For six months, astronaut Ron Garan lived
and worked on the International Space Station, and he saw our world in a way few people can
imagine. The Caribbean is like a glowing jewel. The Himalayas. Middle East, there's many many really interesting
beautiful places from space. The Space Station gives us the ability to
explore our home planet in a way we never could. But that God's eye view is getting dangerous. We have a somewhat risky environment that
we've created because we are surrounded, our planet is surrounded by this cloud of space
debris. Three, two, one, zero. And we have lift off. For almost 60 years, we've launched rockets
and spacecraft into Earth's orbit, but now thousands of objects from tiny screws and
bolts, to dead satellites encircle the Earth. Transforming the space above us into a junkyard. It seems kinda comical the idea that someday
the, the Earth might actually be surrounded by some ring of space garbage, kind of like
a, a less nice version of Saturn. But it's a real possibility. Now, the International Space Station is in
the cross hairs. The International Space Station has already
been hit by little bits of debris on a number of occasions and there are no guarantees that
other substantial things might not hit it again in the future. It's the job of the military to monitor the
thousands of pieces of debris orbiting the Earth. The men and women at Vandenberg Air Force
Base in California are keeping their eyes on the skies 24 hours a day. So currently we monitor and track approximately
23,000 objects in space. Among those is about 1300 active payloads
or satellites, and the rest being space debris from prior launches, or prior collisions. Everyone here should care about what's going
on with space objects and space debris because we're so reliant nowadays upon technology
that if something were to happen to a satellite, it's going to severely degrade our ability
to do certain things. Whether it be ATM withdrawals, GPS or anything. It's critical that we track space debris,
because it poses a risk to all active payloads, including the International Space Station. Some of this debris, we track up to ten centimeters. Even a piece of debris the size of a small
screw could destroy the Space Station. You can think of a two-centimeter ball bearing
up in space, it's traveling at 17,000 miles per hour. That force is equivalent to a Jeep Wrangler
traveling at 70 miles per hour. So as the object size increases, the impact
and force behind that collision could be astronomically larger. In June, 2011, Ron Garan found himself facing
that danger first hand. I was maybe four months or so into the mission,
and we got a call from mission control that a piece of space debris was gonna pass a lot
closer than people wanted. If we know about it soon enough, we will change
the orbit of the Space Station. We can boost it up higher or lower, and, and
change it so that we avoid that object. But for whatever reason, this one caught us
by surprise, and we did not have enough time for us to be able to move the orbit of the
Space Station. With the astronauts staring down the threat
of a collision, they're faced with only one choice. Abandon ship. The International Space Station has several
different ways of trying to deal with potential collisions, but the last-ditch defense are
the two Soyuz space capsules, because those are basically lifeboats. Ron and the crew race to the Soyuz capsules. Now, the only thing they can do is brace for
impact. And then it was just a waiting game after
that. But we didn't know if it was gonna hit or
not. In June 2011, the crew of the International
Space Station learns their lives are in imminent danger. Space debris is heading towards them. NBC Jeff Rossen watching all of this. Jeff, good morning to you. Space junk was on a collision course with
the International Space Station. Spotted so late there was no time to move
out of the way. Instead, the six astronauts got the order
from mission control. If all else fails, the astronauts on board
the Space Station can climb into those Soyuz space capsules and wait to see whether a collision
actually takes place. If it does, they can in a few seconds detach
from whatever's left of the Space Station. And then immediately try to return to Earth. Mission control orders the astronauts to the
Soyuz lifeboats. It's only the second time a crew has been
told to potentially abandon ship. Once we got all the hatches closed, and when
we were all buttoned up in our, in our Soyuz spacecraft, there really was nothing to do
but wait. We discussed, "OK if things get really bad,
this is what we're gonna do. And we're gonna undock. We're gonna..." you know, we started to talk
about that. And then it was just a waiting game after
that. But we didn't know if it was gonna hit it
or not. Finally, after 15 minutes, word arrives from
mission control. When the object passed the Space Station,
we got a call from mission control that you know, it was all clear, and it turned out
that this object passed within a football field of the Space Station, and the relative
velocity was eight miles per second. So, a fairly large object, traveling that
fast, it probably would have destroyed the Space Station had it hit it. But with thousands of objects orbiting the
planet, the next time they might not be so lucky. There is evidence of hits on the Space Station
and you know, a little piece the size of, you know, a, a grain of sand that you know,make
a bad day. It's something that should be a major concern. If we're gonna continue to use the environment
of space for the things that we wanna use it for. Exploring Earth in the 21st century means
capturing it from above. But space debris is not the only threat to
this unique perspective. The sun seems to be always there and unchanging. It's just this bright ball of light in the
sky. But in fact, it's changing all the time. And that affects us here on Earth because
we are bombarded by radiation from the sun, both in the form of light and sub-atomic particles. The Earth's atmosphere is a protective shield
for anyone on the ground. But in space, there's no escape from the power
of the sun. Solar flares and other kinds of violent eruptions
from the sun are very very dangerous for anybody who's in space. The amount of radiation that suddenly is pouring
off of the sun at that point, jumps way up. And we can try to create certain kinds of
very shielded areas that the astronauts can hide in, but even those can only offer a very
inadequate protection against the level of radiation that the sun can suddenly release
at those times. An extremely powerful solar storm could send
the crew looking for cover. What we would do is we'd find a place on the
Space Station that offers the most protection. Water turns out to be a fairly good insulator
of radiation. And we do have bags of water on the Space
Station and we'd probably huddle some bags of water into a, into a location and, and
get behind that as best we could. But in spite of that danger, the same powerful
burst of energy also gives the astronauts on the Space Station front row seats to the
greatest light show imaginable. The auroras are just incredible. And there were times on my mission where we
flew so close to the Auroras that you could, you could reach out and touch them. I mean, they were going right by the window,
so it was absolutely incredible. The pictures really don't do them justice. They really do dance. But what you're seeing really is the after
effect of a tremendously energetic and dangerous solar storm. The sub-atomic particles screaming across
the solar system at just under the speed of light, are getting swept up by the Earth's
magnetic field and funneled down into our atmosphere. It's humbling and amazing. From discoveries at the edge of the solar
system and beyond... ...to mysterious asteroids hurtling through
the cosmos, and the search for life in our own back yard, images have transformed our
understanding of the universe. Everyone knows the cliché; a picture is worth
a thousand words. But to me, being a scientist, you have to
find a way to turn cold numbers, just data, into something that emotionally resonates
with people. We are trained to be very very logical, but
all of us really are just like everybody else and we're emotional and you know, we get excited
about a beautiful scene, and can, you know, just spend hours looking at something and
imagining what it would be like if we were there. And these images are the result of cutting
edge missions, driven by the explorers willing to put everything on the line to capture space's
deepest secrets. These days I think we've seen that there's
a whole new team of heroes. These teams of scientists and engineers, they're
the ones inventing these craft. They're the ones devising these missions. They're the ones making sure they come off
without a hitch. They're the real heroes now.
