- 6/13/2025
Russian and American efforts to build the International Space Station, a unit designed to house six astronauts 220 miles above the Earth.
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00:01During the following program, look for NOVA's web markers, which lead you to more information at our website.
00:19200 miles overhead, astronauts from around the globe have set out on a risky new adventure in space.
00:30Hurtling around the Earth at nearly 18,000 miles an hour, they're reporting to work on the most perilous construction site in the cosmos, the International Space Station.
00:42With six scientific laboratories and living quarters for seven, the completed station will be the size of two football fields.
00:50Well, the space station is clearly the largest construction project since the Great Pyramids and is going to result in the largest single object that we've ever had in Earth orbit.
01:00Over the next five years, more than 40 launches will haul nearly a million pounds of hardware and scientific equipment into orbit,
01:11where astronauts will bolt the pieces together like a giant tinker toy in the sky.
01:16Yet even as they risk their lives to build it, the future of this mammoth project is in doubt.
01:26For help in construction, the U.S. has turned to a leader in space station technology, Russia.
01:32Russia.
01:33This is a historic moment that I'm just very excited. Mr. Kopchev, I want to give you a hug.
01:38Russia is being counted on to build some of the station's most critical components,
01:43systems on which astronauts' lives will depend.
01:46The Americans can't build the space station without Russia. Only Russia knows how to do long-term space flight.
02:00But more than a year after the station's first two pieces were launched,
02:04the crucial Russian-built third piece still sits on the ground, a roadblock to further construction.
02:11Excuse me, sir. The whole reason why there is a crisis today...
02:15Somehow, the fate of this project, the cornerstone of America's manned space program,
02:21has come to rest in the hands of its old enemy.
02:23Every promise has been broken.
02:26Times and schedules we saw again and again where the Russians had promised hardware,
02:30promised contributions that didn't show up.
02:33Will this fragile alliance survive?
02:37And if not, what will become of America's future in space?
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03:55It is a frigid morning on the icy plains of Kazakhstan in Central Asia.
04:10Here at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Russia's primary rocket launching facility,
04:15a powerful proton booster moves toward the launch pad.
04:18The first piece of the International Space Station is perched on top.
04:25A Russian-built component called Zarya, or Sunrise.
04:30Zarya will be a minor piece of the final station, little more than a storage closet.
04:37But because it's equipped with power and propulsion, the unmanned craft has been chosen to play an important role.
04:44By being first to reach orbit, it becomes the destination for all future flights.
04:55For now, its job is to wait in space.
04:58But Zarya won't be alone for long.
05:02Two short weeks later, the space shuttle Endeavour is ready for liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
05:11The crew, five Americans and one Russian, is setting off on the first in a long series of assembly missions.
05:21Missions that will turn astronauts into the ultimate high-rise construction workers.
05:33As they prepare for liftoff, the crew is under intense pressure.
05:38After more than a decade of delays, NASA badly needs this flight to be a success.
05:45For what began as an all-American project during the Cold War has evolved into an international effort.
05:54Sixteen countries have spent billions of dollars designing and building the station's many pieces.
06:03Now the time has come to begin putting them together.
06:08Eight. We have a go for main engine start.
06:14We have main engine start.
06:16Three, two, one.
06:19We have booster ignition and liftoff of the space shuttle Endeavour
06:23with the first American element of the International Space Station
06:26uniting our efforts in space to achieve our common goals.
06:28Once the fury of liftoff subsides, the real work can begin.
06:43Okay, starting out, uh...
06:46Tucked in the shuttle's payload bay is the first American-built piece of the station.
06:50A module called Unity.
06:53And we really appreciate the OSAD team, uh...
06:55One of the station's smallest components, Unity will serve as a kind of front porch.
07:02On one end, a docking port for visiting spacecraft.
07:06Around its perimeter, hatches that will eventually lead to other modules.
07:12Auto-docking sequence is an endeavour.
07:14The goal of this mission is as simple as it is symbolic.
07:17To join Russia and America in the form of Zarya and Unity in a permanent embrace.
07:32But first, Endeavour must catch the Russian module,
07:36which is circling the globe at 17,000 miles an hour.
07:39With each orbit, the gap between the two spacecraft narrows.
07:45Still, it takes Commander Bob Cabana and his crew two days to overtake it.
07:51When you first see it, it's like a very, very, very bright star.
07:56Sergey Krikalev was the first one to see Zarya.
08:00Very appropriate. Our Russian crewmate saw it.
08:02With Zarya in view, the shuttle closes in cautiously.
08:10The Zarya module weighed 45,000 pounds.
08:13The shuttle weighs over 200,000 pounds.
08:17You're both going 17,500 miles an hour,
08:21flying formation essentially about three feet away from it.
08:25With the two spacecraft so close together,
08:30the slightest miscalculation could spell disaster.
08:36Using the shuttle's robot arm,
08:38astronaut Nancy Curry reaches gingerly out to Zarya.
