into christine spots. listen, i'm all region. it's a story that seems to have been her brush from history. in search of my groups on al jazeera for hello elizabeth bronman, doha with the top stories on al jazeera for a 2nd year club 19 has proven to be the night to man before christmas. the highly transmissible on the convert and has forced airlines to cancel more than 4000 flights globally. and the u. s. sick and isolating airline employees are causing severe staff shortages. that's left travelers stranded gable elizondo reports from newark airport and new jersey. the surge of the army kron variant and not only affecting people on the ground, but also those trying to get in the air to visit loved ones for the christmas

holiday. hundreds of flight cancellations in the united states. united in delta, 2 of the largest carriers, accounting for the most united sending out these alerts to passengers. your flight is canceled due to an increase in coven cases, limiting cru availability. we have a really concern last night when i saw on the news that they had canceled a 100 white that i'm like, oh my god, we won't be able to get home. but luckily we kept checking the white bed a 2nd. the white bed is got here and everything was fine, but we were really grateful for that. new jersey. newark liberty, airport passengers. mostly we're trying to remain calm a little bit worried about cancellation. so we see what happens. oh, my foreign cancer. i got the, you know, all the vaccines, 3 of our member, i got a mass, otherwise, then we're ready to go. all good. well, ami kron is surging. so to is holiday travel official say more than 2000000 people

passed through airport security screening in one day. more than pre pandemic holiday travel in 2019 airport workers say they are feeling it does not start work . other times i, we get we get along. great. it is lost. our lost our holiday season. yes. holiday, please. i am on the when you were was like this aside from the church encounters the longest lines in newark airport. we're at the covey testing facility. and airlines in the us are already starting to cancel more flights for the days ahead and with the army kron variance and not expected to peak for at least another couple weeks. it likely will mean more canceled flights, especially if the flight attendants and prior to operate them continue to get infected. gabriel's ando, how to cedar newark, new jersey. now

u. k prime minister bars johnson is urging the public to get a boost of vaccine shot over the christmas holiday. he is resisted calls for tighter restrictions. as corona, virus cases surge to record highs. though the time for buying presence is theoretically running out. there is still a wonderful thing you can give your family or the whole country that is to get that job, whether it's your 1st or 2nd, or your booster. so that next year's festivities are even better than this years. and in the meantime, i thank you. i wish you all a very merry christmas. now gabby, as truth and reconciliation commission has recommended that former president yama. it stands trial for murder, torture, and rake. the commission began its inquiry in 2017 when jar may flew into exile after refusing to accept defeat and presidential elections. saudi arabia state

medias has 2 people have been killed in a cross border attack, and jayson is blaming who the rebels for launching a projectile on thursday. the saudi led coalition fighting, and yemen said it targeted 9 locations. were rebels, restoring weapons and the capital some on pope frances as urged the world to embrace humility. and remember, the poor, the number of people who could attend was increased from last year, attend christmas mass. that is to spite concerns of a spike in cases in the vatican, and hundreds gathered from midnight mass and bethlehem and the occupied west bank. the leader of the catholic church of the region lead a larger service than was allowed last year because of close restrictions with some worship as attended the mass near the basilica of the nativity with jesus christ is believed to have been born. those are the headlines. allen, to the correspondent, the next. ah

ah ah, my modem with just 60 years after the wright brothers man in the i, scientists and engineers will grappling with the next major challenge, putting a man in space and keeping him alive that as an engineering challenge, it was the most extreme imaginable destination. a rocket and the most

complicated piece of personal protection equipment man has ever known a space suit for the american side of the space race. the design challenge was handed to a small team inside nasa, approved system of the leader of that team was matthew red, knocked ski, the mad russian and eccentric 2nd generation jewish immigrant with a can do attitude and a broad boston accent. he was also my grandfather. i barely knew him, he died when i was just 3 years old. apollo 11 was his try. i'm more all for a program and a perfectly designed space. suits them and flew in with his legacy. i've always been fascinated by space and i've often wondered how he did it for me story. the space race isn't just about the men who risk their lives to travel and the unknown

