 Welcome to Volume 6 of NASA Report to Education. I'm Lynn Bondran. The crew aboard the STS-28 went about their business, but unseen and unheard by all but ground controllers. Because the STS-28 flight was a classified military mission, a virtual news blackout was in effect. On lunch day, the five-man all-military crew, mission commander Brewster Shaw, pilot Dick Richards, and mission specialist David Liesma, James Adamson, and Mark Brown, were up well before dawn. Dressed in their bright orange pressurized flight suits, they made their way to the Astrovan for the ride to the launch pad. Once on board the orbiter, they had to wade out a slightly hazy sky over the Kennedy Space Center. For the orbiter Columbia, NASA's oldest space shuttle, it would mark its first flight since January 12, 1986. During the three and a half years since its last flight, Columbia underwent more than 250 modifications to bring it up to par with the other two orbiters, Discovery and Atlantis. Finally, at 837 AM, it was time. Lift off. Lift off on Columbia and its return to flight. The space shuttle Columbia completed its mission with a smooth landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California on August 13. But because it was a classified Department of Defense mission, the public was not permitted on the base as Columbia glided in for a landing at 937 AM Eastern Daylight Time after a five day flight. A super team and a great machine, welcome home, Columbia. Capsule communicator Frank Colbertson radioed the crew from Houston as the orbiter rolled to a halt. About an hour after touchdown, the crew emerged from the orbiter, greeted by NASA administrator Admiral Richard Truly and other NASA officials. They made the traditional inspection of the spacecraft. Officials say it appears that only three of Columbia's heat protection tiles will have to be replaced. A thruster in the reaction control system was shut down in flight by the crew because of indications of a leak. Officials also report that pilot Dick Richard's seat jerked backwards about one inch when the shuttle lifted off the launch pad. Richard used a motor control to move the seat forward to its normal position. Ann Montgomery, the orbiter flow director, said that workers will examine about 20 other minor problems that developed just before or during Columbia's flight. 20 years after the Apollo moon landing, technologies which enabled manned space flight continue to improve our daily lives in the areas of health, safety, comfort, and enjoyment. Some specific examples of technology spin-offs from the Apollo era include the lunar roving vehicle that allowed astronauts to travel miles away from their lunar base. The rover was the source of a unistick controller now used by handicapped people to accelerate, brake, and steer automobiles. Scratch resistant sunglass lenses were derived from a highly abrasion resistant coating developed to protect from harsh environments. Further, hundreds of lives have been saved through a widely used commercial raft that will not capsize in heavy seas. The raft employs a NASA patented water ballast stabilization system used in rafts developed for the returning Apollo astronauts after their splash drown. A 3M designed meal heating unit developed for the Apollo spacecraft crews served as a basis for an electronic food warming system used in hospitals. These are just a few of the hundreds of spin-offs which have resulted from the research carried out during the Apollo program. American and Soviet physicians are just past the halfway point in a four month long telemedicine space bridge. It's been set up to provide medical assistance to the victims of the earthquake at devastated parts of the Soviet Republic of Armenia last December. Linked by a satellite hookup, physicians in Armenia have access to audio-visual communication capabilities with U.S. doctors at NASA headquarters and medical facilities in Maryland, Texas, and Utah. The satellite conferences are held for four hours each morning, Monday through Friday. This session dealt with different psychological problems suffered by some 37,000 children who were victims of the earthquake. More than 1,000 of the children were orphaned. NASA announced that the space bridge with Armenia has been so successful that it will be extended to Moscow and the Soviet city Yufa to assist the victims of two trains which were recently destroyed by a gas explosion. Scientists at Lewis have produced the first high-speed electronic circuit using high-temperature superconductivity research. The circuit can operate at 33 to 37 gigahertz. A frequency range three times higher than that attainable with existing circuits. According to Kool Basin, a space electronics researcher at Lewis, the high-speed circuit could become part of future generations of satellites that operate at ultra-high frequencies called K-band. These frequencies would let satellites process data at much faster rates and handle many more customers than conventional satellites. Further, the circuit might be used in radar imaging satellites to reduce the size of space antennas. Dennis Connolly, deputy chief of applied research of the space electronics division at Lewis, said the circuit should eventually help in the development of faster computers because they would reduce the amount of waste heat generated by