♪ the smithsonian's national air and space museum is celebrating the 40th anniversary today. an american history tv is featuring tours, archival films and oral histories leading up to live coverage from the museum tonight. starting at 6:00 p.m. eastern, the museum director and cure raters will join us to take your calls and questions about aviation and space history. that's tonight starting at 6:00 p.m. eastern time here on american history tv only on c-span3.

each week, american artifacts takes views near archives, museums and historic sites around the country. now, a visit to the smithsonian national air and space museum facility near washington's dulles airport. we'll see the museum's newest prized possession, the space shuttle "discovery." and we'll get a look at the earliest capsules at the beginning of the space age. >> i'm valerie neal, a state history curator at the smithsonian's national air and space museum. and we are at the steven f. udvar-hazy center, our location in northern virginia near dulles international airport. we have two large hangars here, one devoted to aviation, and one devoted to space. and this location has enabled us to bring out of storage hundreds of artifacts that the public were not able to see because they didn't fit into the main building on the national mall.

we have cemespent some time loo at human space flight in the united states, starting with the space race of the 1960s, carrying through the space shuttle era of the 1980s, through the current time, and even the international space station, which is still in progress. the most noticeable object in the space hangar is obviously the space shuttle "discovery." this is the third space shuttle that was built. it looks like an airplane. it has wings. it has wheels. it was designed to be the 18 wheeler of space. it wasn't meant to go to the moon or to mars. it was meant to ride on the highway of earth orbit. and to carry big cargo into space and large crews into space. the space shuttle represented a whole different kind of space flight for an entirely different purpose than space flight in the

space race era of the 1960s. this space vehicle was meant to be practical, to be useful, to enable the united states to make space a normal part of our national life, a place where people could live and work and do useful things. that's much different than the spacecraft of the 1960s. this is a mercury spacecraft, the very first spacecraft that the united states put into space with a man aboard. and alan shepard made history as the first person to fly in a mercury spacecraft. he didn't go into orbit, though. he went up and down in a short 15 minute flight and john glenn later flew around the earth in a mercury craft as well. this is the last of the mercury spacecraft and it was meant for alan shepard to fly in again to go around the earth, but the previous flights had been so

successful that that mission was canceled. so as a result, we have a completely in tact mercury capsule here. it was a one man spacecraft. and it was really just a cockpit. you climbed inside, it was a one seater. and one of the jokes was you almost wore the spacecraft. it was that small. the concept of a spacecraft as a capsule came from work on missiles for military purposes from re-entry vehicles. in particular, from the top of a missile that would carry a nuclear warhead. it would be a re-entry capsule, and a modification of that concept resulted in the human spacecraft that we see now. these were perched on top of military missiles, and released and launched almost the same way

that a nuclear weapon would have been released. and the technology for re-entry into the atmosphere and surviving the heat of re-entry derived from the same military programs. before the united states launched people and before the soviet union launched people, animals pioneered the way. and for the united states, small capsules were developed to hold a chimpanzee and check if survivability through launch a little bit of space flight, and re-entry. th the russians famously used dogs. we chose small primates. the names of the first u.s. spacecrafts came from mythology. mercury was the fleet footed messenger. at the dawn of the space race, the united states was trying to get into space quickly, and so mercury was a good name for the first capsules.

the next ones which held two people were named gemini for the twins. and then the larger capsule that was used for the missions to the moon were called apollo. the term space race came about after the soviet union launched the first earth-orbiting satellite in 1957. and this was a real shock to americans and others around the world because it basically implied that the soviets could not only launch a small satellite, but they could launch weapons into space that could orbit the earth and leave us defenseless, the free world defenseless. >> today, a new moon is in the sky. a 23-inch metal sphere placed in orbit by a russian rocket. here an artist conception of how the feat was accomplished. a three-stage rocket. number one, the booster in the class of an intercontinental

missile. its weight estimated at 50 tons. the smaller stage at 5,000 miles an hour and carried on to the highest point reached. 500 miles up, the artificial moon is released. you are hearing the actual signals transmitted by the earth circling satellite. one of the great scientific feats of the age. >> so there was a very rapid galvinization or mobilization of resources in the united states to catch up. we could have put the first satellite up, but we weren't in a rush until the soviets did it. and thereafter for the next few years, there was a real race going on with the united states attempting to put a man in space, russians did it first. then to put two people in space.

