these people are here in Mission Control
were responsible for guiding NASA's
eighteen hundred pound on land Voyager 1
spacecraft some billion miles through
space on November twelfth after a
three-year journey Voyager 1 made its
closest to compromise with the planet
Saturn now Plus sequencer receiver plus
proof Voyager has returned more than
18,000 photographs photographs that are
giving scientists excellent close-up
views and new information about the huge
planet and its many moons with the help
of computer animation you can take a
ride on Voyager to Saturn and its major
moons voyagers 11 scientific instruments
probed deep into the atmosphere of
Saturn and gave us an unprecedented view
of those incredible rings we now know
there are six major ring systems made up
of possibly as many as a thousand Rings
the Rings are Sun reflecting icy objects
ranging from Boulder sized to small
particles that were all around the
planet at very high speeds and those
moons are satellites like outriders they
encircle Saturn generating as much
scientific interest as the great range
planet itself my masseuse dyani Raya
Titan and a host of smaller ones Melissa
did more than a thousand journalists on
hand to witness the encounter and
attends a science briefings that follow
now if this is in these were some of the
storytellers the engineers and
scientists want unsigned you that it's
always gratifying to have the results be
something more than what was expected
and Saturn and what we have found was
not expected I suspect even for the next
few years we will find a new discoveries
in the data which we've acquired in the
last few days as we see more and more
examples of the way the universe can put
planets together we find that our
terrestrial perspective in explaining
our own
planet has been rather limited we get
new ideas from this what we learned
about Saturn during that encounter and
during the months that preceded it have
really rewritten the textbooks on Saturn
next August Voyager 2 will approach
Saturn pass by the ring spectacle of gas
and ice from a different angle and then
fly on to Uranus arriving there in 1986
it may also travel to Neptune before
leaving our solar system from Earth it
appears as a warm friendly ball an
integral part of everything living but
up close it's a churning solar furnace
that spouts solar flares in an
atmosphere that's constantly changing
and explosive little wonder that our
star the Sun has been the focal point of
scientific investigation for centuries
to relay sophisticated pictures and data
about the Sun and its energy cycles nasa
launched the solar max we might conclude
short our solar maximum mckellar what if
everyone being returned are the first
true close-up views of the mysterious
spots and solar flares that energize the
Sun service all this part of an effort
to learn how we can channel the Sun into
an even more effective energy source
closer to Earth sounding rockets probe
below where satellites orbit and
balloons carry heavy instruments that
need a longer flight time than sounding
rockets provide both play an important
role in the scientific study of the
Earth's atmosphere everything from
measuring the amount of ozone to gamma
ray radiation work on NASA's reusable
space transportation system continued at
many levels in preparation for the
upcoming first launch
practice recovery runs were made to
retrieve the two solid rocket boosters
that will be used to help launch the
space shuttle just before going into
orbit the big rocket boosters parachute
back to an ocean landing where they are
picked up and made ready for another
launch the shuttle orbiters main engines
have successfully passed firing tests
singly and clustered in a group of three
they too are ready for launch
installation of thermal tiles that
protect the spacecraft from heat buildup
during re-entry are now in place and
ready for the flight
this is how the entire space
transportation system will look the
airplane like orbiter is attached to the
main fuel tank with the two solid rocket
boosters on each side a new type space
to zoom in the something to provide an
earthlike in violence as well as thermal
protection from the Sun the advanced
space suits have three basic parts a
body cooling under violet a
puncture-resistant pressure suit and a
life-support backpack which contains
seven hours of oxygen and controls
useless temperatures yeah this is
astronaut Bob Crippen it is he and John
Young who will pilot the first shuttle
flight since the Shuttle Orbiter glides
back to earth to an unpowered landing
it's important for the astronauts to
have practice these types of landings in
advance they do just that with a
specially modified jet plane designed to
handle and feel the way the shuttle does
during final approach and landing crews
are also training on this vertical
motion simulator it reproduces the
motion and astronaut at the controls of
the Shuttle Orbiter would feel during
approach flare and landing without
leaving the ground preparing for a busy
shuttle flight in the years ahead nasa
selected an additional 19 men and women
to begin training as astronauts and that
training is well underway it please many
of the astronauts recruited earlier are
willing to Florida man maneuvering unit
a compressed gas backpack that will
enable the wearer to move around outside
the shuttle in space on future flights
at another facility engineers are
working to develop procedures and
hardware that will be needed for
astronauts to build large structures in