existing circuits. Superconductors conduct electricity with no resistance and therefore with no loss of power. Scientists at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center believe they have solved a mystery that may help in the design of new and improved disease-fighting drugs. Using a technique known as X-ray crystallography, a team of scientists and technicians from Marshall Space Science Laboratory have determined the three-dimensional structure of human serum albumin, the most abundant plasma protein in the human circulatory system. The scientists have mapped and confirmed the structure of the protein to a resolution which provides an image with enough detail to extract data about individual molecules. The scientists next step will be to further refine the resolution using space-grown crystals. Human serum albumin crystals have been grown twice in space, most recently during shuttle mission STS-26 last September as part of a protein crystal growth experiment. Knowing the molecular structure may allow pharmaceutical companies to design new drugs or alter existing drugs to allow them to be more efficiently carried by the protein molecule through the body. It's called NASA Space Link and people from all over the world are logging on to this special NASA computer system. Here's a report from the Marshall Space Flight Center. Who was the first American in space? And see if you can tell me when. Raise your hand now. I think it was Alan B. Shepherd in 1961. How many people have actually walked on the moon? 12 people have walked on the moon. When was the first space shuttle launched and what was the name of it? First space shuttle was Columbia and it was launched in 1981. Here's another question. Why did the students in this classroom know so much about the space program? The answer, because the space program has made its way into this classroom. A computer system called NASA Space Link connects these students with such things as space agency background information, daily updates and news releases, even lesson plans and other resources for teachers like Margaret Milton. Unless you use newspapers or current periodicals or something like Space Link, there's no way for kids to have the correct information. Science and technology are changing everything so quickly. NASA hopes this program will address a growing national concern. When these youngsters enter the workforce, will there be enough trained scientists and engineers to meet an expanding need? We are really facing a crisis. Former teacher Bill Anderson manages the Space Link program which is based at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. He believes that linking the space program with classrooms today will pay off big in the years ahead. Third, fourth and fifth grades, middle school, high school, encourage them to continue studying math and science to show them how important it is and really how exciting it is. That's why we feel like with a program as exciting as the space program, we have an advantage in encouraging children to be interested in math and science and we feel like we need to do our part. Although primarily meant for schools, the system is open to anyone interested in the space program. All it takes is a personal computer, a modem, and a phone call to the Marshall Center. When your computer connects with NASA's Space Link, user-friendly instructions will appear on your screen to help you register and use the system. NASA's Space Link is free, but you'll owe your telephone company for any long-distance calls. Recently, President Bush traveled to the foothills of Virginia to address the 1989 National Boy Scout Jamboree. Mr. Bush used the Jamboree's theme of space exploration to talk about his goals for the space program. Your generation will have a broader, greater opportunity to live in space, to travel, to establish an outpost on the moon and explore the mysteries of Mars. And this is the challenge of the next century, your century, your challenge. And today is before some timid and chiding voices caution us against the danger, the hardship, and the expense. And perhaps they should have seen Steven Spielberg's extravaganza. Or perhaps they should listen to Ray Bradbury, a writer who once said that space will make children of us all. He meant that the strange beauty and mystery of space will teach even the most cynical and world-weary among us to rediscover the wonders of their first blimps of the night sky. And tonight, when you're lying around the campfire, surrounded by dark forest, looking up at the stars of the night sky, I want you to consider something. Perhaps you, or even your kids, or as hard as it is for you to imagine your grandchildren, will one day look up at the night sky before going to sleep and see the earth as a faint, twinkling blue star. It is this spirit, a spirit of wonder, of discovery, of adventure that is surely drawing us to a new destiny, a new and far distant world. You are privileged to be the generation that will witness the first large movement of men and women into space. And as this happens, I know that the Boy Scouts of today will be in the lead. Over 50,000 Boy Scouts attending the Jamboree learned about NASA and its many programs as we see in this report. When tens of thousands of Boy Scouts from all over the globe get together every four years for