

I mean, who ever thought

I'd be out here

launching Western-style spacecraft

on a Russian rocket

on a Norwegian platform

out in the middle of the Pacific.

I mean, this is really cool.

Sea Launch uses a rocket

originally designed to fire nuclear

warheads at the United States.

Today, it carries a payload

more in tune with the times-

a telecommunications satellite.

Sea Launch will journey

across the Pacific Ocean,

to a spot on the equator

Two vessels will make the expedition.

One is an oil platform, converted

into a self-propelled launch pad.

The other-a specially built command

ship that will carry 200 Russian,

Ukrainian and American engineers and

scientists on the three-week trip.

Relations are good on

this international team.

The Russians are just

such professionals.

It's just an honor to be working with them.

Some of the best rocket scientists

in the world, basically.

It's neat to see the past come

forward to the future of space.

The state-of-the-art

mission command center

is actually two control rooms in one.

Russian-speaking specialists

will work on one side

English-speaking Americans

on the other.

Coordination must be seamless

for the launch to succeed.

A similar collaboration was put to

a sharper test onboard Mir.

With air pressure dropping

because of a collision,

the two Russians and

one American have only minutes

to close off a punctured module

or abandon ship.

But cables block a hatchway

that must be sealed.

These cables now that were

being disconnected,

there's about 18 of them,

were like big snakes,

and they just kind of got in the way.

So Sasha'd pass the cable to me

and I'd tie it off.

With the passageway finally cleared,

the two struggle to seal the hatch.

As soon as it went into place,

without doing any latches,

it kind of went "pfffp" and sucked in.

And at that point I really felt

the pressure stop falling.

They've closed off the leaking module,

but Mir is now crippled as they

approach the dark side of earth.

Now the station, which was tumbling,

hadn't been able to orient

its solar arrays to the sun

and we had basically used up

all the battery power that was left.

And so all of the lights

started to go off,

the fans went off

that moved the air around,

and we lost communications

with the ground.

Foale and his crewmates face

a desperate situation.

Without power they have no heaters,

no computers, no oxygen generators.

For the first time,

Mir becomes deathly quiet.

Really, ironically,

it was some of the most beautiful,

memorable experience I ever had

on the Mir,

because we were passing over

the southern tip of Tierra del Fuego,

towards Antarctica and there were

extraordinary curtains of green and red

shimmering across the curve

of the earth

and we kind of would just float there

in front of the window,

mostly saying nothing.

Russians and Americans at Sea Launch

are preoccupied with safety.

Already fueled, the satellite payload

is added to the rocket.

Then, the Sea Launch crew

Cautiously transfers the rocket

to the launch platform.

The Russians insisted on

the twin ship plan

because of its extra margin of safety.

All personnel will evacuate the

launch platform for lift-off.

The rocket is safely cradled

in the launch platform hangar.

Sea Launch is now ready for the

In the age-old sea-faring tradition,

Sea Launch's voyage to the equator

begins with a farewell party

on the dock.

Future rocket scientist!

Friends and loved ones come to see

the Sea Launch crew off.

Steve Thelin will be away from

his family for almost a month.

The two Sea Launch vessels set out

for the equator.

At sea, Russians, Norwegians, and

Americans tend to live and play apart.

The dining room offers

a multi-ethnic cuisine.

And each nationality gravitates

to its own tables.

The Norwegian captain, Tormod Hansen,

was initially skeptical of

this international undertaking.

When I first heard about it,

I thought it was a joke.

I didn't really believe it.

Russian rockets being launched

with American satellites?

The combination of

American and Russian scientists,

and a Norwegian marine?

I thought it was a little bit unreal.

But after 10 days at sea,

everything is going without a hitch.

Sea Launch is nearing its destination.

Everyone is of one mind-all

are totally focused on blasting

their rocket into orbit.

The launch platform now sits

exactly at the equator.

There is no more efficient launch

location for reaching equatorial orbit.

We have such accurate station

keeping ability.

The platform is right on the equator.

You can literally come out here

and straddle the equator-walk

from one end of the ship to

the other end of the ship

and cross the equator.

Huge pumps flood

the platform's pontoons and pylons

with 19,000 tons of seawater.

It settles 70 feet into the sea,

stabilized in the swell.

The crew rolls the rocket out

of its hangar

onto the deck of the launch platform.

They slowly erect the 200-foot rocket.

A bridge connects the two ships.

The crew from the launch platform

can now evacuate

in preparation for

the nighttime blast off.

The command ship sails three miles away

in case the rocket explodes on the pad.

As liftoff time nears,

a rare spectacle at sea unfolds.

The captain of the launch platform

leaves his ship.

Steve Thelin and his international

team check,

then double check, every system.

Op support. Marine operations.

Sea Launch has a one-second

window for launch

if they're to place the satellite

in exactly the right orbit.

Months of preparation and thousands of

hours of work now come down to this:

Can the team do everything perfectly-

without even a second of leeway?

It's a very high level of intensity.

Basically I focus on what's going on,

what potential problems could come up.

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