08:44In the weightless void of space,
08:46she must grab onto the module gently without pushing or pulling it.
08:49As the arm inches forward, the crew stands by,
08:55prepared to blast away to safety if anything goes wrong.
09:06After a few tense moments, the arm latches on.
09:09Houston Endeavour, we have Zarya.
09:15Using only remote cameras to guide her,
09:18Curry then swings Zarya over the top of Unity,
09:21bringing their docking rings into alignment.
09:24Houston Endeavour, we look at all our...
09:27With a burst from the shuttle's jets,
09:29the two modules lock together.
09:31Okay.
09:33You need power off, push.
09:35Power off.
09:36All 18 lights are out.
09:38Son of a gun.
09:40Good job.
09:41Good job.
09:42The clearance to the raid.
09:44The raid is not a problem.
09:47It takes three spacewalks to turn the two modules
09:51into a single functioning unit.
09:55But at last, the crew is ready to open the hatch and enter Unity.
10:00Everybody had asked us on the ground,
10:02well, who's going to go in first?
10:03Who's going to do what?
10:04And I wouldn't tell anybody.
10:08And then when we got on orbit,
10:09and we were actually going in that day,
10:12I said, Sergei, come on.
10:14And we went through all the hatches together,
10:17every one of them from start to finish,
10:18from the front end to the back end.
10:19Both Russian and American crew members are euphoric.
10:33Never suspecting that this may be one of the last happy moments
10:36in the new relationship between old rivals.
10:38Broken promises, national pride, and other vestiges of the Cold War,
10:46will soon threaten to destroy this newly forged bond.
10:49February 2000.
10:55More than a year has passed.
10:59Unity and Zarya continue to circle the globe.
11:03But they're empty.
11:05The lights are on, but nobody's home.
11:10Construction of the space station has ground to a halt.
11:15Held up by delays on the critical third piece,
11:19the Russian-built service module, also known as Zvezda, or Star.
11:23The service module is the keystone of the young station.
11:29When joined to Zarya in unity, as seen in this NASA animation,
11:34it provides propulsion and life support.
11:37Or it will, if it ever gets off the ground.
11:47Here at the Khrunyshev rocket factory near Moscow,
11:50the source of the delays is plain to see.
11:56With the Russian economy in shambles,
11:59the country's space budget has shrunk to a small fraction of what it once was.
12:05As government payments to aerospace contractors slowed to a trickle,
12:09so did the work on Zvezda.
12:14And every day that Russia's engineers remained idle,
12:17the space station's future grew murkier.
12:23Zarya and Unity,
12:25little more than a front porch and a closet,
12:27are unfit to host a crew.
12:30Slowed by friction from the upper atmosphere,
12:33they are gradually losing altitude,
12:35falling about a mile a week.
12:39And without the service module's engines to hold them in orbit,
12:41all other pieces of the station are stuck on the ground.
12:46With the project now two years behind schedule,
12:50NASA Administrator Dan Golden must answer to Congress.
12:55Our relationship with the Russian space program is fundamentally flawed.
12:59His chief antagonist is Republican Wisconsin Congressman James Sensenbrenner.
13:09Sensenbrenner supports the space station,
13:12but faults NASA for its heavy reliance on the Russians.
13:14The partnership's not working because the Russians have failed to meet every deadline
13:20they've either set for themselves or the partnership is set for them.
13:23So instead of speeding up the project and saving money,
13:26it's slowed down the project and it's cost the American taxpayer over a billion dollars.
13:30The roots of the current crisis go back to 1991.
13:38The collapse of the Soviet Union meant the end of the Cold War.
13:43It also brought down the curtain on what historian William Burroughs calls
13:49the first space age.
13:51The first space age was in fact a product of the Cold War.
13:56It is over now for a couple of reasons.
13:58One reason is that the competition is gone.
14:02There are no longer Russians who are going beak to beak with us.
14:09The first space age began in 1957 with an event that shocked America.
14:15The launch of Sputnik.
14:20It is quite possible that an aggressor nation that dominates space
14:24will then dominate the world.
14:26We just can't let that happen.
14:28Derschef totally misread how the West was going to react to this feat.
14:32He thought they might be cowed into submission, into agreeableness.
14:37Just the opposite happened.
14:39It outraged, terrified and invigorated the West to a massive response.
14:45To lead the American response,
14:47President Eisenhower turned to the expatriate German rocket engineer Werner Von Braun.
14:55At the time, Von Braun was best known for developing rockets for Hitler.
15:00But his greatest passion was the manned exploration of space.
15:03In the early 1950s, he laid out his vision in a series of articles in Collier's magazine.
15:13For the price of 15 cents, 1952 to 1954, there were a series of articles in Collier's, and for that price, 15 cents, you could buy what turned out to be the blueprint of the space age.
15:25Von Braun's design of a space plane anticipated the space shuttle, but his most ardent dream was to build a permanent station in orbit.
