The Space Shuttle: 6. Satellite for sale

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Before we start, don't forget there are two previous seasons of 13 Minutes, the home of epic space stories.

They're available right now.

This episode contains strong language.

Some scenes in this series use recreated sound effects.

Five astronauts are preparing for an audacious mission that will attempt something that has never been done before.

It's November the 6th, 1984.

Eight months earlier, two satellites, together worth $150 million,

were stranded in the wrong orbit after their launch from Space Shuttle Challenger.

And it looked like that was it.

They were lost in space with no chance of rescue.

But in two days' time, these astronauts will set off on board Shuttle Discovery to do exactly that.

If they're successful, and it's a very big if, it will be a space first.

But right now, there's a meeting in the calendar.

with an associate administrator of NASA, an individual newly named to the job of the head public affairs office at NASA.

Mission specialist Joseph Allen, or Joe, is a nuclear physicist turned astronaut.

He joined NASA during the Apollo era.

In came the associate administrator.

Very nice gentleman, introduced himself all around.

We sat down and Rick said, now, Mr.

Blank, what's the agenda for this meeting?

Rick Hauk is the mission's commander.

He's a standout astronaut from the 35 New Guys, the astronaut class of 1978.

Well, no specific agenda.

I just wanted to introduce myself and just say that if there's anything I can do for you, I'm here to help and wish you good luck.

The whole crew is taken aback.

Putting a meeting this close to launch without a clear purpose is pretty inconsiderate.

But Commander Rick Hauck says there is something the Associate Administrator can help them with.

A recent newspaper article quoted a NASA official as saying that there was a very high chance of retrieving both of these stranded satellites.

As if it was a piece of cake and I was living.

Here's Rick Hauk himself.

I thought, here we are.

NASA is shooting themselves in the foot because we are implying that this is easy.

Because up until that point, I thought it was very clear that we were doing something that had a fair amount of mission risk to it.

And I said, you have set NASA up for a humongous failure.

There's no sense in trying to tell the American people and the taxpayers that what you're doing is easy.

Because it isn't easy.

It's very hard.

Well, the man was shocked, properly so.

We were as well.

And then Rick said, and I think if you have no other business, I think this meeting's over.

We're 10 minutes into a one-hour meeting.

And I said, in my view, if we get one of these satellites back, it'll be amazing.

And if we get both of them back, it'll be an effing miracle.

From the BBC World Service, 13 Minutes presents the Space Shuttle.

I'm Space Scientist Maggie Adarin Peiko.

Episode 6 of 10.

Satellite for Sale.

The second satellite launched by NASA on this space shuttle mission was lost today.

Indonesia's Palapa satellite joins Western Union's West R6 spacecraft as permanent pieces of $75 million space junk in low Earth orbit.

In February 1984, what was supposed to be a routine mission ended in two satellites lost in the wrong orbit.

But these satellites, Palapa B2 and Westar 6, were still fully functional.

Insurance underwriters had to pay out $180 million.

That was a lot of money to have lost.

And they really wanted those satellites back so they could sell them on to the next company, which wanted a presence in space.

If you'd ever asked me what I thought was the most boring job ever, it would have been, you know, insurance.

Anna Fisher is one of the five astronauts who have been selected for the satellite rescue mission.

She is one of NASA's first female astronauts, recruited as one of the 35 new guys.

But I learned that insurance can be exciting too.

They really pushed NASA to do it.

So it's a bold idea, but the question is, is it actually possible?

Those satellites really weren't designed to be plucked from space.

All of a sudden, I got invited to a meeting.

It was a discussion about could we go and get the Palapa West star

and bring them back down to earth for refitting.

Flight controller Ron Zaguli has been working in mission control for just a couple of years.

His specialism is the shuttle's remote manipulator system, its robotic arm.

And this is his chance to develop a plan to use it on a mission.

And my boss said, why don't you go and feel it out?

See what you think.

And I went and they were talking talking some crazy stuff

about how to get these satellites back.

And I came back and I said, I'm in.

Give it to me.