. but the ones who held those lives in their hands. i grew up in hartford sher, england, a world away from america in the space race. i'm at my parents house to ask my dad, he remembers about grandpa. looking at our old photographs and watching and as the film. i realize how little i really know about my grandfather your grandfather and his colleagues worked on the space suits they designed the space suits. that became the, the centerpiece of what the astronauts wore in the mercury gemini and the apollo program that neil armstrong buzz aldrin and all the astronauts who followed them who walked on the moon. i never had quite realized actually i always thought that, oh it was, it was just a very small part in this big machine. and actually i realize not who was actually

put a big part in the big machine. i think he and a lot of people were big parts in that machine. i think there were a lot of people on who took the goals that were given them and they just went on the chiefs it. why did he say when we were born? i see, i don't know, was he a nice compa? yeah. any com. yeah. you didn't. you didn't see a lot of him because he lived in texas and we were here already by the time you were born. i was he please. this is this, i'm sancho probably. oh yeah. he loved left. all of you like to talk about it. what does it not? not to come. allison little the peaches in me getting on the counter the nation. um, now it, it feels great it's, it's really interesting to reevaluate a little bit and to remember the terrific person that your grandfather was. my dad was he was, he was a, he was

a real character. and i think about him what i always have. and it's interesting when your parents have been gone for, for a while, you know, what do you think about? and they're still there in the rear. and you can hear them anything on it? my think about that, even crock fountain, not doing a film. now this is great, i think it's i think it's a chance for you to discover who your grandfather was and it's, it's for you to get to know my dad in a way that may be. this is a start. i mean, we have a few pictures. you know, you're going to go off and talk to people who knew him and worked with them. and i think that's just terrific. i'm really glad my grandfather's fascination with safety fighting and subsequently space seats began during world war t. matt right now ski was stationed at sir ly. bedfordshire in england in

a 3 or 6 bombardment? greek as a navigator in the b 17 flying fortress. ah, it's less now is a small museum operated by ra franklin, on the outskirts of the old airfield. ah, i've come here with my dad because we both want to hear my grandfather's combat story. i think that some of the equipment used in the u. s. air force at that time may have influenced grampa when he subsequently designed the astronauts clothing and equipment. ralph has a good collection of that old air force equipment hair during his time at nasa. grandpa designed the astronauts communications helmet, affectionately known as the snoopy cap. it's easy to see how the influence for that came from the 8 is flying helmet. i always had, i had like this, my only one you will fly and it was easier to have the of hedge said the

face and how many hours all are complete fixture. and that was what i often, well, apparently when grandpa was working on the gemini projects, they were the astronaut kept complaint i comes, devices kept slipping. and so grandpa said to somebody, oh, just get an a d h, his cap. and they can wear that underneath their helmet, and that will keep the common device in place. maybe we attach that device to the hat. and i hadn't really realized that it was so literally exactly like that. like he was just like, oh let's get this hat. the i remember from the war and see if we can put together he let she was. oh, we'll just do what i did during the war. that makes sense. that's not true. the cool. ralph also shows me a heated suit that the 8 his war to keep warm when they flew at high altitude. right, well, this is a heating suit, commonly known as the blue bunny, obviously because this blue i suppose was barney. i don't know. you can see it with

all the heating out him is running through it. i'm surprised how much it looks like something worn by nasa astronaut. this looks just like a cooling suit. you were underneath your, your space suit. so you say okay, how we can manage to keep the actual cool when they're wearing this matter through that weighs more than 2 men. you just put them in a suit that has watering through it. and so again, like with the snoopy cap, you can see really clearly that this is something that he would have been it not even slide by such an obvious, against an obvious answer to a problem. during the war, grandpa was a navigator in a b. 17 caught the cost of the on re algo, but i've never been able to picture him in action. so this is really interesting because this is actually inside of a b 17. this picture here. and it's really, i like it because it the 1st chance i've had to understand what it would have

looked like inside one. so where's that, where's the pilot in his back here. okay. this is where that is. we're looking from the back here, down to the friend. what kind of temperature would have actually been inside the aircraft to mean that you'd have to weigh your jacket like that? more this is wendy. i need you to. yeah. and on her line jacket, because the american bombing was done from greater heights, that was the idea of it. dad asks route if there's any record of when grandpa was shot down in 1943, 306. this is going 1st over germany. and you might find that in here and matthew, i read off ski, page 289 ah . on november 21st lieutenant ed, we turned off lawyer through cast with amber jago with knocked out of formation when 2 rounds. aflac. if we do them that way, once you fall back out of formation,

