"Today on "Impossible Engineering"..." "The international space station, the largest structure ever built in space." "The engineering that's gone into the international space station, it is phenomenal." "To create a base that's out of this world..." "To see this amazing invention fly into the international space station is the most incredible thing I could possibly hope for." "Engineers must turn to revolutionary innovations of the past..." "Oh, my god, it's actually flying!" "To make the impossible possible. captions paid for by discovery communications" "space exploration is entering a new era." "After decades of innovation, aerospace engineers are preparing to send the first astronauts to Mars and beyond." "And this giant leap could provide the key to colonizing the galaxy." "And central to making this possible is the International Space Station." "The International Space Station's hugely important in the future of human space flight and exploration." "We have to master a number of things, though, so we can go further into space." "For astronaut major Tim Peake, his first visit was career-defining." "I had a huge "wow" moment when you look and see it in all of its glory in the sunlight." "It is a marvel of human engineering." "Orbiting the planet every 90 minutes, the $100 billion cosmic laboratory is the largest human-made object in space." "Measuring over 320 feet end to end and weighing around 450 tons, it has the same habitable space as a Boeing 747." "Powered by over 32,000 square feet of solar arrays and producing its own air and water, the I.S.S. can host six astronauts in a completely unique working environment." "And the interplanetary work being done here has never been more crucial." "We're conducting research into how humans and robots interact." "This is going to be very important moving forward for lunar missions and for our martian missions." "So, five plants from the top." "We're also growing food in space." "We're trying to learn how can we make a closed life-support cycle." "This is the kind of research that's going to help us with those future space exploration missions." "But as research intensifies, so too must the journeys to the station." "And back on Earth, private aerospace engineers like John Curry must overcome a specific problem." "The space shuttle was retired in 2011." "And when we lost the space-shuttle capability, we lost a huge amount of capability to service the space station." "To make the journey, astronauts must now travel to Kazakhstan for a costly ride aboard the Russian's Soyuz rocket." "So NASA is turning to the private-space-flight industry for a more cost-effective approach." "Re-usability of hardware can play a really important role in trying to reduce the cost and improve access to space." "So, how do you build an inexpensive reusable spacecraft?" "To do this, engineers must look to the pioneering innovators of the past." "Space historian Amy Shira Teitel is exploring Edwards air force base deep in California's" "Mojave desert to discover the breakthrough engineering that seemingly defies the laws of physics." "Oh, wow." "Okay, this is awesome." "Nicknamed "the flying bathtub,"" "the M2-F1 was a prototype plane built in 1963." "If you look at, it doesn't look like it should be able to fly." "But in reality, it actually pioneered a whole new way of flying." "American engineer Dale Reed designed this unusual aircraft." "Because of the high cost of disposable space capsules," "NASA wanted a reusable vehicle that could land on a runway." "But the wings of a traditional aircraft would burn up during reentry from space." "So engineers had to completely rip up the aerodynamics handbook and start again." "The shape of a conventional wing is what gives an aircraft its lift." "As air flows over the curved top, it speeds up, creating an area of low pressure while airflow underneath remains constant." "This pressure difference between the two airflows produces lift." "But Reed got rid of the wings altogether." "And in April 1963, he tested a prototype that relied on the turbulent airflow underneath the body, hoping to generate lift." "Now, because the M2-F1 didn't have any motor, he had to find an alternate power source..." "A Pontiac Catalina." "The plan was to tow the lifting body behind the car to see if it would actually generate lift." "So even though the vehicle itself doesn't have wings," "Reed hoped that because the body is shaped like a wing, it would fly under the same principles." "During the original test, the Catalina towed the M2-F1 across a dry lake bed." "All right, we're rolling." "And it's rolling, and that's exciting." "It looks like it's trying to nose up every so slightly." "Ooh!" "Come on, come on!" "It looks like it might get off the ground." "It's flying!" "Oh, my god, it's actually flying!" "I can't believe it actually got off the ground." "As the M2-F1 reached 86 miles-per-hour, it lifted off the ground." "Although only by a small amount," "Reed's