15:36Our space satellite will have the shape of a wheel, measuring 200 feet across.
15:42Its outside rim will contain living and working quarters for a crew of 50 men.
15:49This entire space station will have to be prefabricated and tested on the ground.
15:55After dismantling, it will be transported in pieces up to the orbit.
16:00Von Braun's giant spinning wheel became an icon of popular culture,
16:08vividly brought to life by director Stanley Kubrick in 2001, A Space Odyssey.
16:16Von Braun saw a space station as the first stage in a plan for exploring the solar system,
16:22a stepping stone to the moon, and then to Mars and beyond.
16:26And with the convenient help of the Red Menace, it seemed he might actually get a chance to build one.
16:35But in 1961, when the Russians scored another first and sent Yuri Gagarin into space,
16:50President Kennedy decided something more dramatic was needed.
16:53I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out,
17:02of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.
17:07In setting his sights on the moon, Kennedy bypassed Von Braun's stepping stone.
17:13The great engineer went back to work developing rockets,
17:17though now they would carry men instead of bombs.
17:20White House historians have found the notes that Kennedy and his staff used to pick the goal in space.
17:25They wanted a goal far enough in the future that the Russians weren't about to beat us there.
17:30And that's why the moon landing, rather than the big man space station, was chosen.
17:34And that was the main political purpose of Apollo, was to reestablish the reputation of American technology as the best in the world.
17:43Okay, engine stop.
17:46We copy you down, Eagle.
17:50When the Russians saw that we had gotten to the moon first, and that in fact they were not going to get to the moon,
17:56The Russians decided they were going to go a different way, and the way they were going to go was this old space station dream.
18:05The world's first space station, Salyut 1, was launched in 1971 on the tenth anniversary of Gagarin's historic flight.
18:13Its three crew members became instant heroes back in the Soviet Union.
18:23So it's June 1971, and Salyut is in orbit with three cosmonauts.
18:28Every night on Russian television there are views from their men on board the station, doing somersaults, playing, observing, looking out the windows.
18:34To them it's a fulfillment of the dream of space.
18:40It's a restoration of themselves as the lead space power, erasing the humiliation of the American moonwalk two years before.
18:50But triumph soon turned to tragedy.
18:53At the very end of the flight, 24 days into the flight, the crew comes back, they land.
18:58Everyone's anticipating a hero's parade, a hero's welcome in Moscow, and all three men are dead.
19:08After the tragedy, the engineers reconstructed the accident.
19:11They discovered there was a valve inside their command module that had broken open, had been shocked open,
19:17when they separated from a part of their spacecraft.
19:20And a hundred miles in space, the air began whistling out.
19:23The men had tried to close the valve, they had tried to find it and close it, but there wasn't time before the air was gone.
19:28They lost consciousness and died.
19:39It set them back, it was just, it was such a heartbreaking disaster for the country, the whole country just wept.
19:49Despite this setback, the Soviets persisted, sending up a series of Salyut stations over the next decade.
19:55Cosmonauts set one record after another for longevity in space.
20:01The Soviets would up the ante even further when they began launching pieces of a second generation space station, a much larger craft called Mir.
20:12By the early 1980s, the idea that the Soviets were still up there, spinning around, long after the glory days of Apollo, rankled many Americans.
20:26The aerospace industry began a campaign for a space station America could call its own.
20:34In 1984, they found a sympathetic ear in Ronald Reagan.
20:39America has always been greatest when we dared to be great.
20:49We can reach for greatness again.
20:51We can follow our dreams to distant stars, living and working in space for peaceful economic and scientific gain.
20:58Tonight, I am directing NASA to develop a permanently manned space station and to do it within a decade.
21:03And so, Space Station Freedom was born.
21:10With a price tag of $8 billion, its first hurdle would be the White House Budget Office.
21:17Well, I was budget director and I had responsibility for putting together the president's budget and how much would be spent on each agency, including NASA.
21:25When we went into the cabinet meeting, cabinet room to have the meeting, and there were the NASA people and I had my people from OMB, my mouth opened, my jaw dropped, because right there sitting in front of where the president was to sit were all these little models of the space station and the launch vehicles and so forth.
21:46The president came down and he sat down and he picked these up and he goes, hmm, that's interesting.
21:52And he starts turning them over and I'm over there sweating like, oh my gosh, I could see my losing this contest.
21:59In the end, he sided with NASA and not with me.
22:03President Reagan's space station freedom would be far larger than anything the Soviets had ever put in orbit.
22:10And its main purpose would be commercial.
22:15Scientific research and new manufacturing processes in microgravity were expected to generate life-saving drugs and billions in profits.
22:25But as soon as NASA engineers began to look closely at Reagan's plan, they realized it would be difficult to achieve at any cost, let alone $8 billion.
22:37Reagan had invited America's allies to join in the project.
22:42Reagan had invited America's allies to join in the project.