And so I started attending all the discussions of how are we going to go do this?

How are we going to grab it?

How are we going to do it safely?

How are we going to bring it back in the payroll bay?

And that's when I really first met Anna.

She knew I was her armed guy and she was going to be the armed pilot, the main armed pilot.

And

it just went so rapidly because there was this can-do attitude about, can we do this in six months?

Six months.

It's an incredibly tight window for turning around a mission.

Keep in mind, NASA was still in its halcyon days.

Here's mission specialist, Joe Allen, again.

Still following on the coattails of a successful Apollo missions, successful first tests of the orbiter, and a series of 13 successful orbital flights.

This was the 14th flight.

NASA continued to be bullish on itself.

So the team goes to work.

First issue to resolve.

How do you grab a satellite in space?

It's basically a massive drum spinning almost once every second and there's not much to hold on to.

An astronaut can get close to it using the Manned Maneuvering Unit or MMU, that's the space jetpack.

But what happens next?

They decided we would stab the satellite from the back

using a device we called the Stinger.

It in essence resembled a folded umbrella.

which one could put up inside the rocket and then open such that the tines of the umbrella would now stick against the side.

It's a low-tech mechanical solution, but it seems to be NASA's best option.

We decided the stinger would be manual, including the deployment of the umbrella feature, would be done just with a button on the device,

and the tightening down of a clamp that would be done just by a crank.

The plan is to use the stinger first to capture the satellite and then the robotic arm to maneuver it back into the shuttle's payload bay.

Flight controller Ron Zaguli and mission specialist Anna Fisher spend many days and some nights in the simulator trying to perfect this maneuver.

One night it was late and Anna, her husband was an ER doctor and Anna brought in Kristen with her to the sim.

Anna Fisher became a mother the previous year but this is her first flight so during this intense six-month planning period for the mission she's juggling being an astronaut with caring for her child.

And so I remember many times, you know, having Kristen in a little carrier thing, putting her down on the floor.

And Kristen is crawling on the floor of the simulator at my feet when we're developing these techniques, these procedures.

Now, some hard-bitten flight controllers might feel that having a baby at their feet while focusing on work could be a bit of a distraction.

But does it bother Ron?

Not in the least.

I loved it.

I loved every second of it because our relationship as flight controllers with astronauts was always a close close one.

And she did what she needed to do.

And

having this little baby go goo-goo gaga on the floor when we're working on maneuvering payloads and doing things,

it just brought home that this is life.

This is, they have lives, we have lives, this is a family.

I love that crew.

I mean, literally loved that crew.

It was, it was a family.

I love Ron's attitude to this.

As a working mother myself, I often needed to bring my young daughter to work with me.

Sometimes I had her in my arms while on stage giving a speech, sometimes in the office while working on a project, and once when giving evidence to a UK government select committee.

It's not always possible, but it can work.

Six months later, Anna Fisher and her crew are heading for space aboard Shuttle Discovery.

We have main engine start.

Three, two, one,

and lift off, lift off of Discovery and the first flight to retrieve and return satellites from space.

And the shuttle has cleared the tower.

Roger Row.

For the first four days, the mission goes exactly as planned.

The crew have deployed two satellites and carried out some in-flight scientific experiments.

Things are going very well in preparation for the EVA and the rendezvous.

But it's day five when the critical moment arrives.

Shuttle is approaching

Kalapa.

It's made its final major burn leading up to the

rendezvous and station keeping.

Discovery is closing in

very slowly and very carefully to the first of the two lost satellites, Palapa B2.

EBA crewman Joe Allen and mission specialist Dale Gardner are in the airlock in their suits and pre-breathing oxygen through their helmets.

As the two spacewalkers prepare to exit the shuttle, rookie astronaut Anna Fisher is sitting on the flight deck with Commander Rick Hauck.

First, the satellite's like a star off in the distance and then slowly it gets closer and closer and bigger and bigger.

The two of them are getting ready to do one of the last burns of the shuttle's orbital maneuvering system.

The transition initiation burn or TI burn will close the gap between them and the satellite.

