Apollo's New Moon - 4k

the world cheered when the first Apollo crew set foot upon the moon and returned safely to earth Buzz Aldrin Neil Armstrong and Mike Collins had fulfilled one of the most audacious dreams in the history of human exploration the exploits of the Apollo astronauts were well known few knew at the time the what they saw what they found were touch off a chain reaction in science [Music] delivering a new understanding of how the planets formed how the moon was born and help earth and life in these findings along with the recent discovery of water on the moon are rebooting Apollo's loftiest vision to launch new generations of human exploration [Music] [Music] six times in four and a half years Apollo spacecraft will Coast over a popped lunar surface and descend onto dusty plains twelve astronauts will climb out to experience the moon up close [Music] on tightly choreographed excursions they set up experiments made measurements and collected rocks as they walked or drove across the alien terrain [Music] these heroic missions teased a daring new era of exploration and achievement the investment poured into researching how to get safely to and from the moon would act as an accelerant for technologies that increasingly shape modern life computation communications electronics robotics [Music] but it's the science produced in the wake of Apollo that will increasingly define its legacy [Music] the quest to study the moon was a fundamental goal of the Space Age you [Music] the Soviets developed the giant n1 launcher intended to send cosmonauts beyond Earth orbit the n1 never succeeded in any of its four launches its second attempt crashed back in one of the largest ever human-made and non-nuclear explosions the American lunar program pinned its hopes on the mighty Saturn 5 rocket we shall send to the moon 240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall made of new metal alloys some of which have not yet been invented capable of standing heat and stresses several times more than have ever been experienced fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion guidance control communications food and survival on an untried mission to an unknown celestial body and do all this and do all this and do it right in 13 launches the u.s. heavy-lift launch vehicle never failed to safely deliver its payload the first human-rated launch carried the Apollo 8 command module into lunar orbit alone behind the moon and out of touch with Earth Apollo 8 astronauts fired their single engine proving the critical maneuver for American missions to return this moon shot gave a war-weary conflict-ridden United States something to cheer about and set the stage for humankind's greatest adventure one whip dog we ever left on July the 16th Apollo 11 blasts off Neil Armstrong reporting their role in Picher program which puts Apollo 11 on a proper heading Neil Armstrong serves as the mission commander Buzz Aldrin would pilot the lunar module eagle down to the moon's surface Michael Collins pilots the command module it takes three days for Apollo 11 to cross the nearly 400,000 kilometers between Earth and Moon [Music] on July the 19th Collins fires the command modules rockets an Apollo 11 enters lunar orbit come on Eric some rough country over there something really pepper down [Music] the next day armstrong and aldrin enter the Eagle Lander to begin their descent [Music] spurious radar data flood the lunar modules computer triggering five separate alarms okay everybody let's hang tight and look for landing radar we'll need that landing we're going at alarm each time Mission Control deems it safe to press on ok I'll fly controllers go/no-go for landing retro [Music] the moon's gravity is uneven that causes the Eagle Lander to pick up some extra velocity the astronauts sail past their ideal landing zone flying above a field of boulders as big as houses and running low on fuel armstrong takes manual control searching for a clean spot to touchdown [Music] I pretend [Music] hey 75 feet they're looking good down a half 60 60 seconds back [Music] I'm doing a half Oh [Music] putting big down two and a half up the best gonna half down think that oh and laughing boy [Music] 30 seconds [Music] I'm back like [Music] all control goes all of these in and command override off and then I'm off 413 is this we copy you down eagle that gaudy date here dingo has landed about six and a half hours later Neil and Buzz set foot upon the moon [Music] [Music] one small step for man one giant leap [Music] Armstrong quickly grabs a contingency sample if they should have to leave quickly they won't go home empty-handed Armstrong and Aldrin now set out to gather rocks and lunar soil the first samples plucked by human hands from the surface of the moon the astronauts find themselves on a strange grey world filled with optical illusions and unexpected juxtapositions with no atmosphere to diffuse it the sunlight is harsh with shadows cast in deep black [Music] only the landing the experimental gear and the earth offer swatches of color aldrin places a seismometer beginning a long study of the moon's interior recordings of myriad moon quakes show us that even today as heat from the moon's formation slowly dissipates Earth's companion