this jamboree, you'd expect them to get in plenty of boating, fishing, and other outdoor activities. But this year, there was something new added to the agenda, space. You could see it reflected in the jamboree patch, in the campsites named for US spacecraft, and in a variety of activities brought here by NASA. The NASA exhibit's really cool. I did a report on all the Apollo programs in high school, and there's a lot more information here than I ever got. All the space stuff's great. I like it. It's really interesting. It gives a chance to the Scouts and parents and visitors a chance to see really what's going on. In addition to what you read in the newspapers and magazines, what they physically see, things like the space station freedom of slice, what it's like inside, type of environment, things like that. NASA and the Boy Scouts organization say they have some important things in common. Both think it's vital that young people in this country get early exposure to American technology. Solar wings here roll out in orbit. They're flimsy, real flimsy. They won't even hold their own weight up here on Earth. It's hoped that by meeting NASA scientists and engineers plus astronauts like Bruce McCandless, these Scouts will take a greater interest in school subjects like science and math. These Scouts brought a world of questions about space to this jamboree. NASA brought some of its brightest people to provide some answers, to talk about the potential of space, and to help Scouts earn a space in aeronautics merit badge or two. NASA officials here say this was a learning experience for them as well. They got a glimpse into the future and a chance to meet, perhaps, the next generation of American space explorers. By the way, two-thirds of the United States astronauts were once members of the Boy Scouts of America. Technicians at the Cape recently erected the first stage of an Atlas Centaur launch vehicle in preparation for the launch of a fleet satellite communications spacecraft. The spacecraft will be the final expendable launch vehicle under NASA's responsibility for other Atlas, Delta, and Titan launches. At NASA's Ames Dryden Flight Research Facility, a new X-29 forward-swept wing airplane has started flying in a new high-angle-of-attack research program. High-angle-of-attack refers to the nose-high altitude of an airplane relative to its flight path. The higher the angle of attack a plane is capable of, the more maneuverable an airplane can be. Exceed the aircraft's angle-of-attack capability and the plane can spin and crash. This video shows NASA research pilot Steve Ishmael deploying a spin chute which can help recover the aircraft if it goes into a spin during test flights. Researchers expect the X-29's forward-swept wings will be more capable of high-angle-of-attack flight than conventional wings. The Voyager 2 spacecraft reached its closest encounter with Neptune 3,000 miles above the planet's surface on August 24. The report you're about to see was released by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory shortly before the encounter. It's been traveling for nearly 12 years. It has already logged more than 4 billion miles. In its lifetime, it's been to places humans had once only dreamed about. And on August 24, 1989, at 9 PM Pacific Daylight Time, Voyager 2 will make history again. It will become the first spacecraft to fly by Neptune, a planet that orbits the sun near the edge of our solar system. Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 and 2 have taken us to Jupiter and Saturn. When Voyager 1 flew past the large moon Titan and behind Saturn's rings, its flight path was bent northward. And the spacecraft was sent out of the ecliptic plane and on toward interstellar space. Voyager 2 is on a flight path that takes advantage of a rare geometric positioning of the outer planets. This allows Voyager 2 to use the gravity of the planets it's encountered to boost it from one to another without onboard propulsion. Neptune is invisible to the naked eye. Even our biggest telescopes can see only broad features of the planet. Early pictures sent back from Voyager already show cloud features and a dark band of clouds encircling the southern pole. Neptune's diameter is about four times the size of Earth. Its blue-green color comes from atmospheric methane, which absorbs red light. In orbit around Neptune, a ring arcs and one of the larger and most interesting moons in the solar system, Triton. At Voyager 2's closest approach, it will pass just 3,000 miles from Neptune's cloud tops. That's closer than Voyager 2 has come to any other planet. A few days before the spacecraft arrives at Neptune, engineers will fine-tune Voyager's flight path over Neptune's north pole. Voyager will be able to detect any Neptunian magnetic field and is likely to pass through the region where the northern lights form. Despite Neptune's greater distance from the sun, its temperature is the same as that of Uranus. For it to be so warm and yet so far away, Neptune must generate some internal heat of its own. Another of Neptune's mysteries is its moon, Triton. With a presumed atmosphere of methane and possibly nitrogen, Triton is expected to be one of the most fascinating objects encountered in Voyager 2's entire journey. Because Neptune is so far away, radio data from Voyager traveling