you're an easy target. we had a fall back out of formation because they had hit an engine. and when they hit an engine, it was then bought an edge and it hit me, wounding 1st lieutenant nasty rye bread. na ski, the navigator. here. are the tail gunner failed out. everybody bailed ali listed men bailed out of the pilot, and the co pilot stayed holding the plate plane level. i was hit in the plane and these same explosions also said the member to engine on fire, severed the throttle linkage to number one, engine via plane logic to engines ultimately and the 3rd engine. finally, they got a great big piece of flack that went into my back ah, right through the armored suit that i was wearing. i had to i'm,

it's which one that i laid on the floor and another one that was that was sitting in wearing. but i went right through. it didn't make any difference than another verse to the right side of this for 23rd plane. and 2nd, lieutenant marvin travis co pilot, his babbling did in his right leg while they were having a very bad day. and our laid me out flat. i was laying there and it. and it opened my parish. my parents, it was laying there in inside. so the bama dia gave me his parachute and me to a, a static line right next to me and threw me out. and other members of the crew who bailed out were 1st. lieutenant douglas mcknight was received to metal saving money, saving my dad got him out. he was the bombardier and sam polk lazy,

faltered county. he came down from a very high altitude because it, it deployed very quickly and it took a long time to get down. it's but it was wonderful. it was so quiet. and then i heard a dog barking. i heard a bell ringing from a church. and then i landed in the trees in a whisper. wonderful landing you could ever get. i landed in the parachute kind of landed over the top of the trees and i plunged down. never hit the ground just a couple of feet from the ground hanging there at british parachute on, which was you just churn turner thing and hit it and you fall out of it. and i was pretty much paralyzed due to my wounds. i was hit apparently by machine dental as well as in the year cuz i got 3 machine gun bullets in addition in me when i, when i parachute and my boots fell off, my vest fell off mice escape fit, kit fell off everything. the only that worked was it was the parachute. thank god,

but nothing works. that's how i became interested in working with safety equipment . nothing worked. wow. well, i'm glad i was on the boat now. it's terrific to get to one of my younger marina now. makes me feel humble when i was, when i was 19 years old, i wasn't doing anything like this ah. in the united states, the calling foundation has offered me the chance to put myself in grandpa speak. and take my own ride in a 17. despite my fear of heights, it's an unmistakable opportunity. climbing up into the b 17, i'm surprised how cramped it is. a reading now or it may look imposing from the outside,

but it's actually crowded and very functional on the inside. the 1st time i get to see what the painting in the museum is like in real life, i can see the bumper days position. and so now the gauge is table where my grandfather would have sat and why he was injured. i'm sitting here with the radio operator would have sat out there. you've got where the pilot and the co pilots would have been great because you can actually this is open up here and it goes it. i think over a 100 miles an hour. so here we go. here we go. with that mcneil no big deal.

wait. i think

it's a windy day and after the flights i'm told this made our trip unusually bumpy. similar how doesn't flag during the fall with really cool, but i feel like i'm not going to pair up but i feel grandpa is experience of being shut down in spite his passion for safety, clothing and ultimately led to a career at nasa. well, over the 4th 1957 russia successfully launch sputnik won the world's fast artificial satellites. this act marked the started a space race. a battle for supremacy of space between the us and russia.

america responds with the mercury project soccer making allen shepherd the 1st american space in 1900. 61 followed by john glenn, less than a year later. far in 1962 president john f. kennedy declared, the country would go one step further by putting him out on the moon and returning him safely. and all, by the end of the day, we choose to go to the mall and if they can do the other thing, not because they are easy, but because they are hard. because that gold will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and scales. because that challenge is wong, that we're willing to accept one. we are willing to both born and one when you plan to win, and the other still. ah kennedy's famous rallying call to beat russia to the moon, galvanized thousands of american engineers is developing new technologies,

including the space suit. the smithsonian's national air and space museum in washington dc is the perfect place to get the big picture of how the space it was developed. these basic spaces, good ones, bigger gara and glen war, basically had the same function. they were there to keep erin in case of emergency on to keep particles out and to protect against any sort of radiation that those high levels of altitude space suits are not very comfortable things to where they're heavy, they're awkward, they're bulky. ah, they're constraining and getting those everything right for the astronaut is very important. so. so you've heard of my grandfather? yes. yes. i've seen his signature on, on documents and materials like yes he's, he's very woman. i think for me it's hard sometimes to understand exactly how you