is steadily shrinking [Music] [Music] [Music] the first Apollo crew lifted off the moon aboard the Eagle Lander with two boxes of lunar rocks and dirt weighing 21.5 five kilograms [Music] I'm sure they could bit out of my philosophy you're my hot fighters Mike okay Mike I'll get position here man you got it just under four hours later they don't with the command module Columbia for the journey home over the next four decades Apollo samples would take scientists back in time helping them to piece together one of the most dramatic stories ever told the birth of the Moon and the rise of Planet Earth as we know it today among the major findings of the Apollo missions is that rocks from Earth and the moon share particular forms of oxygen but scientists regard as blood types for solar system bodies this means the two worlds must share a common history a picture of the Meuse deep past began to emerge some of it written right on its face several large old craters are surrounded by concentric rings you can see them in this image of a feature called the moiré orient are lay these circles are of the type that might have been created had a giant impact to splashdown long ago on a roiling red-hot liquid surface the first people on the moon encountered relatively light rock strewn about the landing site probably forced upward by heavier material sinking toward the moon's core these Clues suggest that early in its history the moon's surface was a vast ocean of molten magma the second Apollo mission would bring this idea into sharp relief November the 19th 1969 Pete Conrad and Alan bean descend toward a region called Oceanus Procellarum or ocean of storms this vast plane is covered in a thick layer of solidified magma perhaps unleashed by a large ancient impact [Music] very good very good that's good P I got right down the middle of the road outstanding 42 degrees [Applause] they're homing in on surveyor 3 a robotic Lander that touched down in April 1967 the idea is to get within walking distance but not so close that it covers surveyor with dust conrad decides to come down a hundred and seventy-seven meters short of Pete's parking lot to avoid rough terrain ahead but still a safe 360 meters from surveyor now on the moon they unmount surveyors TV camera and other parts to take back for analysis later the detection of streptococcus bacteria on surveyors parts will suggest that microbes can survive years in space [Music] this leads NASA to purposely destroy the Galileo mission to Jupiter in 2003 and the Cassini mission to Saturn in 2017 to avoid contaminating moons that may be right for life [Music] on the lunar surface Conrad and bean pick up a rock eventually nicknamed creep for its constituents potassium rare earth elements and phosphorus these highlands specimens are a rock type called anorthosite a product of a molten surface its presence is another clue to the origin of the moon before Apollo scientists entertained a range of theories on where the moon came from it's a protoplanet snagged by earth as it passed by or that formed right alongside the earth at the same time it's what remains of debris scattered by an asteroid large enough to carve out the Pacific Ocean from rocks that exploded into space when radioactive materials sank to the center of the earth the 12 people who walked the lunar surface saw nothing that could by itself solve the mystery of the moon's formation and they left with only photographs and memories we might never know instead they brought home rocks and made meticulous records of their context those rocks take us back to a time four-and-a-half billion years ago within the kingdom of the Sun a gravitational battle rages amongst nascent planets a young hot earth is growing slowly during asteroids and dust into its body the protoplanet the size of mars crosses its path it has an iron core and a silicon mantle there is on a collision course with earth as this computer simulation shows it deals a glancing blow tearing away about 1/3 of Earth's mass and leaving the remainder spinning rapidly the impact envelops earth in a dense atmosphere of superhot vaporized rock much of the wreckage falls back in a reign of fiery impactors about a 100th of Earth's former mass now lies in a disk eventually settling into a lumpy ring this debris ring gradually breaks up and over about a century's time coalesces into a single sphere the surface of this new moon is a hot magma ocean anorthosite rock floats to the surface slowly hardening into a crust [Music] for hundreds of millions of years that crust will be battered by impacts large and small the craters we see today bear witness to this violent age [Music] 4.5 1 billion years after the moon was born explorers would step onto this surface on a journey into its past and into that of Earth Apolo for teens Alan Shepard and Ed Mitchell step into a confusing realm littered with ancient creep rock specimens they head toward the rim of cone crater on the hunt for rocks from the lunar interior blasted out by an impact many contain chemical traces of multiple impact events in which rocks melt and we combine to make mashups known as bread Cheers unlike earth where weather and erosion have erased evidence of all but the largest impacts the moon retains a