theory stood up to the test." "John Curry and his team at the Sierra Nevada corporation in Colorado are taking Reed's concept to a whole new level." "This design is one of the most incredible pieces of engineering" "I have ever been lucky enough to be part of." "It is going to change the world of space transportation." "The all-new dream chaser is revolutionary." "This reusable lifting-body spaceplane will carry both cargo and up to seven crew to the space station." "To make this epic journey, it will launch on an atlas V rocket." "Once in space, it will make the two-day voyage to the I.S.S." "Using it's own propulsion." "We use our thrusters to get us there." "Nitrous and propane, 22 of them that can both orient the vehicle and can actually push the vehicle through space." "Wonderful capability." "But the return trip into the Earth's atmosphere is where Reed's innovations come into play." "When you start in space, you're moving at 17,500 miles an hour." "As you go through the atmosphere now, the dream chaser then is able to take that 17,000 miles-per-hour and absorb all that heat that the atmosphere creates onto this shape and protect the cargo and the crew inside the vehicle." "The wings here, they're just on the edges and they're just providing the control like sails on a sailship." "Whereas all the lift is being provided by the body itself." "And in October 2013, that theory is put into practice." "Engineers conduct a series of drop tests high above the California desert." "Three, two, one, release release release." "When the dream chaser returns from its first mission in 2020, this new spaceplane will touch down using a unique nose skid landing system." "The great thing about the lifting-body design is it does so well at the high altitudes and then also does well at the low altitudes such that we can touch down at about 200 miles-an-hour, and then roll out to a wheel stop on any conventional runway." "Because of its transformative design, each dream chaser will be used for at least 15 missions." "The opportunity for us to get to see this amazing invention fly into space to the international space station and back again is the most incredible thing" "I could possibly hope for." "But to ensure regular cost-effective missions," "NASA needs more than one type of spacecraft." "And to design them safely, engineers must look to the trailblazing innovators of the past..." "Oh, my god!" "It looks like it could potentially break his neck." "To produce more impossible engineering." "The international space station..." "The largest structure built beyond Earth." "Travelling over 17,000 miles-per-hour, this cosmic laboratory orbits the world every 90 minutes, providing a staging area for deep-space exploration." "Liftoff of Tim Kopra, Yuri Malenchenko, and Timothy Peake." "That 8-minute 48-second ride into space is just the most thrilling ride you could possibly imagine." "But with increased demand for travel to the I.S.S., cost-effective spacecraft are crucial." "And the American aerospace company Boeing is rising the challenge." "Aerospace engineer Melanie Weber is helping to design the company's first reusable space capsule." "The Boeing CST-100 starliner is a space-transportation system which is comprised of a pressurized crew module and a service module." "But unlike NASA's capsules that landed in the water, the starliner will be the first U.S. crew module to land on solid ground." "This is going to be incredibly difficult." "In the past, water landings were favored because water was good at attenuating the impact." "But unfortunately, it's not really good at reusability of a vehicle." "Landing on land, or course, presents a unique set of challenges." "And there's been a lot of analysis and models that we've had to go through." "There is no second chances when it comes to landing on land." "So, how do you design a module that can survive a ground impact after travelling from space?" "To attempt this feat, engineers must look to an unexpected innovation from the past." "Once upon a time, crashing wasn't really a problem because the world moved so slowly." " Ooh." " Oh, terribly sorry, old chap." "Not at all, old bean." "But as transport became faster..." "Yee-ha!" "Accidents became more dangerous." "Aah!" "Consarn it!" "However, it wasn't until the invention of the automobile..." "Yoo-hoo!" "Hey, girls!" "That safety was taken seriously." "And in 1959, Swedish inventor Nils Bohlin released the patent for the three-point seat belt that we know today." "But as the automobile really took off, it became clear that more safety was needed." "At the Thachum vehicle testing centre in the south of England, physicist Suzie Sheehy is investigating how the need for better car safety led to an engineering breakthrough." "We're about to run a test simulating a frontal impact as if this rig was being hit from the front exerting a force of 16 gs on our dummy friend here." "But unlike traditional methods of crash testing where the