And Rick says, Anna, I have to go to the bathroom.

I go, Rick, you can't go to the bathroom.

We're about to do the TI burn.

You know, two people have to always, he says, Anna, I have to go to the bathroom.

He said, just check everything twice.

So I did all the inputs for the TI burn, you know, literally by myself, sitting in the pilot seat.

So it was, it was so cool.

I didn't totally realize that we were going to be with a nose-down attitude as we were going overhead Houston.

And literally, you're at 200 nautical miles looking straight down at Houston, San Antonio and Dallas.

It was a crystal clear night.

It was amazing.

The last time they had the Palapa this close to the space shuttle was last February when it was originally deployed.

It's made about 3,800 orbits since that time.

Joe Allen is attached to the MMU, the Space Jetpack.

jetpack.

He'll be doing a spacewalk with fellow astronaut Dale Gardner.

But before he heads out into open space, he tests it in the shuttle's payload bay.

And it floated free in the payload bay.

Ever so carefully, I then began to

use the control mechanisms of the MMU.

The MMU moved exactly as I expected it to, and within a few moments I had confidence that I could maneuver wherever I wanted to go at whatever speed.

The crew have been waiting for the right lighting conditions.

You remember that the shuttle orbits the Earth every 90 minutes.

So every three-quarters of an hour, there's a sunrise or a sunset.

Wow, look at that.

And this sunrise is particularly beautiful.

Inside Discovery, pilot David Walker is watching the two spacewalkers.

Roger, copy that, David.

We're ready also.

Joe Allen uses his jetpack to leave the shuttle's payload bay.

He's now floating out into open space.

Attached to him and as big as him is the piece of hardware he'll use to capture the satellite, the stinger.

It's a big cut-shaped frame with a long pole projecting from the center.

Okay, I'm lined up pretty well behind it.

I found myself

lined up,

approaching the satellite from the back,

exactly against the sun

such that it was just a black silhouette in front of a terribly bright sun.

I thought, oh, this is going to, I couldn't see the center of it.

So this is going to be very difficult.

Okay, I almost can't see it.

I'm flying right into the sun.

Whereupon Rick said, Joe, not a problem.

I'll move the orbiter over and shadow the satellite.

He did that.

He moved the orbiter slightly.

A shadow was cast on the satellite.

such that I was no longer seeing the sun.

It was beautiful.

Alan approaches the bottom end of Palapa.

It's the size of a small car and drum-shaped.

As it slowly spins, he looks straight into its core at the satellite's kick motor, the one that failed and got it stranded in the first place.

I could then see the bullseye, the center of the rocket engine, very easily.

Alan thrusts the stinger right into the heart of the satellite.

Threaded like I'd done it all my life.

The ribs of the umbrella catch the inside of the satellite.

Alan slowly starts to spin with it.

It's as wide as the astronaut is tall.

He uses the controls on the MMU, his space jetpack, to stabilize.

Manually, he tightens the grip on Palapa.

Crank, Crank, Crank, it's pulling it right down.

I'm using no gas at all.

And

voila, there it was.

The first part of this difficult task is done.

All is going well so far.

As Alan flies the satellite back towards Discovery, it's now Anna Fisher's turn to grab it using the robotic arm.

Imagine a long white mechanical limb reaching out of the payload bay of the shuttle.

It's 50 feet or 15 meters long.

It has shoulder and elbow joints that Fisher can manipulate in different ways.

You have two hand controllers to operate the arm, and one hand controller translates forward, back, up and down, right and left, and then the other one controls attitude, pitch on, roll.

Using her two hand controllers, Fisher starts moving the arm.

Commander Rick Hauck is looking out of the shuttle's window where he can see Joe Allen, the satellite and the grapple fixture on the stinger.

Words are inadequate to describe all the motion.

The shuttle is moving a little bit, you know, because Rick's keeping the satellite in a certain position.

And then the shuttle is of course moving over the earth.

And then there's all the clouds that are moving.

And I'm supposed to go in and grapple.

I think my heart was beating so fast I don't know.

