National Geographic: Destination Space Page #4

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The concentration it takes,

the butterflies you get

in your stomach prior to launch.

Ten... nine... eight... seven... six... five...

four... three... two... one...

We have a lift-off.

All looks good at blast-off.

But then something goes

terribly wrong.

One hundred and forty miles

above earth,

the rocket shuts down prematurely-

the satellite fails to reach orbit.

A software glitch may have caused

a single valve to stay open,

dooming the mission.

It's a costly set back,

but Sea Launch

is already planning its next launch.

Nothing about rockets is easy.

Defying gravity remains

an exasperating challenge.

Many are pursuing radically new ideas

about how to reach space.

Just a few months ago,

I got all these proposals

by physicists proposing wacky,

crazy mechanisms for one of NASAs

advanced propulsion systems

that may one day take us

to nearby stars.

I laughed to myself a bit.

There are serious physicists making

serious proposals,

making a shot in the dark because

that's what it may take for us

to go to the distant planets.

Like others who hope to

revolutionize space travel,

propulsion physicist Leik Myrabo

was inspired early in life.

Sputnik and also Echo

flew about the same year.

My grandmother got me up out of bed

in the middle of the night

and brought me outside

and actually showed me

one of these first satellites

flying overhead.

And it was just astounding.

It was an amazing experience.

With NASA backing, Myrabo has traveled

to Wright Patterson Air Force Base.

Here, he will test

whether a laser beam

can be used to push specially

made fabrics through space.

Science fiction writers have been

writing about laser sails-huge,

ultra thin sails,

like spiderwebs

covered with reflective surfaces

kilometers in diameter.

We're actually testing five new laser

sail materials.

Now the sails aren't very big.

They're only about a couple of

inches across, two inches across.

But what we're doing is we're flooding

that with 10 to 100,000 watts

of laser energy.

This is a ferocious environment

frankly,

we don't know how well

these will survive.

And until you actually do tests

like this,

you don't know where you stand.

And that's what these tests are about.

So it's incredibly exciting.

Yeah, this is brand new.

The weight of these sail materials

has to be nothing.

I mean, we're talking about

butterfly wings.

Will it burn up?

You know, will it just

turn into ashes and fall

to the bottom of the vacuum tank?

We don't know.

But we are simulating

a space environment.

It's evacuated to an incredibly

low pressure that simulates space.

If these delicate prototypes

can withstand the burst of light,

Myrabo's dream of a starship

carried by a large laser sail

will be one step closer to reality.

Run number one.

Pendulum number one.

Ready to arm...

four... three... two... one...

Incredibly, it works.

The force of light alone has pushed

the miniature sail

without incinerating it.

This is good. Very good.

I'm happy.

A real laser sailcraft would require

a colossal building project.

Much of the work might take place

on a future lunar colony.

Thousands of solar-powered lasers

would have to be built.

Each laser would be rolled out

to a runway

where it would be packaged

for the quick trip to earth orbit.

A railway lined with

powerful magnets

would accelerate the laser

to escape the moon's gravity.

The laser slows as it approaches

a gargantuan array of lasers

under construction.

A worker fits the new laser

into place.

Nearby, in earth orbit,

a laser sail unfurls.

Half a mile across,

it might carry a robot craft

for exploring distant worlds.

When the laser array is complete,

will strike the sail.

Bouncing off the sail,

the light beam inches it forward.

The craft gradually picks up speed.

It passes Jupiter,

and, after years of travel

it could approach another star

at close to the speed of light.

Near the end of its mission,

a smaller sail carrying

the probe would separate.

The small sail slows,

perhaps to enter orbit around

a planet to search for alien life.

But we are decades away

from mastering the technology

that Leik Myrabo is pioneering.

Today, it's still an overwhelming task

to maintain and power a craft like Mir.

After sealing the punctured module

on Mir,

the top priority for Michael Foale and

his crewmates is restoring power.

Vasily fires thrusters

to stabilize Mir.

He points the station's solar panels

toward the sun

in order to recharge its batteries.

But time and again,

computer crashes cause Mir to tumble.

Nothing is easy in space.

Space is a hostile, dangerous place-

more dangerous than anyplace

we've ever ventured on earth.

And there are a lot of places on earth

that have killed people,

ascending Mount Everest.

There's a lot one has to overcome.

When Columbus sailed the ocean blue,

he just had storms to worry about.

Astronauts have radiation storms

to worry about,

micrometeorites that can pierce

the hull of their system.

They're going to be facing

all sorts of unknown dangers.

On Mir, the crew grows exhausted.

They seem cursed.

Each time they resolve one crisis,

another arises.

Sasha accidentally unplugs the

computer, sending Mir tumbling again.

Russian ground controllers decide

it's time to cut back on the workload.

And we kind of did really relax.

We actually watched one or two movies.

We watched Apollo 13

in the airlock together,

which I translated for them.

But as his tour on Mir draws to an

end, Foale still isn't free from worry.

On September 27, 1997, he watches

the shuttle Atlantis approach.

Even though I should be relaxing

and just looking forward

to the arrival,

I was starting to become quite tense

that the shuttle wouldn't be able

to dock and take me off

because of one of these

computer problems.

I saw this beautiful sight rising up

from the blue of the earth towards us-

so slowly compared to the Progress,

so controlled compared to the Progress,

with hardly any immediate motion

noted for about ten seconds

between each change that

they made in their flight profile-

join up perfectly to our docking port.

And this enormous relief

gushed out of me.

And at that point, I knew I was home.

Home.

As he pulls away from Mir,

Foale takes what may be

a last glimpse of his second home.

After more than

four harrowing months in space

that challenged

his stamina and courage,

Foale now hopes for

a trouble-free ride to earth.

He returns to a vibrant world,

one filled with color

and life-a sharp contrast to Mir.

In the middle of the Mojave Desert

lives a man

who may well profit from space travel.

His name is Burt Rutan.

That's a dog. How about a duck?

Cat? Can you do a cat?

Rutan thinks-and lives-

outside the box.

Rutan's edge designs

have made aviation history.

And he's enjoying the ride.

Work? I haven't worked since 1974.

This is all play.

A simple concept, actually.

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