test car moves towards an object, this pneumatically-powered sled will fire the test car backwards, replicating the forces of a head-on impact at 31 miles-per-hour in a mere 125 milliseconds." "Do you think he knows what's coming?" "Three, two, one." "That was so fast!" "It almost gave me a heart attack!" "Playing the footage back in slow motion reveals the true force of the collision." "So, I can see him sliding forwards really violently towards the dash." "It's quite disturbing." "Oh, oh, his head's come all the way down, craning his neck." "Okay, that looks painful." "It looks like it could potentially break his neck." "Early attempts to solve this potentially-fatal problem had little success." "But then in 1968, explosives expert Allen breed discovered a dynamic solution." "Breed that realized that an explosion could create a lot of gas really quickly, so what he used was a trigger sensor and a compound called sodium azide which releases a lot of nitrogen really quickly when it's heated." "And that was all packed into a section in the center of the steering wheel." "But that didn't solve all the problems of the airbag." "This is the problem that breed had to overcome." "This roasting bag here represents my airbag." "If I squeeze it, rather than being soft, the air pressure inside makes it actually quite hard." "And rather than absorbing the impact of the crash, you would just bounce straight back off it, which would potentially make the injuries much worse." "What Allen breed came up with was a system of vents specially designed to let gas escape after it had been inflated." "So if cut some vent holes in this one... this time, the bag deflates slowly, cushioning the blow and absorbing the impact." "It's a simple but ingenious solution to the problem." "To test the effectiveness of breed's design, engineers run the test again." "I feel nervous." "But this time, the team installs a modern airbag system." "Three, two, one." "Oh, my god!" "In slow motion, the explosive breakthrough becomes clear." "Just there, just before he hit the bag, it was actually already deflating because the vents in the side are designed to release just the right amount of gas and then start deflating so that as he hits it," "the deflation is absorbing the impact of the crash." "It's estimated this incredible innovation has so far saved the lives of over 40,000 people in the United States alone." "Boeing engineers are taken the principle of Allen breed's revolutionary car airbag and super-sizing it." "What we have in front here is a flight-like full-scale outer airbag assembly." "As we're reentering the atmosphere, we'll be going supersonic and the parachutes will decelerate us to about 10 to 30 miles-per-hour on landing." "And that's where the module's air-cushioning system comes into play." "Positioned underneath the capsule's heat shield, six giant airbags inflate as the capsule drifts back down to Earth." "They are filled using a series of high-pressurized gas bottles that are flowed into the airbag assemblies through a series of manifolds and valves." "And just like breed's car-airbag innovation, ensuring the vent size is correct is crucial to the capsule's safe landing." "As we land, the airbags will cushion the vehicle and vents will open up to allow the gas in the airbags to escape." "That's important because if they didn't escape, these bags would be rigid and you could actually bounce off upon landing." "Although this may appear to be an abrupt landing, this breakthrough system cushions the capsule so effectively that each starliner will be able to make the 250-mile journey to the I.S.S." "Up to 10 times." "In my opinion, the airbag-inflation system is one of the most unique engineering marvels to come out of spaceflight." "Providing cost-effective travel to the space station is one challenge, but maintaining its structure once there is quite another." "This step requires more help from history's innovators... to create more impossible engineering." "The international space station." "As the latest cosmic laboratory ever built, it is a hotbed of cutting-edge research." "In any six-month period, we will conduct about 250 to 300 experiments on board the space station." "Orbiting the Earth for almost two decades, this monumental piece of space hardware is the definitive proving ground for all future space technology." "And NASA project manager Rajib Dasgupta is focusing on one of the station's most epic challenges." "Eventually, when we go to moon or the Mars, we will need long-duration habitats for the astronauts to live." "Habitation modules like those on the station are 26x13 feet high-grade aluminum, and were delivered by the space shuttle." "But as the emerging fleet of new space vehicles only have a fraction of the shuttle's capacity, engineers are developing a mind-boggling solution..." "Expandable modules." "What you see is a full-scale mockup of the Bigelow expandable activity module." "The main advantage of an expandable