the russians did it first. the russians put a woman in space first. they had a succession of missions in the early 1960s, and it took about five years before the united states caught up to the feats that the soviet union was performing in space and began to take the lead. and the ultimate goal of the race was to go to the moon, to land a person on the moon first. the russians had said they weren't in that race, but we later learned that they very much were planning to go to the moon as well. president kennedy in 1961 made the audacious statement that the united states should try to land a man on the moon and return him safely before the 1960s ended. and at the time he made that statement before congress, we had 15 minutes of experience in space. and that was allen shepherd's first flight. >> many years ago, the explorer

who had to die on mt. everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. he said because it is there. space is there. and we're going to climb it. and the moon and the planets are there. and new hope for knowledge and peace are there. and therefore, as we set forth, we ask god's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked. >> here we have a gemini capsule. this followed the one-man mercury capsules, and you can see there are two seats in here. two men sat side-by-side. the missions ran in duration from about three days to 14 days. this is the capsule that returned from the gemini 7

mission which was the 14-day mission. frank gorman and jim lovell carried out that mission. imagine spending 14 days beside a co-worker in a capsule confined like this with no privacy whatsoever. they slept together. they ate together. they worked together. there was no toilet, so they used plastic bags together. it was a very confined and very intimate setting, but it was essential to do a mission like this to prove that people could survive in space for two weeks, because that was the projected round trip time for a mission to the moon. it only took about three days to get to the moon, three days to get back from the moon, but a crew would stay on the surface of the moon for several days to do some exploring and do some work. now, this was an apollo capsule. and it's larger yet than the mercury and the gemini.

because the apollo capsule would hold three people. and the apollo capsules were the ones that were sent to the moon for both the lunar orbiting missions and also the missions that eventually put two people down on the surface in a lunar lander that was attached to this when it was launched. this is not actually a space apollo module. this is a trainer. and particularly, it was an egress trainer to train the crews how to get out of the capsule after touchdown, and what we see attached to it are the flotation collars. this is actually from the apollo 11 landing. the flotation collar, which would keep the capsule steady as it was bobbing there in the waves. and steady enough that the hatch could be opened and the crew members could crawl out. and then at the top, these

spheres would inflate if the capsule landed upside down, and bring it rightside up. and in fact, that's what happened with the apollo 11 landing. it splashed down, tipped over, and the spheres had to inflate and right it. what would happen then is an helicopter from an aircraft carrier would fly over to the capsule. they knew where it was going to land, and so an aircraft carrier was waiting there with a recovery team. the helicopter would launch with divers, frogmen, aboard. they would drop down into the water, attach the collar, and then open the hatch and assist the crew in getting out. put them into a harness or a basket so they could be lifted up to the helicopter, and then the helicopter would fly everyone back to the carrier deck. and the crew would then get their medical check-up and be

prepared to be flown away to come back to houston by way of hawaii. this is the so-called mobile quarantine facility. actually, an airstream trailer that was modified as a temporary home for the apollo 11 crew when they came back from the moon. there was great concern that there could be microbes on the moon and that the crew might have been contaminated or they might have brought back some of those mikreeb microbes on their on their equipment. so as a precaution, nasa decided to put them in quarantine for about three days when they returned from the mission. and so they created this nice little home away from home for them. this was on the carrier deck of the aircraft. they immediately went inside. there were seats, there were bunks in the far end. it was stocked with food so that they could survive in here.

they did a lot of their debriefing with the medical officer who was in there with them during this quarantine period. and after this mission and also apollo 12, when it was determined that they weren't carrying microbes back, the mobile quarantine facilities were retired. there's a famous picture of president nixon greeting the apollo 11 crew through this window. he was standing here to the right, i believe, and all three crew members, michael collins, neil armstrong, and buzz aldrin, with scruffy beards on their faces, are here just beaming, smiling at the president. they're glad to be home and to have accomplished that first mission and won the space race for the united states. this is space shuttle discovery. one of the museum's pride and joy. it certainly is a part of our

core collection that begins really with the white flier of 1903 and the amazing thing is that in less than 100 years after the wroitights first took flight, we had a spacecraft this large and this elaborate flying routinely in space, and the point of this space shuttle was to make space flight routine. to make it operate -- to make a spacecraft that could operate almost like an airliner with repeated launches and landings. the space shuttle didn't splash down in the ocean. it had wheels. it could glide back to a landing on a runway. go back into the servicing bay, be cleaned up. refreshed, serviced, and go to space again a few weeks later or certainly a couple months later. discovery was the champion of the space shuttle fleet.