22:46Over the next eight years, as partners from Europe, Japan and Canada weighed in with their own ideas, the station went through one redesign after another.
22:56By 1992, NASA had spent the entire $8 billion without building a single piece of hardware.
23:04In fact, what happened was most of that $8 billion got spent on people, salaries and expenses.
23:11The one thing we had done was to spend the $8 billion.
23:14So it was, it was, that was kind of sad in a way.
23:20While Russia's space station mirror flew overhead every 90 minutes, the International Space Station remained on the drawing board.
23:31Its political future in doubt.
23:33The Clinton White House cast a cold eye on this bloated Republican leftover.
23:41Then, with the space station about to be jettisoned, help came from the most unlikely source.
23:48Russia.
23:49Strapped for cash since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian space officials were picking over the ruins of their own recently cancelled programs when they learned of NASA's political troubles.
24:06Seeing a way to keep both countries in space, the Russians proposed that the two old adversaries set aside the wasteful legacy of one-upsmanship and pooled their resources.
24:18A few months into the Clinton administration, there was a meeting of minds, a combination of the Russian plans for their next mirror, mirror two, and a stripped down version of the old American freedom station program might be a workable and politically acceptable goal for both countries, for the new administration of Yeltsin's administration in Russia and for the Clinton administration in the US.
24:41And it turned out to be, symbolically at least, the perfect approach toward this project.
24:48NASA Administrator Dan Golden was ecstatic.
24:51This is a historic moment that I'm just very excited. Mr. Kopcheff, I want to give you a hug.
24:56The new partnership was as much about foreign policy as it was about space.
25:01There was a long list of very, very golden promises that by keeping their space industry going,
25:07we'd prevent unemployed Russian rocket scientists from peddling their knowledge around the world to rogue states like North Korea or Iraq.
25:17And we were told this would symbolize, as Apollo symbolized American superiority over the Soviet Union in the 60s,
25:24this new project would symbolize U.S. and Russian partnership for the future, would inspire new cooperation, new public trust in both countries toward the policy of partnership.
25:33But first, the two old rivals would have to agree on what kind of station to build.
25:45In the summer of 1993, NASA held a series of secret meetings with Russian space officials outside Washington.
25:51After only a few weeks, they emerged with a radical new design.
25:57The station's first two pieces, Zarya and Unity, would quickly be joined by the Russian service module.
26:04With its life support, propulsion and guidance in place, the station could house a crew of three as construction continued.
26:10Clustered around this hub would be laboratories for scientist astronauts from the U.S., Japan, Europe, and Russia,
26:27who would eventually live in an American-built crew module.
26:30As the station grows, a series of trusses will extend from this core, supporting the huge solar arrays needed to supply power.
26:40An enormous Canadian-built robot arm will run along the spine of the station,
26:47enabling astronauts to manipulate large objects during construction.
26:52A three-person Soyuz space capsule will be docked at the station at all times as an emergency lifeboat.
27:05This division of responsibilities gave Russia a critical role in the construction of the space station.
27:10There was a lot of debate about the structure of the partnership with the Russians.
27:16Some people said that we ought to just tack them onto the side so that regardless of what happens,
27:21we still had an American space station.
27:23Other people were of the view that if this was really going to be a partnership,
27:27the Russians would have to play a very important role in it.
27:30And indeed, I don't think the Russians would have accepted any less.
27:32With the new agreement in place, NASA had a partner whose technical achievements equaled,
27:42and in some ways surpassed its own.
27:49Here, inside Russia's vacuum test facility,
27:53the latest Russian space suits are being put through their paces.
27:55When it comes to the challenges of living and working in space,
28:01Russia's cosmonauts and engineers have logged many more hours than their American counterparts.
28:07They've got the expertise in space stations, from Salyuth and from Mir.
28:12They've got all that expertise which we can use.
28:16It's real.
28:18They've got the hours. They've got the cosmonauts.
28:20They've got the engineering and all that stuff.
28:21These suits, designed to allow astronauts to work for long periods outside the station,
28:32will be part of the inventory delivered with the service module.
28:39At 43 feet long, Zvezda is about the size of a school bus,
28:44and with its solar arrays extended, it will have a wingspan of almost 100 feet.
28:49It also contains the rocket motors and guidance systems needed to keep the station in a stable orbit as it grows.
28:59And with personal sleeping quarters, a toilet, a galley and dinner table,
29:05it will be home to the station's initial three-member crews.
29:08Most importantly, it will carry the station's critical life support systems,
29:16the source of the crew's air and water.
29:21Of the two, water poses a special challenge to space station designers, because of its sheer weight.
29:30To get water or anything else into space, it costs about $10,000 per pound.
29:38And so, at 10,000 pounds of weight needed per year for water,
29:45that comes out to about $100 million per year per crew person.
29:48For the station's full crew of seven, it would cost an astronomical $700 million to supply enough water for a year.
29:57Water used once and thrown away, as NASA has always done on the shuttle.