module is to provide a permanent habitation system that could be launched at fraction of its final volume." "Right now, this module is on the international space station." "Packed for launch, this module measures just eight feet in diameter." "But once inflated, its internal habitable volume expands to an impressive 550 cubic feet." "Composed of two metal bulkheads and multiple layers of fabric, including the same Kevlar-like material used in bulletproof vests, this expandable module withstands both internal air pressure and the extremes of space." "When you put air in there, the Kevlar-like structural restraint is taking the loads that resists the action to burst." "In April 2016, the Bigelow expandable activity module begins its two-year trial." "After docking, air from inside the station inflates the module." "Once it reaches full length, eight tanks inside the module open and fill it to the appropriate air pressure." "The expanding process was very interesting to see." "It actually sounded like popcorn going off... as slowly, the air pressure expanded the module, breaking the small straps that were keeping it compacted." "Astronauts will monitor B.E.A.M.'S performance with a view to colonizing the galaxy." "Expandables can really revolutionize deep-space habitats." "Kevlar or Kevlar-like restraint materials, they actually offer higher strength than aluminum on an equal-to-equal weight basis." "So because of that, the structural integrity of these expandable modules are extremely good." "As the station evolves in the harsh conditions of space, engineers must maintain its structural integrity in the face of constant threats." "When you think about how the space station started and the demanding, harsh environment of the vacuum, the thermal extremes, the radiation, the micrometeorites, it's truly a remarkable feat of engineering." "You can see chips in the window." "For example, in the cupola window, one of them has a significant chip in it caused by space debris." "The I.S.S. Is vulnerable to damage from even the smallest particles." "An object the size of a speck of paint made this chip in the glass." "To make repairs, astronauts must perform risky spacewalks." "But to enter an environment so completely hostile to human beings, astronauts need extremely complex hardware." "And aerospace engineer rob Boyle is fitting them for the many challenges." "The spacesuit has to allow you to locomote around the spacecraft." "It has to provide pressure." "It has to keep you thermally comfortable." "And it has to allow you to communicate with your other crew members." "So every subsystem you think of in a normal spacecraft exists in a spacesuit." "One of the most complex problems is how to provide astronauts with enough oxygen over a long period outside the station." "You need an enormous amount of air to do a six-hour spacewalk with straight tankage." "So, since oxygen's such a critical resource in space, we want to use it as efficiently as possible." "With oxygen in limited supply, how can engineers provide life support for astronauts on an eight-hour spacewalk?" "To keep astronauts alive, engineers must look to a great innovator from the past... to make the impossible possible." "The international space station is the largest machine ever built in space." "But to keep astronauts alive outside of it in the harsh environment of space, engineers must look to a great innovator from the past." "Engineer Luke Bisby is diving in an aquarium in Manchester, England, to discover how scientists first mastered the art of breathing underwater." "But in 1878, when pioneering dive engineer" "Henry Fleuss experienced these problems firsthand, he developed an ingenious solution." "When we breathe, we convert oxygen into carbon dioxide." "But not all of the oxygen that we breathe in is converted." "In fact, about 75% of that oxygen remains in the air that we exhale." "Now, Fleuss' idea was to recycle our breath, filtering out the carbon dioxide and topping up the oxygen." "This breathing apparatus once used by firefighters reveals Fleuss' radical innovation." "When they exhaled, the gas would pass through this tube and down into the scrubber bag here." "And this is where the carbon dioxide is removed." "The gas would then pass up through this valve where the oxygen levels are topped up using this tank of oxygen that's on my back." "And the air then passes into this chamber where it mixes before then passing back up to the mouthpiece to give the makeup air for the diver." "And this is called a rebreahter, and it allows divers to safely use all of the oxygen in the air rather than just a small proportion of it." "And on the biggest engineering project of his time," "Fleuss had to use his revolutionary but still untested rebreather." "I'm inside the Severn tunnel underneath the Severn river." "And this was a project of astronomical proportions when it was first conceived." "Starting in 1873, this rail tunnel, more than four miles long, was