fit into everything. the process of designing the suit is enormously iterative. it started with propose suit designs and prototype suits that come from private corporations as a bid for a contract with nasa. and they work with with nasa and the crew systems division and the astronauts to decide what's good, what's bad, what has to be fixed and what has to be modified. so there is an ongoing discussion . they have to have a suit that doesn't cost an enormous amount of money on it that satisfies the astronauts because there are going to be the ones working in it. and that also meets the requirements to fit in the spacecraft to work on the operationally and fits the requirements of nasa and the crew systems division. it sounds like also grandpa would have an actually known a lot of different people that he was mediating between the astronauts. the nasa

itself within the contractors in the, at the contractor. he's known among the astronauts, he's known among contractors and certainly at nasa who he's very famous and he has his signature and signing off on materials and designed crazy. i love you incredible to hear someone say he was famous. i can't believe that. it's just. yeah . wow, so everything you or your parents told you was true. 0, one story they did tell me unites astronauts, engineers, and contract is a disaster, could have ended the entire space. paragraph b on january 27th, 1967, the crew of apollo one, roger chaffee, gus grissom and dead white carrying out routine test with a plug out. kind of the rest of the launch. when it went disastrous, the wrong everything is going to turn.

when suddenly, the control room had one of the crew shouting over the into home. there was a fire in the capital one and in a pure environment because the fire the 3 astronaut were dead within 90 seconds. walter cunningham lunar module pods for polo 7 was also a member for backup crew. for paula one, he had been in the same space cross just the night before taking process similar tests to the prime crew was a real shot because we had done the night before, almost the same test. and we were waiting the next day for gus in roger to form it with the plunge out and the house closed. so we are all going to fly back together . and by late afternoon they had been so many delays and little problems

in the spacecraft that we finally decided them. about 5 o'clock we were going to take off, we flew back by ourselves. volleyed on the shock we had was when we landed back here at ellington. air force base, and usually we would just walk in and change or leave our helmets and drive home. but there was a operations officer was there meeting us something wrong, went inside and he told us about the fire and the crew died. so it was a shock to us and so we mainly started trying to find out what had happened and of course gone by saying the surviving spouse isn't doing what you do after somebody a friend gets killed by the gus chris, them and roger chaffey were buried owing to national cemetery,

the resting place of the nation's hearing body at white family buried him at west point military academy in new york. ah, i think it's very meeting to come face to face with that real grave because it makes them more real obviously to see the names and just to see them along with the other graves of, of military men. these men died by country in a way that i think they never expected to die. and that's what's also so hard. they, they died on the ground on a daily task that no one expected to be fatal. and i think that's probably what was hard for their families, is that they, they died in the, in the development stages. they didn't die in space. it was just what considered to be a monday. and friday, the space program was suspended for 18 months while

a major investigation looked into just what had gone wrong and advised changes to be made. among them, the hatch to the capsule was re designed to make emergency escape much easier and the air inside it was changed to a less flammable mix of nitrogen and oxygen. the new challenge should grandpa and the crew systems team be to make the whole command module fireproof. and crucially, the space suit was specifically redesigned to be made from non flammable material. the fire was a turning point in the space program. it brought about the realization that not just the most obvious dangerous scenario needed caution, even of routine test on the launch pad to be fatal after the investigation. there's the fire closed. all eyes will on what new fireproof suit the apollo astronauts would where and who would creator who americans are increasingly

saying authoritarianism might not be so bad. there were several steps along the way . where does that chain of command if you like, tried to cover what's your take on why they've gotten this so raw? that to me is political mouth for the bottom line on us politics and policies and the impact on the world on al jazeera, teach, you know, you can watch out to say we're english streaming live on like youtube channel. last thousands of all programs award winning documentaries and in debt. news reports subscribe to youtube dot com, forward slash al jazeera english. they traveled thousands of columbus, ohio to pick berries. but do tie workers risk exploitation in the forest persuading one when east investing aids on out to the power defines our wow, the lawns knew babies were dying, i did it not in there,

but i wish people empower, investigates, exposes, and questions they use and abuse of power around the globe on how to get ah hello, i'm elizabeth bronman, doha with the top stories on al jazeera, more than 4000 flights have been cancelled over the christmas weekend. major airlines is suffering staff shortages due to corona virus infections. the u. s. is one of the worst affected regions. gabriel elizondo has more from newark airport and new jersey delta. one of the major carriers here in the u. s. is announced over a $125.00 cancellations on friday. united airlines. so another major airline here in the u. s. over a $160.00 cancellations. they say this is all due to

a pilot flight attendant and other staff shortages staff that have been hit by the new armory kron variant that is hitting.