detailed record of bombardment in myriad craters boulders jagged rocks and lunar bedrock smashed into fine powder filmed from Apollo missions shows astronauts bouncing along with seeming ease in the lone lunar gravity in reality exploring the moon is hard work space suits made rigid by the very air the astronauts need to breathe restrict bending at the waist knees and elbows yet these soldiers of science were tasked with maneuvering complex instruments with chipping off and picking up rocks okay babe but the bag and with driving core tubes down into ancient densely compacted soil [Music] on the next mission Apollo 15 the astronauts are given electric drills to take deeper core samples nASA has ramped up its science goals so the surface daytime is extended Dave Scott and Jim Irwin complete 18 hours of moon walking and moon driving in the first powered lunar rover wheeled mobility proves key to the scientific belty [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] their landing site lies near a collapsed lava tube called Hadley will it's a huge extrusion of hot magma that wound its way across the surface then cooled and hardened later on the roof collapsed exposing its hollow interior this long sinuous conduit is similar to features made by volcanoes here on earth but Hadley will is much larger a hundred and thirty five kilometers long thanks to the moons much lower gravity lava tubes like this could make naturally shielded habitats for future lunar citizens during their second discussion the crew collects sample number one five four one five an object that comes to be called the Genesis rock it takes scientists back four billion years to a time when the moon's surface was being pounded by giant asteroids and comets the craters left by these clashes still visible today are a record of the pummeling earth would have endured in the same period this barrage of material is thought to be a main source for the water that dominates the surface of our planet [Music] the next moonshot pushes deeper into this ancient period Paolo sixteen touches down in a region far from previous landings to get better triangulation on seismic data and to explore higher elevation to rain until apollo most theorists believe the lunar Highlands were built by ancient volcanoes astronauts John Young and Charlie Duke quickly cast doubt on this hypothesis [Music] in more than 20 hours of prospecting the pair finds almost nothing of volcanic origin instead the surface of the Moon appears to be all about impacts [Music] you can young bag two samples that will turn out to be the largest and oldest found four point four four billion years almost as old as the moon itself [Music] it's gopherhoff time so I did we thought what's up put a ride what a ride [Applause] beginning on Apollo 15 every ship has carried Luna mapping and panoramic cameras mounted outside its the command module pilot job to retrieve film cassettes because the service module will be jettisoned before re-entering Earth's atmosphere in the darkness of space more than three hundred and fifteen thousand kilometers from Earth astronauts al worden Ken Mattingly and Ronald Evans will each see the moon shrink behind them as they rushed toward Earth at more than 4800 kilometers per hour [Music] the last Apollo targets a region where ancient and infant geology intersect it is named taurus littrow okay vampire over or are we coming in Oh baby I said selling gr girls for landing [Music] [Music] on to this mix of old and new to arraign steps the Apollo programs first and only practicing scientist geologist Harrison Jack Schmitt [Music] the youngest material here comes from a huge crater far away the bright feature called Tycho known as the bellybutton of the moon [Music] analysis confirms that Tyco is the product of an asteroid strike a hundred and eight million years ago very recent compared to the age of the moon Schmitt and his fellow moon Walker and mission commander Eugene Cernan also find particles of glass created in an ancient explosive eruption but is the moon still volcanically active today to help find out Apollo 17 has brought the first gravity measuring instrument the transverse gravimeter to give scientists a picture of what lies beneath the surface the crew drills three meters down and 3.8 million years back into the lunar crust the hundred and eleven kilograms of cylindrical core sections they bring back to earth will tell a story of hot rock 200 kilometers below in the basement of the moon [Music] by the time the last Apollo astronauts splashdown the glow of apollo had already began to fade fearing the embarrassment of a catastrophe in space the Nixon White House canceled the last three Apollo missions but the Apollo program left an indelible scientific and cultural footprint [Music] space has come to symbolize human ambition an Apollo Saturn rocket upper stage was converted and launched as Skylab [Music] NASA went on to build a partially reusable system to shuttle astronauts into low-earth orbit the spacefaring nations built the International Space Station to encourage political stability and prove cooperation work onboard ISS has advanced life support technologies [Music] meanwhile private entrepreneurs launched satellites building a robust industry