space and they do it underwater more
than a million gallons of water to
simulate weightlessness people machines
spacesuits engines slowly but surely a
major effort is being focused on a
single point
the historic first flight of this
country's new space transportation
system at that time is near in space
applications the goes for weather
satellite was checked out and launched
from the kennedy space center florida
weather forecasters and other scientists
are using the satellite to study severe
storms flash floods and tornadoes this
goes east satellite picture taken last
summer shows both hurricane Allen over
the Gulf of Mexico and hurricane Isis in
the Pacific Ocean ever since the
spectacular eruption of Mount st. Helens
nASA has been working closely with other
scientists to assess the impact one of
NASA's high-altitude u2 aircraft sampled
the air within 100 miles of the volcano
recently a plane from the langley
research center in Virginia who a group
of scientists and their instruments near
the mountain other things
to find out how much and what kind of
gases come out of volcanoes worldwide
there's very little volcano data
available
NASA continued its movement towards
making the Landsat satellite and
operational remote sensing system both
here and around the world Landsat is
being viewed as a new tool for resource
planning and a way to better manage
agriculture and forestry energy from
sunlight to power spacecraft is very
important now technology is being
studied as a way to harvest thermal
energy from the Sun here on earth this
is a research version of a solar farm
the dish shaped concentrators are
covered with mirrors which reflect and
focus the sun's rays to a point where
the intense heat is converted to
electricity rows of these collectors may
one day help provide electric power or a
small city or factory it's part of a
joint national effort by government and
industry sponsored by the US Department
of Energy
NASA's Lewis Research Center also worked
with the energy department to develop
this two hundred thousand watt wind
turbine generator Hawaii strong trains
grow year-round making it an ideal
location for electricity producing wind
machines this one which began operation
last July is located 45 miles north of
Honolulu 1980 was a busy year for NASA's
various aeronautics programs consider
this rotor systems research aircraft
these unique craft can be flown not only
as helicopters but also with wings and
jet engines the studies will investigate
promising new helicopter technologies to
improve performance reliability and
safety this strange-looking plane is the
Q SRA which means quiet short-haul
research aircraft it can land at speeds
slower than many light airplanes about
75 miles per hour and can break to a
stop in 600 feet in a cooperative test
with the Navy last July the q SRA made
37 touch-and-go landings and 16
full-stop landings without the help of
arresting gear or catapults aboard the
carrier USS kitty hawk this was the
first time a four-engine jet transport
ever operated from an aircraft carrier
at sea in the future the technology from
the quiet flying q sra may also help
improve transportation services too many
airports with very short runways the xB
15 tiltrotor is another research
aircraft that shows promise for both
military and civil applications in
forever city transportation and for
moved on people and equipment to
offshore oil rigs the crashed helicopter
like rotors allow the xB 15 to take off
and land vertically once airborne the
rotors tilt forward for cruise flight at
over 300 miles per hour the tiltrotor
concept achieves twice the range of a
helicopter using the same fuel
bridging the gap between wind tunnel
models and full scale aircraft is hi
Matt highly maneuverable aircraft
technology after being carried along by
a b-52 hi Matt drops away however their
pilot murder leaves the garden from here
he can fly the remotely piloted vehicle
through any number of complex maneuvers
and high speed turns this has proved to
be an excellent technique for doing
high-risk flight testing less
expensively and with no danger to the
pilot this small jet powered research
plane takes off and lands like most
aircraft but in flight it's unlike
anything flying the pilot of the scissor
wing concept plane can pivot the wing up
to 60 degrees decreasing the air drag
and making it possible to fly faster and
farther without increasing fuel
consumption the ad 1 scissor wing has
made several successful flights at
Manassas Airport in Northern Virginia
pilots have always landed with no help
but now something new is in the air it's
an experimental automated pilot advisory
system hey pass NASA's Wallops Flight
Center developed a pass and has
successfully demonstrated it at the
Manassas airport in cooperation with the
Federal Aviation Administration as
pilots approached the airport they can
turn their radios to a designated VHF
channel and a Contreras voice tells the
Randall ok cono an old congrats to
allowing back mile down one getting wet
the FAA will now determine the merits of
this and a similar automated system for
possible use at many small airports
around the country adding a greater
margin of safety for general aviation
violence from the voyager 1 flyby of
saturn to preparations for the space
shuttle and a wide range of research
aircraft projects 1980 was an
interesting and productive year in both
aeronautics and space
this special report brought to you by
nasa the national aeronautics and space
administration