 Discovery, Houston with you through Hawaii and we got America shuttle fleet is playing a vital role in preparing people and machinery for a more permanent presence in space. Space station freedom. On-orbit testing of new hardware like this restorable solar array has helped engineers design lightweight compact structures for the station. Astronauts also gain knowledge in handling large objects and connecting space station like components. Even devices for transporting crew members along freedoms 350 foot truss have been tested. On several occasions the shuttle's payload bay has been converted to accept space lab similar in design to the scientific laboratories plan for station freedom. Here life science experiments focus on the body's adaptation to weightlessness. Without gravity, bones and muscles deteriorate rapidly. Astronauts conduct research to find out why and test possible counter majors to prepare for extended stays aboard freedom. Microgravity research gives America a competitive edge in today's high-tech marketplace providing valuable new developments in such fields as materials, electronics and biosciences. For example, protein crystals can be grown larger and more uniform in space. Researchers want to unlock the molecular structure of proteins, large molecules that perform any key functions in our bodies so they can design drugs targeting specific diseases and viruses. Shuttles spend only a few weeks in Earth orbit while space station is designed for a long-term stay. Its state-of-the-art laboratory will house more than a hundred scientific instruments, including those to develop better alloys, more efficient semiconductors and solar energy systems. This research will revolutionize our way of life in the same way the Apollo era gave us technology for computers, laser surgery, long-distance calling and even ATM machines. Already prototype components are being built and tested. Engineers are also fine-tuning power systems and simulating the station's demands on electricity. 18 shuttle missions will carry prefabricated sections of the station into orbit using robotic arms to assist astronauts during assembly. Once completed, a single habitation and three laboratory modules will be clustered together, shared by the United States and its international partners Canada, Japan and 13 European countries. Freedom's four-person crews are scheduled to spend three to six months at a time living, working and observing from its unique vantage point. The station will regularly be visited by shuttle, ferrying food, supplies and new scientific experiments from Earth. One thing is certain. The key to this country's space future is tied to the ability to live and work there on a permanent basis. Station Freedom, a unique outpost built on the strength of America's space program. The half a million Americans suffer sudden cardiac arrest. The heart begins to beat erratically, losing its ability to pump blood. Often the only hope for survival is a defibrillator, sending electrical shocks to the heart that can restore normal rhythms. In the past, those fortunate enough to live through an episode like this faced more bad news. A 50-50 chance of it happening again within two years. Today, these odds can be reduced to about 2% thanks to this automatic implantable cardioverter defibrillator, or AICD. Incorporating a variety of NASA developed technologies, the device consists of a pulse generator in a series of wire leads all implanted in the body. The generator about the size of a deck of cards is inserted under the skin in the abdomen. Leads connected to the generator are sewn on to or placed inside the heart. Once implanted, the AICD continually monitors cardiac activity, delivering corrective electrical shocks any time erratic rhythms occur. According to Dr. Rick Veltry, Chief of Cardiology at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, more than half of the 250 patients he has treated with the device experience a shock within the first two years. If we equate that first shock as being potentially a life-saving intervention, then obviously 60% of those patients would not have lived to tell about it. Michael Letterer is one of these patients. He runs his own heating and air conditioning company. Mike describes the shock his implanted device delivers as akin to a kick in the chest, not pleasant, but something you recover from quickly. His job requires spending time at different construction sites. His active lifestyle, both in and out of the workplace, made the AICD a logical choice. Physically, I'm doing the same thing I always did. I've been thrown off my lawnmower and I've played golf and volleyball and I've been knocked down and what have you, it's no effect. I'm glad I got it. The AICD is manufactured by Cardiac Pacemakers Incorporated, St. Paul, Minnesota. Microelectronic, microcomputer, battery and telemetry technologies originally developed for the space program are all incorporated. Dr. Morton Mauer, a vice president at CPI, is co-inventor of the device. Our work with the device actually was in the same time period as the