it flew for 30 years almost. and it had 39 missions. it flew every kind of mission a space shuttle was meant to fly. and i'll show you what kinds of missions did fly in the shuttle, and you can see that by the way it's built. so let's walk along here, and just notice the length. this spacecraft is 122 feet long. it is 57 feet high. and it has a wing span of 78 feet. it is comparable to an aircraft. nothing like this has ever flown in space before, and it's quite possible nothing like this will ever fly in space again. one of its most distinctive features is that it's covered with these black tiles and white blankets. and that's external protection system to shield it during the heat of re-entry.

temperatures can increase up to about 3,000 degrees on the spacecraft which is basically made of aluminum, and melts at a much, much lower temperature. it had to be encased in what looks like bathroom tiles but they're actually very high-tech lightweight heat dissipating tiles. each one unique with its own serial number. each one shaped in external size and shape and also thickness for the exact position on the orbiter where it is. and there are about 22,000 of these tiles on "discovery" and about 17,000 of them are still original tiles. they flew into space again and again and survived that heat of re-entry through 39 missions. the darker tiles represent newer ones that were replaced.

and all these little white streaks that you see on the tiles show the angle of the tag during re-entry. you can see how heat was thrflog across the vehicle. the shuttle came back into the atmosphere belly up, nose high. you can see how the fleheat is flowing across the curved surface of the space shuttle. you can see the launch of "discovery" right here on the tiles and can tell this is a spacecraft that has been to space and back repeatedly. this is where the crew entered the hatch with the yellow arrows. if you look at the word "discovery" and the windows of the shuttle, that is the area vertically where the crew cabin was. under the word "discovery" and where the windows are, that was the flight deck where the

commander and pilot had seats. and then there was also an aft flight deck looking back into the bay, and the shuttle could be flown both from the forward seats and also from the aft flight deck, which usually formed from the aft once they were in orbit and maneuvering to catch up to the hubble space telescope for servicing or to catch up to the international space station to rendezvous and dock. then at the level of the hatch, down to this black tile, this was the deck where the crew actually lived. that's where the bunks were, that's where the galley was. this white area just to the right of the hatch is where the waste management compartment was. this area was full of lockers with their food, their clothing, their cameras, their tools and equipment. and once they entered the vehicle, this hatch was sealed

and didn't open again until they were back on earth. if they needed to go out for a vehicular activity or leave the shuttle to enter the space station, there was an interior hatch. if you look here, you can see the seam just in front of this first hinge. from that seam all the way back to the bulbous pod is the bay. this is the cargo bay. this is where the astronauts would come out from the crew cabin to do servicing work on the hubble space telescope, which was about as large as this bay. and they could snag it out of orbit, bring it back inside the space shuttle, and do repairs and replacements on it. they also could take into orbit satellites like this one.

it would have been all folded up into a compact package. but they could fit two or even three satellites into the bay and deliver them into orbit. once these doors were opened in order to expose the bay, the canada arm was also exposed. it was operated by a crew member in the aft flight deck. it had a shoulder, an elbow, and a wrist, and it could be used to pick up a satellite out of the bay and drop it off over board or used to pluck the hubble space telescope out of orbit and bring it into the bay. this is a crane, basically, a space crane, but it's also an extension of the astronaut's arm. and can move large, large pay loads around. modules that would be attached to the international space station, example, or the big

solar race for the space station. it also could have a platform at the end of it that an astronaut could stand on and then be maneuvered around to do work high on the hubble space telescope, for example. so if you want to imagine a thrill ride, just imagine being at the end of this 40-foot-long arm on a platform that would be attached here at the end. your feet would be attached under little foot loops, and a lock for your heels. and then that's it. you're at the end of this arm. you're doing your work. working with your tools. but if you have to happen to glance to the side, you are orbiting the earth at 17,500 miles an hour. the earth is flowing by underneath you, and in the course of an eight-hour work day outside, you have gone around the world five or six times. just imagine that as a way to

work. not your normal day in the office at all. this is the area right here where it curves just a little bit there, where "columbia" was fatally damaged when the foam tile -- i mean the foam insulation from the external tank struck the underside of this leading edge of the wing and damaged it. and when "columbia" was returning from a very, very successful mission, fts-107 in 2003, the heat poured into the wing through that damaged area, and just melted it from the inside. and destabilized the whole craft and it broke up over texas. and that crew was lost, one of two crews lost on space shuttle missions over the 30-year lifetime of the shuttle program. the other one, of course, being