You know when you're on a crew everybody has their roles in whatever the task is and this was my role.

To me that was almost scarier than launching.

Take it out here Nana.

You got plenty of room.

Dale Gardner, the other spacewalker, is helping to guide Fisher.

Okay, Joe, she's got five feet to go to the grapple fixture.

I'm watching her in my wrist here,

like a hawk, and now I can see it.

Joe Allen is still attached to the satellite via the stinger.

Looking perfect, Anna.

The arm touches the stinger.

Wires at the end close and latch onto it.

That doggies on the ground and we're putting the rope around its feet.

Throughout all this, Dale Gardner has been watching and guiding Palappa in from Discovery's open payload bay.

Now all that's left to do is for him to attach an A-frame to the top of the satellite.

That's a triangular frame which will allow Fischer to grab the satellite from the top and put it into the payload bay bottom first.

That was when Dale discovered, or both of them discovered, that that piece didn't fit.

And Dale said, it doesn't fit, it's not going to fit.

There's an interference.

The tool designed to fit on the top of the satellite did not fit.

A ridge of just one quarter of an inch or two thirds of a centimeter is in the way.

Without the right tool, Anna Fisher can't stow Palapa in the payload bay.

If the crew don't find a solution quickly, all their preparation and work will have been for nothing.

They'll have to release the satellite back into space and go home without it.

This is history's heroes.

People with purpose, brave brave ideas, and the courage to stand alone, including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War.

You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you.

Join me, Alex von Tunselmann, for History's Heroes.

Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts.

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Okay, Jerry, here we go.

The Comet Racket plant will not fit on the satellite.

The problem is...

It's been more than two hours since the start of the spacewalk.

The crew have discovered that a vital piece of hardware for retrieving the satellite, the A-frame, doesn't fit.

And of course, the clock is ticking.

They have about six to seven hours for their spacesuits to have consumables.

In other words, spacewalkers Del Gardner and Joe Allen have limited supplies of oxygen.

Okay, we copy that.

Understand.

Gardner explains the problem to mission control.

He says they will go with Plan B.

And Capcom Jerry Ross in Mission Control confirms.

Okay, we copy Plan B and proceed.

All the Plan B's are in a small booklet.

One that Discovery's pilot David Walker always carries with him.

David, you've got a section

A few minutes later, the crew are out of contact with mission control.

This loss of signal, or LOS, regularly happens as the shuttle moves between receiving stations on Earth.

And the ground was now out of earshot again.

Here's Joe Allen.

David Walker, bless his heart, was the keeper of all the plan Bs that we as a crew prior to the launch had devised.

And we'd written them down.

What would we do in the event that blank failed?

What would we do in the event that blank failed?

We

had a plan B for what we would do in the event that this clamp failed.

And

it was, sad to say, written on David's piece of paper just as improvise.

We really did not know what we were going to do.

Close-ups of the city.

Yeah, maybe.

Let's get that plane back right now to that.

Meanwhile, in Mission Control in Houston, the team is debating what the best solution might be.

A BBC documentary crew are there on location to record what's going on.

To document NASA attempting a space history first.

You're going to get it sorted out?

You bet.

Ron Zaguli is sitting in one of the back rooms in mission control.

He's been watching the mission with a real sense of satisfaction, particularly when Anna Fisher has been operating the robotic arm.

But now it dawns on him.

All those arm procedures he developed with her over the course of six months of hard work are redundant.

I had personally worked countless hours developing the procedures for the handoff from one grapple fixture to the other grapple fixture.

And I had to eat all that and put it all behind me.

If this wasn't going to cause the failure of the mission, let's just adapt.

I mean, again, that's what manned spaceflight is really all about.

It's that ability to adapt to circumstances that you don't foresee.

In orbit, the crew are still trying to come up with their own plan B.

But we talked about it, and on the flight, we decided

that I would come out of the MMU.

Anna would maneuver the top of the satellite around to where I could grab it with my hands.

The idea is that Alan will manhandle Palapa.