at the speed of light will take four hours and six minutes to reach Earth. The signals are received through the Deep Space Network, a global spacecraft tracking and communication system operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA. To provide continuous two-way contact with the spacecraft, DSN antenna stations are strategically located in California's Mojave Desert near Madrid, Spain and near Canberra, Australia. The farther away Voyager goes, the more difficult it is to pick up its weak signal. To make up for this, the DSN antennas have been enlarged and are now able to collect more and higher quality data from the spacecraft. The park's radio observatory in Australia and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's very large array in New Mexico will join the DSN antennas to provide for additional receiving power. The USUDA tracking station in Japan will help conduct radio science experiments. With the encounter of Neptune, Voyager 2 will complete its grand tour of the four giant outer planets and head for its next adventure. The spacecraft is expected to continue to send back valuable data well into the 21st century as Voyager 2 reaches for the edge of our solar system and enters interstellar space. Once there, Voyager will again stretch our imagination as it discovers for us things we haven't even anticipated. Voyager 2 has now sailed beyond Neptune, leaving behind a wealth of information. First review of the data indicates that a day on Neptune lasts about 16 hours and three minutes. Atmospheric winds travel up to 700 miles per hour, up to five rings and a sheet of dust circle above Neptune's equator. There are at least six icy objects, six to 12 miles wide hidden in one of the rings. Triton, Neptune's largest moon, has a thin atmosphere of nitrogen. Triton is smaller than expected, about 1,700 miles in diameter. Triton also appears to have active volcanoes spewing nitrogen ice particles and gas up to 20 miles high and six new moons have been discovered. Launch processing work on the Overture Atlantis continues to proceed smoothly. And officials have said October 12th as the date for this year's fourth shuttle launch on mission STS-34. Atlantis was moved from the Vehicle Assembly building at Kennedy Space Center to Launch Pad 39B. The primary goal of the mission is the deployment of the Galileo probe to Jupiter, the most sophisticated interplanetary spacecraft ever built. Galileo was already on the launch pad waiting for Atlantis and has now been transferred into the orbiter's cargo bay. Once deployed, the spacecraft will take six years to reach Jupiter. Using gravity assist, it will fly once past Venus and twice past Earth before reaching the huge planet on December 7, 1995. Equipped with a variety of high-tech sensors, Galileo will drop a probe into Jupiter's atmosphere before going into orbit for a 20-month tour of the planet and its larger moons. Because Jupiter is about 480 million miles from the sun, huge solar panels measuring 2,000 square feet would be needed to provide enough electricity for Galileo's instruments, and that is not feasible. Instead, the spacecraft is equipped with a pair of radioisotope thermoelectric generators, each loaded with about 24 pounds of plutonium. The launch of Atlantis with the Galileo-Jupiter probe marks the beginning of a new effort by NASA to explore the solar system and planets. Dr. Leonard Fisk, Associate Administrator for Space Science and Applications, said recently, this is now the second golden age of space science, and if we have our way, it's an age that's not going to end. At NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, a new program is being developed to use technologies such as robotics to help in the on-orbit assembly of NASA's space station freedom. Here's the report. As indicated by this graphic simulation, Goddard is methodically developing the engineering requirements for freedom's flight telerobotic servicer, the FTS. This device will be capable of the precise manipulations needed in space for the assembly and servicing of freedom, which some have likened to a giant erector set in the sky. Inside Goddard's robotics facility, an operator runs a simulated robot through its paces to demonstrate how the FTS will do its job once in space. But the real action is in the movements of the form-outed robots, a gantry robot, and so-called dextrous manipulators. Each has seven independently operated joints. Each can function much as a human arm under operator control. This device is reaching up and behind a camera, which it could reposition or refocus if needed. In fact, with an operator controlling, this robot can even maintain itself. For actual space station freedom assembly and operations, the FTS will be attached to freedom's remote manipulator arm and be controlled by the space shuttle crew from the aft flight deck of the orbiter. In the meantime, backed by human thought and imagination, the mechanical members, so to speak, of Goddard's robotics facility have been cast in leading roles for mankind's exploration of space. This is Carter Dove, reporting from Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, Maryland. That's all we have for this edition of NASA Report to Education. I'm Lynn Bondran at the NASA Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. Thanks for watching.