supplying communications and navigation services still embracing exploration public agencies led by NASA sent waves of robotic probes deep into the solar system [Music] two of them the twin Voyager probes have now ventured into interstellar space space-based observatories like the Hubble Space Telescope projected our eyes and minds out into the universe at large as this Golden Age of astronomy unfolded it sparked a host of new questions for scientists laboring over bags of rocks and dirt brought back from the moon the giant impact theory became the starting point for a rethinking of the earth-moon relationship in 2017 researchers applied new radioisotope dating techniques to samples from 1971 Apollo 14 mission [Music] the prize race we found police e1 them do differently almost waited a very different this workplace Tammuz birth at 4.5 1 million years ago fixing a date for an age of colliding proto planets that built the solar system we see today if the moon had been born much later there would not have been enough time for the planet to crew and for life to arise some 400 million years later [Music] according to theory fear struck at an off angle that would have given earth its tilt and set it's spinning at a rate of once every 5 hours over the eons as the moon's orbit widened it gradually slowed Earth's spin to the 24 hours we experienced today [Music] in the early days ocean tides on our young planet were much larger and more frequent as the earth cooled water sloshing onto volcanic islands would have encouraged chemicals to mix forming more complex prebiotic compounds [Music] moon tides in turn helps moderate and regulate the global climate by causing heat to flow from equator to pole [Music] without the pull of the moon's gravity earth would likely wobble by as much as 80 degrees imagine if every few thousand years as Earth changes its tilt icebergs appeared in Ecuador and Senegal and tropical beaches in Iceland and Siberia [Music] from the record of impacts held in the Apollo rocks scientists began to imagine that water ice may be trapped in the deep shadows of polar craters with no atmosphere to transport heat these shadow lands would stay cold for millions if not billions of years the first hints came in 1994 a probe named Clementine bounced radio signals off polar regions the data were consistent with water molecules four years later the lunar prospector picked up signatures of hydrogen associated with water at both lunar poles [Music] in 2009 NASA's lunar crater observation sensing satellite L cross aims an impactor a car base crater near the South Pole and then watched what was kicked up when it hit the spectacular unmistakable evidence of abundant water ancient lunar ice could be key to extending life beyond our home planet water is the enabler of space-based civilization the far-reaching dream behind the Apollo program nASA has announced an ambitious plan to return people to the moon however the agency receives less than 1/8 the annual funding it got during Apollo which cost more than a hundred and ten billion in today's dollars at the same time private companies have begun to assume the mantle of space development the techniques proven by project Apollo are showing them the way entrepreneurs are investing now because they foresee a vibrant space industrial economy and the businesses that will drive it are rooted in the enormous resources available on the lunar surface at just 69 hours away by chemical rocket the moon is our most likely extraterrestrial base it has a natural power source the Sun [Music] the sunlights lunar day length is equivalent to two weeks on earth a system of solar energy farms arranged around the moon's equator could supply constant power silicon and oxygen extracted from the soil could be fashioned into photovoltaic cells solar energy plants built of lunar materials could be ferried to Earth orbit or interplanetary locations solar-powered Rovers could crawl non-stop around the moon apollo samples show the lunar surface is rich in metals for building iron titanium and aluminium and find silicon laden dirt to make cement [Music] Luna prospectus will Knightley find gold platinum group and rare earth metals the 1967 United Nations outer space treaty precludes any earth nation from claiming the moon as sovereign territory but it does not prevent private companies from staking mining claims the body of law governing how the moon will develop is in its infancy government space agencies may at first lead the lunar reboot but they probably won't manage it over time a politically neutral body the lunar authority may be needed to guide the long term vision and planning and to keep the peace should a lunar land rush begin [Music] it's dusty surface is a new frontier [Music] the old moon made us what we are [Music] even as the memory of Apollo fades the bright light of this new moon calls us to venture again to its shores and beyond [Music] [Music] you

Channel: SpaceRip

Views: 298,839

Rating: 4.5905118 out of 5

Keywords: apollo, nasa, space race, buzz aldrin, AI, artificial intelligence, 4k, uhd, neil armstrong, saturn v, rocket, moon, lunar, earth, space flight

Id: DlczwcBDzeE

Length: 49min 58sec (2998 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 18 2019