He'll hold the the top end of the satellite while his spacewalking partner, Gardner, attaches a clamp to the bottom.

Then they can secure it in the payload bay.

That was the only thing we could think of to do.

Knowing full well it would be very difficult because the very large clamp was a two-person operation.

And grabbing a car-sized piece of metal is potentially a very risky maneuver for a spacewalking astronaut.

That

was my first exposure to what we call a tiger team.

A tiger team is called in when things don't go exactly as planned.

Jerry Miller is a spacesuit specialist and instructor.

He hasn't been in the role long, but his knowledge is important to the tiger team as they try and work out a solution.

At the time, still being a suit guy, my primary focus on that was what environment are we taking the suit into that it really wasn't meant to be into?

Astronaut Joe Allen will be grabbing part of the antenna on top of the satellite.

Not the safest hold.

That area had a lot of protrusions, so a big concern, of course, for the suit was were any of them sharp?

Could any of them puncture?

Could there be potentially a leak in the suit?

If Allen's spacesuit is punctured and starts losing pressure, it could have dramatic consequences.

The hole could be very small so that the regulator of the suit is maintaining pressure, but it's doing it by flowing more oxygen than it should.

Now, should it be big enough that the primary oxygen system can't even keep up with it, there is a whole secondary oxygen package that kicks on and will just start blowing oxygen through the suit.

With a hole of half an inch, that's a bit more than a centimeter, a suit can maintain breathable levels for 30 minutes.

Enough time for Alan to head back inside, but not enough time to finish the mission and rescue the satellite.

Mission Control used some temporary loss of signal as we passed between Hawaii and the tracking day relay satellite to pick up shortly.

After talking it over, Mission Control and the crew decide to go ahead with Plan B.

Plan again is to manually

hang on to that satellite while the adapter ring is installed.

The two spacewalkers are literally going to grapple the satellite into the shuttle's payload bay.

This to me seems like an audacious plan.

Trying to retrieve the satellite using Plan A was always going to be challenging, but at least it had been rehearsed many times.

But now they're going to be improvising.

And in the harsh environment of space, that's even more demanding.

Spacewalker Joe Allen has stowed away his jetpack, the MMU.

He's now in a foot restraint and attached to the spacecraft for stability.

Anna Fisher uses the robotic arm to move the satellite right in front of him.

Alan's spacesuit gloves are thick and bulky.

He can't feel much, but he reaches out to the massive piece of hardware that is pull up up and he grabs its antenna.

I got it, Anna.

Once Alan's got a good grip, the huge mechanical limb lets the satellite go.

She's releasing now, okay?

Is it released?

is.

It is now.

Okay, you got it.

I found myself holding the satellite, ground weight 2,000 pounds, on orbit weight zero.

And so he's now holding this satellite, and you have to realize this satellite is so big.

I mean, he can't see anything.

He's just looking at this big, giant nozzle that's staring him in the face.

Let's just picture this for a moment.

The satellite is the size of a small car and on Earth it would have weighed as much as a grand piano.

But up here in this microgravity environment Alan is the only thing holding it in place.

He has the stance of a superhero and he will have to maintain this exact position for a very long time.

Meanwhile, Dale Gardner is doing much of the manual labor, adding a bracket so the satellite can be safely stowed.

This again would be hard enough on Earth, but in a pressurized spacesuit it becomes even harder.

And yet, when you hear the comms, it just sounds like two guys moving an unwieldy object.

So we had to give him instructions about how to move it.

Very, very slowly.

Alan moves the satellite towards his spacewalking buddy, Dale Gardner.

Fisher is watching the two of them from the flight deck window.

You have to realize that we didn't have experience with dealing with a structure that big.

And although it's weightless, it has mass.

So once you start moving, you then have to be able to stop it moving.

Joseph, you have to lean back with it consciously because each time that you relax, it comes down into the bay.

And so we just did everything very, very slowly and told him, you know, move it a little bit this way, pitch it down,

whatever was necessary.

Dale Gardner, also in a foot restraint, is reaching out towards Palapa.