30:02With the space shuttle, you know, a two-week mission, it's like going on a camping trip.
30:08You can haul enough supplies, you can haul enough water and oxygen bottles and so forth.
30:14But with the space station being in orbit for 10 years or more,
30:18it just doesn't make sense to try to supply the astronauts that way.
30:22So, as far back as 1984, engineers here in Huntsville, Alabama,
30:29began working on ways to keep the cost of water down.
30:33The way we are approaching that is to make use of every drop of water possible on the station
30:40by repurifying it through a system that we are developing here at the Marshall Space Flight Center.
30:45Tucked away in the corner of a hangar is NASA's water recycling test facility.
30:58To simulate life on the space station, volunteers are recruited to exercise.
31:03Their sweat, the water vapor they exhale and the water they use,
31:08are carefully collected and recycled.
31:10The ultimate goal is a closed loop life support system
31:17in which every ounce of air and water is captured, purified and reused.
31:24It's the kind of technology that will be needed for long space voyages
31:29on which resupply is impossible.
31:32But after nearly a decade of work, the goal of a completely closed loop remained elusive.
31:37So in 1993, NASA turned to its new Russian partners for help.
31:43We looked around at what assets they really had within their space program,
31:48things they did very well that we could take advantage of.
31:51One of those was the provision of life support early on for a small crew.
31:58By this time, the Russians had more than 20 years of experience keeping people alive in space.
32:02More than 100 cosmonauts had lived for months at a time aboard their Salyut and Mir space stations.
32:12While the Americans were still drawing up grandiose plans,
32:17the Russians were taking a practical approach and getting results.
32:20The American mistake was to try to build an enormous station.
32:27That's the American way.
32:30If you're going to do it, then do it big.
32:34Our way was to make a more modest station
32:39to try to solve the basic problems.
32:43To make long stays in space possible, engineers at this institute outside Moscow
32:55developed a system for supplying fresh water aboard Mir.
32:58They are especially proud of this machine, which uses heat to reclaim clear water from every conceivable source, even urine.
33:11When we started this work,
33:28When we started this work, all of us here were the first to try the water generated from urine.
33:45So I can assure you personally that the quality is high.
33:51These engineers have also developed systems for removing excess carbon dioxide from air
33:56and for generating oxygen from water and chemical reactions.
34:02As for the atmosphere at our station, the air is cleaner than in California.
34:10My friends and I always said, don't do it the American way, do it the Russian way.
34:17The air and water recycling systems used aboard Mir were thoroughly evaluated by Boeing,
34:29NASA's leading contractor on the space station.
34:32And Boeing's engineers were impressed with the results.
34:35From working with the Russians, we've learned you don't have to have extremely sophisticated support equipment
34:44in order to have something that's reliable and functioning.
34:49They've had their station there for 10 years.
34:51They've had their life support system for 10 years.
34:54One thing that we've found is when they say that they have a specification, it works that way.
35:00So rather than reinvent the wheel, NASA decided that the quickest and cheapest way to get the space station off the ground
35:09was to incorporate these proven air and water systems into a single Russian-built module, the service module.
35:18That fateful decision to rely so heavily on Russian hardware lies at the heart of the current crisis.
35:26It was a reasonable idea at the time, but it created a situation in which the Russian equipment had no backup.
35:33It was the only way to have life support was the Russian hardware.
35:36It was the only way to propel the station to a higher orbit was the Russian hardware.
35:40It put them in the phrase, in the critical path.
35:43Our parts were worthless without their parts.
35:48Work on the service module began to fall behind schedule almost as soon as it began.
35:54By 1997, the delays had reached crisis proportions.
35:59During an inspection visit, Congressman Sensenbrenner blew up at the factory director.
36:05Your firm did not meet the schedule that was agreed by Gorin, Chernomirden in Moscow last July.
36:11I was upset because I saw the service module, and it looked no different than my previous visit to the Kronichev plant 13 months earlier.
36:21Their failure to work on the service module was delaying this very important scientific project,
36:27which was the largest international cooperation project since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
36:32The problem did not lie with Russian engineers or workers.
36:38They had delivered the station's first piece, Zarya, on time and on budget.
36:43But in that case, they were working as contractors for hire.
36:49The money for Zarya came directly from NASA, and the work was supervised by Americans.
36:56The service module is a different story.
36:59It is the first piece for which the Russian government is supposed to foot the bill.
37:04Bringing their engineers and their technical expertise into the space station partnership was a good idea, and I supported that.
37:13But this is not a question of a Russian technical failure.
37:18It is a question of a Russian political and economic failure.
37:23You have testified before this committee.
37:26Mr. Golden, why did you tell us you were ready when apparently we weren't ready?
37:30I didn't say we were ready to launch at those points in time.
37:34We thought the future point in time we would be ready, and we were not.
37:38With the service module falling farther and farther behind schedule,
37:42Dan Golden was forced to appeal to Congress for more money.