"challenger" in 1986, which was a tragedy at launch. this is the powerhouse end of the space shuttle orbiter. what we see here are the nozzles of the three main engines which were inside this aft area of the shuttle. the main engines were one of the greatest technical challenges of the space shuttle program, just as the thermal protection tiles were one of the big challenges. we had had large rocket engines before, certainly on the saturn 5 which launched the apollo missions to the pomoon, but the had been single-use engines. because the shuttle was reusable, all of its compoemants were reusable as well, and nobody had ever made a really big, really powerful rocket engine that could be used again and again and again. and this also operated at the margins of difficult possibility. the orbiter was perched on top

of this giant external fuel t k tank, the propellants flooded in through hatches. pipes fed into the hatches here at the bottom. the belly at the aft end, through all this plumbing and then were ignited and propelled the orbiter along with the solid rocket boosters into orbit. these engines were used only for launch. they fired for eight minutes, eight and a half minutes, then they were shut down. the external tank was dropped off. it was the only part of the orbiter or the shuttle that was not reusable. it broke up and fell into the indian ocean. so those are the launch engines. then you see just to the right and the left, a medium sized nozzle. and it's on the end of this bulbous pod, and this was called the oms pod.

oms mend orbital maneuvering system. the medium-sized engine was used once the shuttle was in orbit. if had it to raise its orbit or lower its orbit, particularly raise its orbit in order to get to the hubble space telescope, that was the engine that was used to change orbits. and then all of these circles here are also smaller engines. there are 44 of those all over the shuttle. and those are the fine maneuvering engines for pitch, yeah, and for very small motions like speeding up to the international space station once you're in the same orbit as the space station, or getting a line just right to pluck the hubble space telescope out of orbit and bring it in. sometimes they flew the space shuttle in what was called

rotisserie mode using the yaw reaction control system engines and they could rotate the space shuttle constantly to even out the heat and cooling on it when they were doing certain kinds of thermal tests. sometimes they flew the space shuttle, most of the time, they flew the space shuttle with the bay pointed down toward earth and flying parallel to the earth, but on some missions, they actually flew with the tail pointing down to earth and the nose pointing out into space. you know, as if the shuttle were on a stick that originated at the center of the earth. a year after the "columbia" tragedy, president george w. bush announced that it was time to retire the space shuttle. once the international space station was completed. and at the time, that was projected to be 2010. it actually turned out to be 2011.

but the idea was that during the shuttle era, access to lower orbit had become somewhat routine. it will never be perfectly routine because space flight is always dangerous, but it had become routine enough that nasa's pioneering work with the shuttle was done, and the thought was that space flight into lower orbit could be turned over to commercial operators. and that nasa should get back to pioneering and looking to the future. so from 2004 on, nasa was in the process of planning for the retirement of the space shuttle, which ultimately culminated with the final flight in 2011. and then in 2012, they delivered the vehicles to their new permanent homes. and the first one to be delivered, fortunately, was "discovery" which was flown into the washington area on top of

the 747 carrier aircraft. and the pilots of the aircraft did a sort of victory lap around washington. they flew around the washington metropolitan area two and a half times showing off the shuttle, and people poured out of office buildings and schools and homes and government buildings and just gave it a tremendous reception. so when all of the other displays are completed, we were actually able to put "discovery" on display immediately. that very evening, it was in the hangar, people could see it. it took a little longer for the others to go on display. but ultimately, when all of the displays are finished, one can travel around the united states and see in new york, a space shuttle as a test vehicle enterprise. california intends to display

"endeavor" in launch locations vertically. kennedy space center is displaying atlantis raised above the crowd, and they can come here to the udwar hazy center to see a shuttle that is just landed. these are a way to see in three dimensions our past. and that's why we preserve all of these objects, and we're preserving them with a great sense of responsibility to keep them in good condition for the future. these spacecraft should be here for generations. and my great hope is that if people come here in say 300 years or 500 years, this building is still standing. they will either be kind of amused, like, look at these primitive crafts that people first went into space