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\h        Five, four, three, two, one, main engine start     
    and liftoff!

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\h        Music

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\h        Why do we send anything into space?

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\h        Well, it turns out sending spacecraft into space has a major impact on your life,

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\h        and in ways you may not have realized.

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\h        You're starting on a fascinating tour behind the scenes of NASA's Launch

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\h        Services Program. Have you ever wondered how we're able to monitor the

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\h        weather and other forces at work on Earth? And how much effort did it really take

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\h        to get the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity safely to the red planet?

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\h        These science and earth exploring missions all begin the same way--as a

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\h        carefully designed and built spacecraft attached to a rocket and launched into

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\h        space from one of NASA's two launch sites.    
    None of this happens overnight. Every mission is a product of years of

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\h        challenging work. Every spacecraft must be designed, developed, built, tested

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\h        and prepared for launch.  This work takes place at Universities and NASA centers all over the country.

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\h        So, how do these engineering marvels get to the launch site?

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\h        And once they get there, who puts on the finishing touches to prepare the spacecraft for flight?

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\h        Well, spacecraft are shipped either fully put together, or in sections.

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\h        They arrive by truck, or by airplane to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida or

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\h        Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

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\h        Once there, the spacecraft heads to a processing facility where engineers get them ready for launch.

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\h        The processing facility is a cleanroom environment, and in the space business,

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\h        the cleanroom goes a lot further than sweeping the floor!

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\h        In fact, everyone working on the spacecraft in the cleanroom has to put on a

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\h        special suit, affectionately known as a "bunny suit," over their own clothing.

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\h        They have to tape their jewelry to their skin to keep it from getting loose in the

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\h        work area, cover their facial hair and tie a string around their glasses so they don’t accidentally come off.

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\h        It sounds extreme, but there's a good reason: The spacecraft and its delicate parts

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\h        must stay as clean and bacteria-free as possible.

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\h        When the spacecraft is finally ready for launch, it starts the last leg of its journey on Earth.

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\h        The spacecraft is tucked inside a protective fairing and then taken to the launch pad, where it is added to the launch vehicle.

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\h        NASA's Launch Services Program, operating from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida,

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\h        uses many types of space vehicles.

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\h        The LSP engineers help choose the type of rocket that is best suited to the weight and the destination of the

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\h        spacecraft and the mission's goals.

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\h        Most rockets lift off vertically; many of us have seen rockets that sit on a launch pad.

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\h        When the countdown clock gets to zero, the engines ignite and send the rocket on its way.

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\h        But there's also another more unusual type of rocket.

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\h        It's small enough to attach to the underside of a commercial airplane.

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\h        The airplane flies to just the right place and the right altitude, then drops the rocket,

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\h        which lights its own engine and sends the spacecraft into space.

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\h        As you can see, launching a space mission is no small job.