37:46Money to help Russia meet its commitments,
37:49and to build American backups for Russian hardware.
37:53The Russians have got the rest of the world over a barrel,
37:56and they know it, and they're taking advantage of it.
37:59They just have decided that the way to get more money into Russia
38:03is to delay the service module and then hit NASA up for their failures.
38:08Three, two, one, and liftoff of space shuttle Discovery.
38:14The delays in the service module have added billions to the cost of the station.
38:19With Zarya and Unity in orbit,
38:21NASA launched a second assembly mission in May 1999.
38:24But with no service module in place,
38:27many of its goals had to be scrapped.
38:31The crew instead spent much of its time on routine maintenance,
38:35changing air filters, replacing faulty batteries,
38:39and hauling equipment from the shuttle.
38:41We're kind of hurrying up real quick here
38:43because we don't want to be late
38:45for when Ellen has another bag for us to sell.
38:47They were barely back on the ground
38:51before another problem flared up.
38:54Two of Russia's normally reliable proton rockets
38:58blew up after takeoff,
39:00raining debris on the backyards of local residents.
39:04The Russian Space Agency
39:09halted all proton launches pending an investigation.
39:15The service module, ready or not,
39:18would be grounded until well into 2000.
39:21And yet another mission would be needed
39:23to repair and reboost the two pieces already in orbit.
39:26In deciding to launch Zarya and Unity,
39:32NASA had banked on Russian assurances
39:34that the service module would soon be ready to follow.
39:39But the gamble has backfired.
39:42That was a decision to go ahead and launch something,
39:45anything, for psychological reasons,
39:48for political reasons.
39:49It was, in a football analogy,
39:51the longest Hail Mary pass in history
39:53because you all go downfield, throw that ball,
39:56and hope someone eventually catches it.
39:58They still haven't caught it.
40:00It's still up there.
40:01Those pieces are up there getting old,
40:02breaking down, wearing out.
40:04In early 2000, Dan Golden issued an ultimatum
40:07to the Russians through the press.
40:12Launched the service module by July or else.
40:17NASA had been quietly working on a substitute.
40:21Three years earlier,
40:22just in case the Russians didn't come through.
40:25Golden had asked the Naval Research Lab
40:27to convert an old spy satellite launch vehicle
40:30into a stopgap device
40:32called the Interim Control Module.
40:35Because it carries no life support system,
40:38the ICM would not allow a permanent crew
40:40to move into the station.
40:42But it would provide enough additional propulsion
40:45and guidance to allow visiting crews
40:48to resume construction.
40:49Russia has recently fixed its proton rockets
40:56and assured NASA the service module
40:59will be ready to launch by July.
41:05Every other launch date
41:07the Russians have told the partnership
41:09the Russians themselves have failed to meet.
41:11So let's put it this way.
41:14If the service module is launched in July,
41:16as presently promised,
41:18I would be very pleasantly surprised.
41:21Even if the service module does finally join Zarya and Unity,
41:26NASA's troubles may not be over.
41:29There is a new worry on the horizon,
41:31one that casts doubt on the future of the troubled partnership.
41:34NASA is suddenly facing competition
41:38from another space station.
41:42Mir.
41:43An American millionaire has agreed today
41:46to pay the Russian space agency $20 million
41:49so they can start bringing the Mir space station back to life.
41:54The millionaire's name is Walt Anderson.
41:58In late 1999,
42:00he stepped in to save Russia's recently abandoned Mir space station
42:04from the scrap heap.
42:05There are customers that want to do pharmaceutical, manufacturing.
42:09There are people who want to travel to the Mir as space tourists.
42:12There are people that want to do silly advertisements on the Mir.
42:16All those things are possible.
42:17The idea that tourists would want to spend $20 million
42:22for a 10-day Mir vacation was hard to take seriously.
42:27But it soon became clear this was no lark.
42:34Anderson's investment helped launch MirCorp,
42:37a company committed to keeping Mir aloft for many more years.
42:41The real power behind MirCorp is Energia,
42:44the huge Russian space contractor that built and still owns Mir.
42:51At a press conference in London,
42:53MirCorp president Jeffrey Manber announced
42:55the signing of an agreement with Energia.
42:59For the first time,
43:01a manned orbital station is being funded solely
43:04from non-government sources.
43:07MirCorp's goal is to turn Mir
43:09into a for-profit microgravity laboratory
43:12in direct competition with the International Space Station.
43:16A lot of companies and a lot of governments
43:18have millions of dollars worth of equipment on the Mir.
43:22And it was just going to be destroyed.
43:24And they've come to us and said,
43:26if this is serious,
43:28if you're really keeping the Mir space station in orbit,
43:31we have equipment up there.
43:32We have researchers that would sure love to use it.
43:35For those already worried about the Russian partnership,
43:39it was like a nightmare come true.