designed to connect England and wales, but soon, disaster struck when workers on the welsh side hit an underground spring, flooding the tunnel completely." "A series of watertight doors had been installed to isolate any serious leaks." "But in the rush to escape the flood, the workers didn't manage to get them shut." "Engineers couldn't begin pumping out the water without closing the doors." "Desperate to get beyond the limitations of a surface-fed breathing tube, the tunnel engineers summoned Fleuss." "With Fleuss' experimental rebreather, a diver was able to go a much greater distance to close the doors, spending nearly three hours underwater." "Today, the great spring is safely sealed behind the tunnel walls." "With the tunnel secure, the water could be pumped out and the work completed." "For 100 years, this remained the longest underwater tunnel anywhere in the world." "And this incredible engineering achievement couldn't have been possible without Henry Fleuss and his amazing rebreather." "Back at NASA, the team is expanding on Fleuss' invention to create a one-person spacecraft." "This is the NASA e.M.U., or extra vehicular mobility unit." "It's what astronauts use on the international space station when they do a spacewalk." "The NASA spacesuit has life-support backpack." "That's on the back." "Like Fleuss' rebreather, the primary life-support system worn on the back provides breathable air." "A centrifugal fan draws exhaled breath into the unit." "Carbon dioxide is filtered out, and humidity is removed before more oxygen is added and fed back into the helmet." "A supplement of only 1.2 pounds of oxygen is all that's needed for an eight-hour spacewalk." "The oxygen tankage, as far as efficiency in this suit, is very state-of-the-art." "You can't build a smaller oxygen system that would provide what we need." "It's an incredible piece of engineering." "But to work inside them, low air pressure must be established, so the astronauts must breathe pure oxygen for several hours." "This rids their bodies of nitrogen, which alters at low pressure." "Once conditioned, they're ready to de-pressurize and go outside." "The advanced spacesuit teams, they come to us for state-of-the-art." "They say, "what are you guys doing, and how can we adapt that to go back to the moon, to go to Mars..."" "Go wherever they want to go." "It's fantastic to be part of it." "But this is only part of the challenge." "To take the next giant leap in space, engineers must look to the trailblazing innovators of the past..." "Wow." "This is cool." "A testament to the brilliance of the men and women involved in this incredible piece of engineering." "To create more impossible engineering." "Constructed over 13 years across 40 missions, the international space station is the largest human-made object in space." "Consisting of 15 revolutionary pressurized modules, including three science labs, the I.S.S." "Has the internal volume of a six-bedroom house." "But not all of the scientific work is conducted inside." "For the crew to leave the station, flight operations engineer Aaron Decker must prepare them for a complex procedure." "You can imagine if you just opened up a hatch, all the atmosphere in the space station is going to go out into space." "So we need the ability to break off just a small volume so the astronauts can go outside and we don't waste all of the atmosphere that's in the rest of the space station." "So, how do you maintain the pressure inside the station, but allow the astronauts to walk outside?" "To do this, the team at NASA must rely on another great innovator from the past." "This is amazing." "Physicist Andrew Steele is on top of the Eiffel Tower to unearth the groundbreaking design that keeps this iconic marvel standing." "Wow." "This is cool." "Normally, you'd never be able to come here." "And this is a beautiful view of Paris." "Built by renowned French engineer Gustave Eiffel and standing nearly 1,000 feet tall, the Eiffel Tower is one of the most well-known structures in the world." "But actually, although this is a great view of Paris, it's not what's up here that we're interested in looking at." "Work on the towers' foundations began on the 28th of January, 1887." "And for the south and the east towers, the condition to the ground were perfect." "Compact Clay and gravel provided solid support, but the ground under the north and west towers, nearest the river seine, was much more problematic." "This side of the tower was waterlogged." "If Eiffel's tower was going to get built, they'd need to find a way to dig through that waterlogged soil to the solid bedrock beneath." "To prevent water from flooding these excavations," "French mining engineer Jacques Triger developed an innovative pressurized tube system." "Originally, he designed it to prevent groundwater from flooding mine shafts." "So, imagine that this tank represents that waterlogged ground." "Obviously, we can see it's not really working out very well