putting a man on the moon and bringing him back safely within 10 years and it was the push that this gave to science and engineering, which finally benefited the device. There are currently over 25,000 people like Don Gallagher who have received AICDs and a new lease on life. I can't imagine the circumstances where a person wouldn't want to live and certainly it's a device that gives you the opportunity to continue living. Every time it goes off, literally, it saves your life and mine's gone off almost 50 times in the four years. So it definitely saved my life and many occasions. In 1990, Shuttle Discovery launched NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, the most powerful observatory ever built. Able to image detail up to 15 billion miles away, Hubble has provided astronomers with a clearer window to our universe. Soon after Hubble was deployed, scientists discovered an aberration in the 94-inch primary mirror. Even so, the huge space-borne telescope has been returning a steady stream of new information, particularly with the aid of computer enhancement. Similar processing has been used on data from other spacecraft, like Voyager, which traveled past the planets. Enhancement now brings out more detail for Hubble scientists. This is the telescope's original image of a galaxy 52 million light-years from Earth as it is cleaned up to its final version. Here, light pulses in a straight line between Earth and a distant quasar. Years ago, Albert Einstein suggested that if a uniform object crossed the path, light would bend into a ring. But if the object were not uniform, the ring would break up into four patches. Known as the Einstein Cross, Hubble's image reconfirmed this part of Einstein's theory of relativity. Hubble also showed scientists a celestial X, marking the exact spot of a black hole with the possible mass of one million of our suns. Astronauts are already training to fix the Hubble mirror problem during a shuttle service call scheduled for late 1993. By substituting a special component in the telescope, the aberration will be repaired. Called co-star, this corrective optics package contains a series of mirrors that work like contact lenses to restore Hubble close to its full imaging potential. In a clean room at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, technicians also practice removing the spacecraft star tracker, which helps point the telescope. In the meantime, Hubble continues to send back fine detail of the planets, faraway galaxies, black holes, and distant stars. Rewriting the textbooks on how we view our universe. Crawl from an airport runway, achieve speeds over 17,000 miles per hour, and fly directly into low-Earth orbit. Called the National Aerospace Plane, or X-30, this sleek research craft will lead to a new generation of vehicles providing affordable, flexible access to space in the 21st century. To help ensure that this high-tech concept becomes a reality, a group of about 50 engineering students, faculty members, and technicians at Mississippi State University set out to build a one-third scale mock-up of the Space Flight. They were selected for the job in a competition open to all 350 engineering schools around the country. The goal was to create something that would help communicate what the X-30 is all about. A model folks could see and touch at air shows and museums around the country. It had to be rugged enough to withstand the rigors of both the road and mother nature. This wasn't a problem for the project team. They built it just like an actual flying prototype. Professor of Aerospace Engineering, Masood Reshrahani. It is quite realistic. We did not make any shortcuts or we did not take into consideration that this thing is not gonna fly so we don't have to make this part strong or that part strong. We did not think that way at all. Building it like a real plane gave Aerospace Engineering students who worked on the mock-up an opportunity to apply what they'd learned in four years of classwork and get a better idea of what to expect once they graduated. Senior Latunya Pat. You can sit in class and listen to lectures, I mean lecture after lecture after lecture, but you can't really get a good feeling for what's going on until you've actually had hands on experience. One of the keys to designing and building the model in just one semester was the use of a robotic router to cut molds for key components, an approach that spurred real interest in the aerospace industry. Professor Kenneth Hall. We actually have people waiting in line now that they see our construction techniques to apply these techniques to their aircraft prototype development. At a ceremony in the school hangar with some 500 supporters on hand, the 50 foot 5,000 pound mock-up was presented to the public for the first time. Congratulations accepted. It was time to ready the model for the road. Its wings were stowed and landing gear removed. Once loaded on to a large flatbed truck, the two-and-a-half ton mock-up was bound for its first air show, beginning a journey that will help usher in a new era of space travel.