Mission Control Houston Allen now holding the satellite while Gardner prepares to install the adapter ring.

The adapter ring is a clamp which will secure the satellite in the shuttle's payload bay.

As Gardner is getting to work, Alan has to stay as still as possible.

A suited crewman has very little tactile sense.

He can't see very well.

The satellite was twice as big as I,

and Dale was at the other end.

But ever so often I could feel where he was pushing and attempting to get the clamp to go on and react against it such that it didn't move.

As they orbit, Alan can see the Earth below him.

And the scorching sun is shining on the spacewalkers.

A spacesuited crewman is naturally cooled or kept the proper temperature all over his or her body, except for the hands.

The hands are not encased in the liquid cool garment.

And your hands can sense which side is the dark side and which side is the sun side.

Because when the sun is on, for example, example, the back of your glove, you can feel the back of your hand get very, very warm.

Yet, he can't move his hands.

The risk of losing valuable time, or even worse, of losing the satellite completely, is too great.

Just go straight and I'll try and tell you which way to move.

After some time, the sun disappears.

It's almost like switching off the lights.

Due to the shuttle speeds, sunsets don't last very long.

From now on, the spacewalkers will have to rely on the lights attached to their helmets and the floor of the Pele Bay.

Joe Allen is on one side of Palapa, holding onto the satellite as best he can.

And Dale Gardner is on the other side, trying to attach the clamp.

He's the most persistent individual I've ever worked with and one of the smartest.

After 45 minutes, the sun returns.

The two spacewalkers are bathed in light once again.

They're talking.

That means they're tightening the clamp at the bottom of the satellite.

Dale Gardner has managed to attach it.

And he did the impossible.

Ultimately, the clamp was affixed.

The fact he was able to do it still astonishes me.

By now, Alan has held Palapa for more than one entire orbit around the Earth.

I held the satellite for about two hours.

It took Dale about that long to single-handedly affix this big clamp.

Now the only thing left to do is for Alan and Gardner to ease the satellite down into the payload bay and secure it in place.

Okay, Joseph.

Yeah, let go.

I love this piece of mission audio.

Alan and Gardner sound like they're helping a friend move a couch into their living room.

Only, this isn't a piece of furniture, but a $75 million satellite.

Bumping it into a wall is not an option.

Okay, here it comes.

Two degrees a second.

Gently, gently, gently, Dave.

Down.

I just gave it a touch, Dave.

That's about my lowest bit.

Budgetary, we're going to try to put her home here.

Once there,

we knew we had it.

And we clamped it down.

Oh, my goodness.

Joseph,

chime up.

As much as dusted our hands off, heaved enormous sighs of relief.

Mission accomplished.

I think the record will show we came out of our suits about eight and a half hours after we had gone into them.

It was an unusually long spacewalk.

But we had one satellite locked aboard.

As mission specialist Anna Fisher waits for the two spacewalkers to return, she can't quite believe that it's worked.

You know,

you believe in yourself and you think you can do it, and we did.

But still, at the same time, you know that there are a lot of things that can go wrong that are not necessarily in your control.

So, when they came in from the spacewalk, oh my gosh, it was just so amazing.

But the mission isn't over.

There's still another satellite drifting uselessly in space: West Star 6.

6.

Mission Control and the crew decide to scrap the original plan for capturing West Star and to use the same technique as before.

Only this time it's Dale Gardner who grabs the satellite.

And that's what we did.

Dale captured the second satellite every bit as easily as I had.

I claim it's because I taught him how to do it.

It's totally false claim.

Perhaps not surprisingly, we accomplished it in about six hours.

As Mission Control re-establishes contact with the crew at the end of the spacewalk, Commander Rick Hauk delivers the good news.

And Rick, in his relaxed drawl, said, Roger, we have two satellites latched in the bay.

We have two satellites safely aboard.

Roger, that gave us a big cheer down here.

Thank you.

You could hear the mission control people people cheering through the microphone of the Capcom.

It was really quite fun.

But before the two spacewalkers go back inside, there's one more thing.