here for our little worker, Claude." "So what we need is this thing, which represents Triger's tube." "And I just pop that into the water there." "It's got a little hole in the bottom which you can poke through." "But as you can see, so far, not much use." "He's still very much under the water." "So what we need to do is increase the pressure inside that bottle and force the water out." "And I'm just going to do that by blowing." "Ooh, there we go." "And as long as I keep my thumb safely over the end here, then that pressurized air stays in there and forces that water to stay outside the bottle." "But we quite quickly encounter a problem, because once he's finished with that pickax he wants to go home and have his dinner..." "How is going to get out of this bottle?" "Well, let's imagine that he wants to come out of the tube." "Then, we open it up." "Oh, no." "Poor little guy." "The water level just comes back up to where it was, and I think he's drowned." "So, obviously, what we need is some kind of mechanism that can allow him to leave that chamber without changing the pressure." "That thing was called a pressure box." "And these days, we call it an airlock." "To leave the working chamber, the central chamber was pressurized to that same atmospheric pressure." "Workers then entered the central chamber, which was gradually de-pressurized to the normal atmospheric pressure." "They could then open a second door leading outside." "To enter, the process was simply reversed." "Triger's revolutionary metal boxes, or pneumatic caissons, worked at the Eiffel Tower with great success." "When they eventually hit the bedrock about 22 meters down, they poured quick-drying cement into the holes and topped it off with limestone and layers of cut stone." "When construction was completed, Eiffel had the names of 72 engineers, scientists, and mathematicians who he thought had been essential to the success of the project engraved on the side of the tower." "And one of those names is Jacques Triger." "But using Triger's innovation below Earth's floor is one thing." "Adapting it for the harsh conditions of space is another story." "To make the airlocks on the I.S.S. Work without a hitch..." "It's probably the moment of most apprehension, when you know that you're losing all the air from the space around you." "Engineers must make the impossible possible." "The international space station is the largest machine built in space." "But transitioning astronauts from Earth's atmospheric pressure to the vacuum of space relies on an innovative breakthrough of the past..." "The airlock." "And at the Johnson space center in Houston," "NASA engineers are giving airlocks a 21st-century makeover." "This is the joint airlock module on the international space station." "This module gives us the ability to go out and do a spacewalk." "Measuring over 16 feet long and 13 feet wide, the airlock is the astronaut's doorway into the vacuum of space." "They'll go into volume here, which is the crewlock, and then we close this hatch." "And that allows us to de-pressurize the crewlock portion to vacuum." "When the astronauts step outside and perform a spacewalk for the first time, it's an outstanding feeling." "And Tim Peake has experienced this firsthand." "For a rookie spacewalk, it is probably the moment of most apprehension when you know that you're losing all the air from the space around you." "And for me, when Tim Kopra then opened the hatch and the sunlight kind of flooded in, that was the best moment because I was just so ready to go outside and get to work and start the spacewalk." "It was wonderful." "All right gentlemen, looking great." "Glad to see you both out there together on the tip of the world." "Spectacular." "Every spacewalker gets a few minutes just to adapt to that new environment at the beginning of the spacewalk." "Great news." "Thanks, Tim." "For me, that was a wonderful opportunity just to look down on planet Earth." "And that was just wonderful to be able to see that." "The international space station is humanity's gateway to the rest of the universe." "The engineering that's gone into the international space station, it is phenomenal." "Our future in terms of humanity's exploration of the solar system, for me, is very important." "And the space station is going to help us take those next stepping stones." "And supported those steps are some of the brightest minds in aerospace engineering." "I'm extremely excited to be a part of this." "It's something that I've lived my whole life for." "I love being part of human space exploration." "By drawing on the innovations of the past, adapting them, improving them, and making discoveries of their own, these groundbreaking engineers are making the impossible possible." "Whilst on the ground there can be differences between the nations involved, it seems that in space we have a great example of how we all work together towards a common goal." "And it's a huge privilege to be part of that."