43:43It is profoundly disturbing
43:45because their decision to keep Mir aloft
43:49means that they are not going to be concentrating
43:52their national resources
43:54on their share of the ISS as they promised.
43:58Sinking $20 million into Russia's aging space station
44:03may seem like a questionable investment.
44:06Because a few years ago,
44:08while American astronauts were aboard,
44:11Mir suffered a series of mishaps
44:12that put it on front pages around the world.
44:15In 97, you had a very serious accident on Mir.
44:19In fact, you had several serious accidents.
44:22First, a fire.
44:25Then, a life-threatening collision.
44:27An unmanned Russian cargo ship rammed into Mir,
44:34punching a hole in one of the modules
44:35and mangling a solar array.
44:37There was a lot of very bad publicity.
44:40And most Americans tend to think of it
44:42as kind of a flying junk heap.
44:43You got it, sweet.
44:45Point one-oh, point one-oh.
44:46I agree.
44:47NASA used the shuttle to help repair Mir
44:49so that American astronauts
44:51could continue gaining experience aboard the station.
44:55Contact.
44:56Contact.
44:56But after the last American left in 1998,
45:02NASA began to see Mir as a distraction,
45:05draining Russian resources and manpower
45:07that were badly needed on the international station.
45:11So when the Russians finally announced
45:13they would abandon the aging station
45:15and let it spiral into the ocean,
45:18NASA welcomed the end of an era.
45:20But thanks to Mir Corp,
45:22that era may not be over just yet.
45:25I think NASA was very surprised
45:28that something they had thought was going to happen,
45:31the de-orbiting of the Mir,
45:32did not happen.
45:34And they did call me up and say,
45:36the Russians promised us that the Mir would come down.
45:40That's not true.
45:41What the Russian government always said was,
45:44we have ceased our funding of the Mir space station.
45:47Should there be commercial money, we'll keep it up.
45:50We see something worth several billion dollars
45:53that you're about to spend a hundred million dollars
45:55to bring it down and destroy it.
45:58Why don't we spend a hundred million dollars
45:59to keep it up there and open it for business?
46:02Patching up Mir may not be as far-fetched as it sounds.
46:06While the station's core module is 14 years old,
46:11its youngest is only five.
46:13By replacing old modules as they wear out,
46:16Mir Corp hopes to keep it aloft indefinitely.
46:20Mir has its own problems,
46:21but it's much better conditioned now than it was three years ago,
46:24largely due to NASA.
46:26Nine shuttle flights brought up hardware, supplies,
46:29that totally rejuvenated the interior systems of Mir.
46:33While it's too soon to tell
46:34if Mir Corp can turn this antique into a profit center,
46:38this latest twist clearly reflects Russia's reluctance
46:41to let go of the past.
46:44For the Russians, Mir is a symbol.
46:47It's the last symbol of what they once were,
46:50a world-class space power.
46:53To accept the role of a junior partner
46:55in an international team was always galling to them,
46:58but for many of them it was practical,
47:00the only way they were going to work.
47:02Now that they're through the worst parts
47:04of their economic problems,
47:06now they have a government that's much more nationalistic.
47:09The idea of keeping their own station
47:11and letting the international project
47:14have whatever's left over
47:15is almost unanimous.
47:19Emotionally, Mir is much dear to me
47:23than the international space station.
47:25It's like my own child.
47:28My colleagues and I are determined to save it.
47:36The potential impact of this new development
47:39became clear when Russia launched
47:41an unmanned Progress cargo ship
47:43to Mir in preparation for a man repair mission
47:46a few months later.
47:47Both the rocket and the cargo ship
47:49had been earmarked for the International Space Station
47:52and partly paid for by NASA.
47:55Golden was taken on a tour
47:56of the floor of the building
47:58where they were being built
47:59by the Energia officials,
48:01Yuri Semyonov.
48:02And he was shown,
48:03this vehicle,
48:04thank you for the money,
48:05we're completing it.
48:06These vehicles,
48:07thank you for the money
48:08to help us finish them.
48:09Those are the vehicles
48:10that were being used for Space Station.
48:12Six months later,
48:13those vehicles were diverted
48:14to keep Mir going,
48:16even though American money
48:18had helped finish them.
48:19In very technical terms,
48:21we used a vehicle
48:22scheduled for ISS.
48:24And it's really good we did
48:26because it was getting old.
48:27When ISS is ready,
48:29my colleagues at Energia
48:31have assured Mircorp,
48:32have assured NASA,
48:34have assured their government
48:35that there will be
48:36a new Progress ready for ISS.
48:40But NASA is worried
48:41that Russia's renewed interest
48:43in Mir will keep it
48:44from fulfilling its promises
48:46to the International Station.
48:49We do not have any right
48:52to tell the Russians
48:53what to do with their Mir space station.
48:55But if we found
48:57that the Russians
48:58were going to fund Mir
49:00and continue its operation
49:02and not fund
49:03the International Space Station,
49:05there would be
49:06very serious levels
49:07of concern on our part.
49:08Over the next few years,
49:12NASA is counting on Russia
49:13for many key contributions
49:15besides the service module.
49:17Most critical
49:18are the rockets and capsules
49:20needed to resupply the station.
49:22The diversion of resources
49:23to Mir
49:24is one more major threat
49:25to the International Space Station.
49:27It's the diversion
49:28not just of rockets and capsules,
49:30but of key personnel.
49:31Yet we know that the challenges
49:33of putting together
49:33the space station,
49:34as its first flights are shown,
49:36are going to be immense,
49:38complex, frightening.
49:40We need the best people
49:41over there
49:41full-time concentrating
49:43on our new projects.
49:45And it's not happening.
49:48This ambitious project,
49:50begun with such hope
49:51just a few years ago,
49:53now faces an uncertain future.
49:55will the Russians
49:59ever become
50:00a reliable partner?
50:04Would the International Space Station
50:06be better off
50:07without them?
50:10Realistically,
50:11Russia has no choice.
50:13Somehow,
50:14it will be resolved.
50:17If we backed out
50:18of the International Space Station project,
50:21the scandal would be huge.
50:22And who would ever
50:24trust Russia again?
50:26We would be doing very well
50:28to kick Russia
50:30out of the partnership
50:31and to treat them
50:32as a contractor.
50:33Because where we have
50:34treated them
50:35as a contractor so far,
50:37they've done
50:38a world-class job.
50:41But treating the Russians
50:42as contractors
50:43would leave America
50:45paying a larger share.
50:48With the cost of building
50:49and servicing the station
50:50now expected to top
50:52$100 billion,
50:53that may be a hard sell.
50:57If the Russians
50:58can't keep up,
51:00we're going to have
51:00to do a lot of rethinking.
51:02Because a lot of people
51:03in Congress
51:03are then going to say,
51:04ha, they're out of it
51:06and now we've got
51:07to pick up the ball.
51:08NASA,
51:09you didn't sell
51:10the space station
51:10by saying we were
51:11going to have to do that.
51:12You sold it by saying
51:13that all these nations
51:14were going to participate,
51:15including the Russians.
51:16Now the Russians are gone.
51:17And you're telling us
51:19that the American taxpayer
51:20is going to have to
51:21soak up that difference?
51:23Uh-uh.
51:23You have problems.
51:25Despite the difficulties
51:26with the Russians,
51:28Dan Golden is determined
51:29that the partnership
51:30he brokered
51:31will work out in the end.
51:33I don't want to sound
51:35like a Pollyanna,
51:37but we will somehow,
51:38someway get through this.
51:41And when we get through
51:42the eye of the needle,
51:44we're going to have
51:45an incredible facility
51:46that will not be
51:47a Western block station,
51:49but will involve people
51:50on both sides.
51:54For NASA,
51:55the stakes are enormous.
51:57Collapse of the space
51:58station project
51:59would leave the shuttle
52:01with no place to fly to,
52:03and America's manned
52:04space program
52:05with no clear mission.
52:081031 and 1030.
52:10A successful space station
52:12would forge
52:13international alliances
52:14that lay the groundwork
52:15for the more daunting
52:16challenges that lie
52:18ahead in space.
52:19A permanent moon base
52:21or a voyage to Mars.
52:23We could have built this
52:24by ourselves
52:25a lot easier.
52:28It just would have been money.
52:30I mean,
52:31but the point is,
52:32is that the right thing to do?
52:34And the right thing to do
52:35is to work together.
52:37And that's what we're doing.
52:38We're learning
52:39how to work together.
52:41Whatever America's future
52:42in space,
52:44it's a good bet
52:44that the Russians
52:45will be up there too,
52:47whether as partners
52:48or competitors.
52:50The fates of the two
52:51great space-faring nations
52:53seem destined
52:54to be intertwined,
52:56as they have been
52:57for over 40 years.
52:59When I first met
53:00some Russian space engineers
53:01who were visiting NASA
53:02here about 10 years ago,
53:03they were heartbroken
53:04that they had failed
53:05to get to the moon first,
53:06that Americans had sent
53:08Apollo astronauts to the moon.
53:09And their program
53:10was a failure.
53:11I told them as best I could
53:13that their program
53:14had had the ultimate success
53:15of pressing
53:17the American program on,
53:18that the spy satellite pictures
53:20of the Russian moon rockets
53:21had been the only reason
53:22that the U.S. had continued
53:23and finally succeeded
53:25in landing on the moon.
53:26It was due to
53:26their pressure on us.
53:30They thought that was
53:31such a wonderful thought
53:32that we all hugged
53:32and cried for a while.
53:33But it does show
53:34that there is this relationship.
53:35We're going through a phase now.
53:39There'll be new phases.
53:42We're both in the space program
53:44and both in the space business
53:45for the duration.
53:59What components
54:00are the 15 international partners
54:02contributing to the space station?
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