Dale went into the airlock and untaped from the edge of the airlock

a sign that we had prepared in advance of the flight that said for sale.

Satellite for sale.

Westar, along with Palapa, will soon be in the ownership of the insurance companies who plan to sell them on.

After all the preparation and planning, the technical challenges, coming up with a whole new plan on the fly during the mission, and nearly 15 hours of spacewalks, the crew feel they can allow themselves a little joke.

I took a photograph of Dale Gardner holding the for sale sign with a Nikon camera I was carrying with me.

And the photo shows part of the earth, the blackness of space, the for sale sign, and

my likeness reflected in Dalg's helmet.

A favorite photo of mine to this day.

Hello.

On the last day of the mission,

the astronauts on board Discovery receive a call.

Is this Rick?

From a rather significant person.

Yes, sir.

How are you doing, Mr.

President?

Well, just fine, and you.

It's good to hear your voice.

President Ronald Reagan wants them to know how much of an achievement this mission is.

I pump a little iron whenever I get the chance, but

I don't know about that satellite lifting and how much it matters to the shuttle program.

Our space program has reached another important milestone with your successful retrieval of those two satellites.

You've demonstrated that by putting man in space on board America's space shuttle, we can work in space in ways that we never imagined were possible.

It was extraordinarily important for the program.

Spacewalk specialist Jerry Miller.

The shuttle was very much in its early days.

It was unlike anything that had ever flown in space.

This was the first time

that the unbelievable flexibility and the capabilities started to become real.

At this point, in late 1984, this is the closest the shuttle has come so far to fulfilling its dream.

The cheers of those who gathered to watch the landing were perhaps a bit louder, too.

And it's catching the attention of the media.

NASA and the astronauts who did the job are very excited about the success of the salvage mission.

It's a clear demonstration to would-be paying customers that the shuttle can deliver both ways.

But this type of coverage isn't the norm.

Generally, there's not much public interest in the Space Shuttle.

Critics are suggesting the shuttle program is unnecessary, that it's too expensive, that it's not living up to the promise of routine space flight.

So, in an effort to spark new interest in the Space Shuttle program and in science and education too, too,

NASA and President Reagan decide to add a whole new dimension to human spaceflight.

Today I'm directing NASA to begin a search in all of our elementary and secondary schools and to choose as the first citizen passenger in the history of our space program, one of America's finest, a teacher.

And the winner, the teacher who will be going into space, Krista McAuliffe.

That's next time on 13 minutes.

This has been episode 6 of 10.

Thank you for listening to 13 Minutes Presents, The Space Shuttle from the BBC World Service.

It's a BBC Audio Science Production.

I'm Maggie Adarin Pocock.

13 minutes wouldn't be 13 minutes without the people who made these space stories happen and then shared them with us.

Thanks to every single one of them.

We'd like to thank NASA for its archive sound and the NASA Johnson Space Center Oral History Project for its archive interviews.

In this episode, it's interviews with Joe Allen and Rick Hauck.

Some scenes in this series use recreated sound effects.

I hope you're enjoying listening to 13 Minutes as much as I have enjoyed presenting it.

And you can guess what I'm going to ask.

Please tell everyone you know about it and leave a rating and review if your podcast app lets you do that.

It helps us so much if you do.

The 13 Minutes series producers are Florin Bohr and Jeremy Grange.

The assistant producer is Robbie Wojciechowski with additional research by Fabrize Moorhart.

Technical production is by Jackie Marjoram.

Theme music by Hans Zimmer and Christian Lundberg.

And produced by Russell Emmanuel for Bleeding Fingers Music.

The sound design is by Richard Gould from Skywalker Sound.

Our story editor is Jessica Lindsay.

The senior podcast producer for the BBC World Service is Anne Dixie.

The podcast commissioning commissioning editor is John Mannell.

And the series editor is Martin Smith.

This is history's heroes.

People with purpose, brave ideas, and the courage to stand alone.

Including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War.

You know, he would look at these men and he would say, Don't worry, Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you.

Join me, Alex von Tunselmann, for History's Heroes.

Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts.