IT COULDN'T BE DONE

[Music] you're about to see and hear some of the most amazing stories and man's conquest of the impossible how this man helped his father to create the towering tribute of Mount Rushmore now this man plans to build a bridge from Alaska to Russia you can drive from New York to Paris ah this man walked high above San Francisco Bay to help create the Golden Gate how this man predicts flying buildings of the future you will relive some of man's greatest achievements and will look into the unbelievable future as we proudly present [Music] ruff the uncrossable blast got breathe gonna build like I'm gonna build that roads gonna do what I can [Music] it couldn't be done stars as your host and narrator Academy Award winner Lee Marvin with special guest stars the fifth dimension introducing folk singer Steve Mills and featuring the American working men who did the impossible this program is brought to you by the bell system all day every day serving you and now the star of paint your wagon and Marty Walsh your host Lee Marvin man is always strive for immortality some larger small way of letting generations to come nobody has been here the task happens to be one that the experts say cannot possibly be done when the challenge is even greater the urge to leave our individual mark on this earth is with us all a child sandcastle might easily wash away but his dreams might someday lead to conquering the impossible such a dreamer with sculptor Gutzon Borglum in 1927 portland working on a model in the studio near mount rushmore south dakota began a project that the experts said simply couldn't be done as a tribute to American democracy Borglum had decided to carve the world's largest memorial out of the solid granite of the Black Hills his son Lincoln Borglum supervised much of the carving and remembers the tremendous difficulties his father faced this was a thing to convince people that you could go up onto the side of a mountain a piece of raw granite and create a memorial the usual reaction was that it was impossible but it couldn't be done and of course this goes back to the basic thinking that most people feel that nothing can be done if they haven't seen it done before we tried to use trained stone carvers when you took them out of the environment of a stone quarry and hung them on the side of a mountain on the end of a cable and they looked down between their legs and they see 300 feet straight down to the ground their perspective all changing their work suffered entirely from it I mean they were not happy at all they were interested in was getting back up that cable to the top of the mouth I think you constantly live with danger but it was a calculated risk so that she worked really worried about it she knew that if you stepped back off the scaffolding you'd fall a couple hundred feet so you didn't step back off the scaffolding work often stop because of the lack of money Gutzon Borglum had to make frequent trips to Washington to plead for additional funds with good weather and sunlight only available a few months of each year Lincoln Borglum and his co-workers struggled against the odds and the granite of the Black Hills there was no textbook on mountain carving and Gutzon Borglum the artist also had to become an engineer a geologist and a miner but the artist always prevailed Abraham Lincoln's eyes are lifelike because Borglum resets the pupil to remain in the shadow except for shafts of granite that reflect the light since the granite here erodes less than one inch every 100,000 years Borglum was confident that his memorial would last for eternity [Music] one of borglum's assistant mountain farmers remembers a tourist Oh some of the questions are marvelous well remembered I worked on Rushmore they wanted to know what they did with the heads in the winter time we always told him well you put him in the studio after all you can't leave him out there in the cold father and son worked together for 13 years and then sadly Gutzon died a year before Rushmore was completed it had not been for his dedication to this concept it would never have been done he mortgaged his immortal soul to see that it was going to be tired it's not basically a monument to the four figures that are up there but to what these men represented in the growth and the progress of the United States as much as I have been there crawled all over that damn piece of rock measured every inch of it time after time I can't ever go back up there that get the lump in my throat Batroc gonna shape that's another change that impossible [Music] but Mount Rushmore was not to be the last of the mountain monuments we have the same principle as a jet engine it has the same fuel and we are carving with the back glass from the torch at Stone Mountain Georgia the largest single work of sculptural art in the world has just been completed a tribute to the Confederacy featuring general robert e lee jefferson davis and general Stonewall Jackson the carved out area is approximately the size of a football field [Music] we talked with Roy Faulkner sculptural the torch in the old days in the 20s when they were working up there there was 30 and 35 men today we have myself doing the carving and I have two young men helping me so that's a big crew of three one man with a torch can carve an eight hours what used to take eight men a week to do by hand but the danger is still there I think the funniest expression you can see on the man's face that there is a where he'll be working on a platform a scalpel and to be working and take one step backwards and maybe step from just the thickness of a board from one level to the other and you see his face go white he looked at him to see if anybody saw him this is something that is a little humorous but dangerous at the same time then the score shocked Joel Kowski just a few miles from Mount Rushmore also in the Black Hills of South Dakota he and his five sons are carving the figure of Chief Crazy Horse's a tribute to the American Indians jeweled husky now 61 has been planning and working on the project for over 30 years ever since an Indian Henry Standing Bear asked him to carve a memorial for his people I had $174 to stop this project so I bought a cow and dug a well lived in a tent down there about seven months people kind of skeptical about it to show the people its concept Tsiolkovsky carved a huge detail model of Chief Crazy Horse but when the monument is carved in the mountain that size will be staggering the union's head alone will be as large as the foreheads of Mount Rushmore combined and 4,000 people could stand in the area under the arm jewel Kowski works without the benefit of government funds preferring to keep his work independent mr. Stewart Udall I liked him very much he's the Secretary of the Interior came here about six years ago yeah said mr. Joe Cosley how long it take you to finish this project and I said I don't know five or ten million dollars he said that's what I've heard he well he said I'll tell you what you do you come to Washington we sit down we'll have a we'll draw up an ironclad contract and between the government yourself Secretary of Interior and the Crazy Horse Commission I said an ironclad contract I said mr. secretary tell me about those ironclad treaties you drew up with the Indians well you know he didn't get angry with me thank heavens because we are still good friends today but you asked how much it going to cost it could have been done yes the skeptics and the doubters continue to question core shock one day years and years ago I went down to watch the blast down at the studio this fellow said to me mister how do you know that crazy was in that mountain I looked at a night I didn't quite believe him but he was serious and I said well I'll tell you what I do every morning I look they die till about 810 16-foot holes and then I fill them full of dynamite and just as I pull up the plunger I say Crazy Horse you there and I push the plunger down he says horshack Joukowsky calls himself a storyteller installed but this veteran of Omaha Beach is also a dreamer who hopes to build here someday an Indian cultural center and University and medical complex there are experts who say it can't be done and skeptics who say it will never pick up the core John continues his dream a tribute to the Indians of America and to Mans endurance to build the impossible area code 202 Washington DC the nation's capital the Lincoln Memorial Jefferson rotunda [Music] and the Washington Monument in 1832 when money was raised by subscription and blocks of stone were sent from every state a lot of people said it couldn't be done but it was the Washington Monument was opened to the public in 1888 a hollow shaft of stone over 555 feet high it has a high-speed elevator inside that whisks you to the top in 70 seconds from here you can see all of Washington when you take your trip to Washington share all the fun and excitement with your family by long distance the bridge builders of America certainly lead the parade when it comes to building what people said couldn't be done for example it was a guy back in 1867 James YZ was his name and he announced through the world that he was going to bridge the mighty Mississippi River well all the experts said that he was crazy in fact the convention of 27 of the world's leading engineers condemned the idea as foolhardy and he responsible but EADS knew more about the turbulent Mississippi than any man alive and he was a natural engineering genius at st. Louis he created a triple span arch bridge over 1500 feet and to end but he did it with a material that had never before been used for a bridge superstructure steel in 1873 EADS completed the so-called impossible bridge across the Mississippi where it stands today nearly a century later at the same time another gifted engineer George Washington Roebling took over the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge which had been started by his father while fighting it underwater fire on the bridge foundation roebling's suffered caisson disease from rapid decompression what they call today the bends ahead of him was a decade of work demanding the most exacting knowledge and technical skill but now he was crippled with some brain damage and scarcely able to talk and then began the unbelievable story although every movement was torture roving devised a code with his wife Emily tapping on her arm to give her instructions Emily in turn studied mathematics engineering and bridge designed eventually she was able to take her husband's tapped out instructions and transmit his orders to his assistant engineers and to inspect construction Roebling when he was able watched the progress from his window through binoculars Thomas Edison took these rare pictures of the construction of the new Brooklyn Bridge and then on May 24th 1883 Roebling looking through his binoculars saw what his wife described as gray granite ollars standing tall and strong for the cable shimmering in the Sun and as the mayors of New York and Brooklyn joined with the president Chester Arthur and governor Grover Cleveland to officially open the bridge tears streamed on the faces of Emily and George Roland after 13 tortures he is they had completed their Brooklyn Bridge [Music] since then many famous and beautiful bridges have been created in America such as the verrazano-narrows in New York and a Royal Gorge Bridge in Colorado and then there is what the bridge builders around the world call the bridge by 1920 bridge designer Joseph Strauss had built 399 bridges throughout the world and he dreamed that his 400th bridge would do the impossible bridge the world-famous harbor of San Francisco for 10 years Strauss at opposition from all sides vested interests brought court injunctions claiming tolls would be excessive eminent geologists said that an earthquake would completely demolish any bridge across the Golden Gate some of the world's leading engineers claims it would be totally impossible to work under the ferocious winds and tides of the channel many people protested that any bridge would ruin the natural beauty of the harbor but in 1933 the voters of five Bay area counties passed a 35 million dollar bond issue and Strauss started to build the bridge that couldn't possibly be built Strauss designed the towers to rise 746 feet above the bay 190 feet taller than the Washington Monument he had little trouble with the North Tower since its foundation was on solid rock but the foundation of the South Tower seemed to be an impossibility fighting channel depths of over 300 feet with currents up to 15 and 20 knots and winds sometimes as high as 75 miles an hour Strauss how to construct what would be the equivalent of a ten-story building under water the access trestles to the foundation site were right twice first by a fog-bound ship and then by a storm and critics of the bridge screamed for a halt to the construction for over a year the bridge builders waged their historic fight in conditions equivalent to the open sea they blasted bombs on the channel floor and poured concrete into those 10-story underwater foundations as the pier finally brought through the surface of the channel it was held around the world as one of the engineering marvels of all time however the bridge builders battle against the Golden Gate had only begun during earthquakes the towers swayed violently and the men working at the top actually got seasick but the towers continue their dramatic rise above the golden gate we're all set here are you ready barge okay we're coming across we're riding fair really not bad the first cable was carried across the channel and Hall to the top of the tower the first of 80,000 miles of wire the cable operation was underway they had a fight storms winds cars and fog throughout the next three years inspector Wesley guts remembers his days on the towers we go out take the elevator to the top of the San Francisco Tower and then walk across the catwalk to the Marin Tower was usually foggy and windy and cold good deal like today and you are rubber rain gear to keep dry but by the time you had hiked up the catwalk to the top of them are in tower it was like rubber rain gear like being in a Turkish bath you were just soaked to the skin you might as well have left the rain gear off one day trouble developed out on one of the cables to bridge builders volunteered to climb out and fix the broken work carriage one of the men Clyde Hepworth recalls his tightrope act high above the Golden Gate we got to be six and set it on two of the cables and slid out yeah clear up the cable and they were gonna bring us back but they got a scared when we get out there and we had to walk those cables we walked from one cage the other that made mug deny the first two that ever caught going gate as the bridge builders continue to fight the elements and fate itself Bay Area residents watched in amazement as the bridge builders built the road in the sky slowly the great steel arms inch closer together with man's first attempt to bridge a major harbour with the longest single span in history the huge safety nets under the workmen had already caught and saved 19 lives when tragedy finally struck one day a wooden platform collapsed and crashed through the safety nets there were two men directly under me maybe 200 feet from the tower it rolled those two men up like in a cocoon it hung there for possibly a minute and then broke loose and that's the last we saw those two fellows [Music] those were two of ten bridge builders who fell to the death on that tragic afternoon [Music] but the bridge builders continue to fight the odds struggling on to finish the bridge that couldn't be built Strauss decided to give the bridge of distinctive color international orange he called it and over 60,000 gallons were needed but as Bridgman water Cathy recalls not all of the paint went on the bridge so we had a man he had quite a little time on his hands and he'd set snares and catch seagulls he'd bait the tops of their heads red and then he'd turned them loose and one day we looked in the paper and there was quite an article in there about the new species of seagulls at the redheads and I guess he'd painted half the Seeger phones in San Francisco and then in May of 1937 four and a half years after the start of construction Strauss completed his 400th bridge the bridge builders had created a poem in Steel [Music] hammer [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] fling [Music] area code nine one nine Kittyhawk North Carolina summer resort deep-sea fishing area waterfowl Haven and the Wright brothers Museum before 1903 everybody said it couldn't be done man wasn't meant to fly but on this tiny field horville and Wilbur Wright made the first airplane flights under perfect control and under their own power [Music] the longest flight was 852 feet the top speed about 30 miles an hour it's all right here in this museum it's worth the trip but it's also a good idea to flown ahead for reservations before you leave for Kitty Hawk 3 engineering miracle spanning over a hundred years dramatically changed the history of the United States the Erie Canal joining the Atlantic and the Great Lakes the Transcontinental Railroad linking California and the East Coast and the Panama Canal joining ocean to ocean we're all considered in possibilities by many leading experts of their time [Music] yet between 1817 and 1825 Irish immigrants attracted by the wage of 80 cents a day used pick-and-shovel to create what was the longest man-made waterway in history the Erie Canal they carved out a canal 363 miles long over a trackless mosquito infested wilderness working with primitive equipment and untested engineering ideas but the builders of the Erie Canal created the impossible and joined the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean revolutionising commerce and trade throughout the northeastern United States and the wild majestic mountain stood alone against its own then the green dark forest moves to smile to be read out in California citizens were laughing in a man a nickname crazy Judah Judah had the insane idea of building a railroad through the gigantic Sierra Nevada in 1865 thousands of Chinese laborers working with the Central Pacific began construction of theatres Judah's railroad over some of the most treacherous mountains in the world with no heavy machinery of dynamite available at the time every foot was gained by pick and shovel blasting was done first with black powder and later with nitroglycerin and the danger of landslides was chronic nevertheless in 1869 the workers of the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific met at promontory Utah and the United States was linked from ocean to ocean another attempt to link the oceans this one across the Isthmus of Panama had been started in the 1880s by the French engineer Ferdinand de Lesseps the builder of the Suez Canal but after fifty thousand of his Canal workers had died from the combined effects of malaria yellow fever in the extreme heat de Lesseps abandoned the project but in 1903 the Americans attacked the impossible man's centuries-old dream of joining the Atlantic in the Pacific and thus eliminating the ten thousand mile voyage around the southern tip of South America general Glen Edgerton was there in nineteen eight malaria was rampant but then every employee was supposed to take three grains of wine on a day as a plenty if he got sick by of course they gave you much more they coarsely puts full source of the common labor was the West India Ireland but today British and the French they British workers were very orderly but the French workers were a little further and inferior they would attack perform in a cage latest statistics were overwhelming over 55,000 men struggling in the hundred degree heat while medical officers attacked the problems of malaria and yellow fever and engineers tried to solve the infinite problems of construction it would eventually take 60 million tons of dynamite to remove 270 million cubic yards of Earth and rock sometimes at the cost of ten million dollars a mile the American medical team recklessly solved the problems of disease and the engineers and the workers created the unbelievable locks the locks 1,000 feet long and 110 feet wide are the largest in the world the impossible Panama Canal became a fact former Canal Zone governor and congressman Maurice Thatcher age 99 recalls someone as well said that the construction of the Panama Canal constituted evidence of the greatest liberty that man knew they were taking with nature [Music] would be worn but the attempted baton they walk disease and 11 years they join the sea yes blue the impossible is it it would be done [Music] jackhammer John was a jackhammer man born with a jackhammer in well I got their jackhammer food the what are your three song about the jackhammer man introduces one of the most colorful groups of them all the dam builders Americans have become the biggest builders of dams in the history of man since 1902 the Bureau of Reclamation has constructed over 195 dams without a single failure but the life of the dam builder is the most hazardous and modern construction accounting for more deaths than any other construction work I scaler Joe kind worked on the most famous and controversial of them all Hoover Dam one time while working here down here on the ropes one of my very close buddies is working directly with me he is not slipped a little and of course when you're not slips in this for 500 feet below you to fall it gives you a rather a thrill and he grabbed the hold of his rope and held up there and he put his hands up right quick and says hold on there buddy hold on he was talking to he's not located on the border of Arizona and Nevada hoover dam was born in controversy engineers and geologists insisted that it would be impossible to build a wall across the treacherous Colorado River they claimed that the first big flood would sweep the dam away and wipe out half of California in the process but starting in 1930 sparked by the dreams of Arthur Paul Davis the government started the pour of 7 million tons of concrete the greatest weight that man has ever placed on earth always true well I got them jackhammer Aaron so that the concrete mass would knit together in one piece the pouring went on 24 hours a day 365 days a year continuously for two years temperatures in the desert heat often reached well over a hundred degrees as recall by Tommy Nelson country does run a very high temperature and some of these peddlers are croppers back in the diversion tunnels the temperature perhaps exceeded 135 degrees Fahrenheit and Doug Moore also remembers the heed when you came home off the job you didn't have to worry about hanging your clothes up they were sweat soaked and still for salty to stand them in the corner where you got up and to make the next shift like just step into them and ready to go to work even in the depression days there were some compensations Andersen's miss all fed the man very very good for a dollar and a half a day and his surprising how much lunch some of those guys could get into one of these boxes they could cram 12 sandwiches and three or four oranges in the two or three pieces of pie it just made you wonder I'll be crammed it all in there despite unprecedented safety measures at Hoover Dam danger and death haunted those trying to tame the Colorado the wild river having been shut off by the huge dice Rose 50 feet above the heads of the workers and see-through Rock tunnels on either side of them eventually 98 men would lose their lives during construction but after six long years Hoover Dam was completed it had introduced an unprecedented scope style and technique to dam building it had created Lake Mead the largest man-made lake in the world a scenic wonder and it was to irrigate the barren Southwest and to like the homes of millions in Southern California joke I'm recalls the final working days the hard work real hard working one man got laid off that evening as we was going home and as we saw on our way home up by the hairpin curve where we turn around the man looked back at this dam and looked at the great achievement of man's ability there is he's building and he just stopped and he looked at it and he said I hope at least [Music] oh well I got them Jack ample area code three one for st. Louis Missouri on the banks of the Mississippi it's here on the way north from New Orleans but the Blues stayed for good sports and breweries cereals and chemicals and the arch the Gateway part even today when it's all finished you look at it and you say to yourself it couldn't be done but there it is a gateway to the west 630 feet of stainless steel just standing there tall and proud and you can even ride up one side and down the other that's a trip you really ought to take but please phone ahead for your rooms before you head to the arch the part can be mighty cold the dreamers of the impossible have always confounded the experts in 1920 engineer Clifford Holland started construction of a tunnel between New York and New Jersey their building of the Holland Tunnel the actual building of it wasn't as much of a problem as finding a plan because that was the first automobile tunnel and there were people that thought that that was an impossibility to take so many automobile through so long a tunnel without asphyxiation people but Holland's chief designing engineer only since dad created a revolutionary ventilation system for the Holland Tunnel and had the last laugh sure we have estimated that they're ultimately that tunnel would carry 38,000 vehicles but it would take a number of years before you to reach them but at Sunday midnight after the first 24 hours the traffic count was 52 thousand vehicles and one of the new york daily papers reported fish and it said the air in the tunnel was better than on the fifth avenue and then there was the so-called impossible skyscraper the Empire State its creator said that they could build it in less than two years and then it would be able to withstand any force in nature while skeptics Washington amazement the tallest building in the world was completed in less than 14 months as to its endurance this was tested in 1945 when a b25 crashed into the building at 250 miles an hour ripping out a large section of the 79th floor but no major structural damage occurred but perhaps one of America's greatest engineering achievements is the highway system of the United States often taken for granted by Americans and often maligned for its effect on our natural environment the American highway network is nevertheless the engineering wonder of the 20th century the most dramatic Road building story in our lifetime happened just 30 years ago early in 1942 government contractors posted this notice of employment offices throughout the United States and Canada this is no picnic working in living conditions on this job or as difficult as any encountered on any construction job ever done in the United States or foreign territory temperatures will range from 90 degrees above 0 to 70 degrees below zero mosquitoes flies knives will not only be annoying but will cause bodily harm if you are not prepared to work under these conditions do not apply [Music] with the start of World War two there was an immediate strategic necessity to build an Alaskan highway an oil pipeline to the Arctic Circle the road builders had less than a year to complete the 1600 mile highway before the spring thaw of 1943 the builders had across the massive Canadian Rockies bridge countless streams and swamps and tear into hundreds of miles of Bush when temperatures hit 40 degrees below zero machinery broke down to add to the difficulties the first thaw came before the job was completed sessions of the road were threatened by melting ice bulldozers frequently sank in the ice or mud it seemed an impossible task but the builders completed the road on schedule and now nearly three decades later another road builder desires to go one step further the alaska highway was conceived in war this new road is conceived in peace dr. t wine Lynn of the University of California recently made world headlines when he proposed a highway to connect the United States with Russia it would be a highway bridge across the Bering Sea 50 miles long the purpose is step to demonstrate to the world that it is quite possible to link the continents together bring the countries together and the people together and this can be easily done by bridging across the Bering Strait from Alaska to Siberia in a distance of 50 miles which is not very deep at maximum depth of 180 feet if we can build a bridge across you proved to the peoples of the world that we can work together and the whole world is one dr. Lynn would like to finance this billion-dollar project by having every American in every Russian contribute two dollars many experts say it can't be done but dr. Lynn has no doubt that he will someday build his bridge of peace there is another symbol of international understanding the World Trade Center in New York City it will become the world's tallest building rising over 1300 feet into the sky from a helicopter we see the New York as it will appear from the top of the Trade Center even New York's tallest building seemed to shrink in comparison a steelworker John McKeever looked at this United Nations of Commerce which he's helping to build that kangaroo up there's the one I'm working on right now and after this job is over maybe 15 years from now I'll bring my children back here my three sons and I'll show them what we built there that poles building in the world and throughout the United States stand other impressive landmarks of man's ingenuity [Music] way down [Music] Oh working in Raqqa I've been leaning on pressure drill Oh [Music] wait [Music] been working in a hotrod car I've been leaning on pressure drill my feet [Music] area code 603 Mount Washington New Hampshire the highest mountain in the eastern part of the country and it's the hub of the world's first cog railway back in 1869 when the railway was first built a lot of folks said it couldn't be done but it was [Music] round trip up Mount Washington on the cog railway takes about two hours the incline gets as steep as 37 degrees it's an exciting and beautiful trip with lots to see and enjoy you want to try and when you do keep in touch with home by phone [Music] and what about the future what's seemingly impossible dreams do designers and engineers share for the decades ahead powerful laser beam capable of drilling holes and diamonds and welding metals are just one revolutionary tool for the future working man helicopters will be adapted for even more extensive use in construction nuke your excavation of mountains and oceans will create everything from new canals linking in the Atlantic and the Pacific to harbours in Alaska to new roads and rail passages through mountain ranges to new methods of recovery of natural resources many designers are testing the feasibility of living in caves with all the modern conveniences while others are creating homes of new plastics which can float on water the city of Baltimore is testing the feasibility of floating an entire community of five thousand in the same way that the Astrodome covers the Houston Stadium designers are now planning to put entire cities under glass with perfect environmental control year-round prefabricated housing on a massive scale is being tested for possible elimination of slums and methods of pollution abatement through engineering are being designed by dreamers of the future they told the Wright brothers that a heavier than air machine couldn't be built they told for that the mass-produced automobile would never work and they told professor Robert Goddard in the 1920s that he'd never see Rockets get off the ground and today some of the experts disagree with Arthur Clarke's contention that the next revolution and transportation will be what is called the ground effect machine a vehicle that floats on air and can go anywhere in the world over land or water and Buckminster Fuller predicts that we'll all put jet wings on our backs and fly out the window on frequency beams you're going to see that our space industry converted into the development how that renting service industry where you see whole cities being delivered by air and in one in one day this is the whole freedom ships of the sea coming in through a harbor and the day coming in from the air is even easier as we really prior highest capability you see them buildings the size the Empire State can be built horizontally in the aircraft plant others their environmental their environmental controls be produced in and controlled environment and the most extraordinary advanced tooling there's no human man hands back to touch a thing everything's automated you see this very rapid assemblies of these environment controls and then they will be brittle all lifters that come out of they're out of their hangar factory and then they when they get to the site they will be made tenth from the horizontal which is the easy way to move through the air into the vertical so this is this is what you're going to seen you see this within 10 years from today and as the Clarkes and the Fuller's and other world planners and designers contemplate the year 2000 when 100 million more Americans will join the present 210 million population their dreams turn to the great oceans where 7 tenths of the world exists some designers have speculated that we will have floating cities of 50,000 people or more by the 21st century after we have learned in the next few decades how to divert hurricanes and typhoons and these floating cities will be able to move about and take advantage of the best climates available around the world John Lindbergh son of another man who did what the experts said couldn't be done is one of the foremost pioneers in underwater exploration he in an associate spent forty nine hours living in a 4x8 rubber tent at a depth of 432 feet in the Bahamas while the dive we made in the Bahamas helped to establish that it is possible for men to work at depths in excess of 400 feet and since then we know that he can work at depths at a thousand feet and more in the years ahead is going to be increasingly important that we learn how to utilize the resources of the sea in depths beyond that to which man can dive beyond which he can exist if the pressures involved in order to cope with those pressures he'll have to work and live in pressurized compartments at atmospheres that are very similar to those in which we're in right now I think we can look forward to deep-sea oil exploration deep sea mineral exploitation the development of biological resources that we can do all of these without damaging the ecology but I think we will have to consider the ecology with every move that we make often in the past we have not done so and as the dreamers try to find solutions on land and on ocean floors man continues his quest of the universe of the moon of Mars of the solar system itself in a never-ending quest to do the impossible this weekend and every weekend you can telephone coast-to-coast for as little as seventy cents it all began in Boston 1876 with Alexander Graham Bell the first telephone the first switchboards the first operators soon telephone lines to New York to Chicago and westward and from San Francisco East lines from east and west meet in Utah the year 1915 the minimum rate on the call from New York to San Francisco in 1915 20 dollars and 70 cents years past phone service expands and long-distance rates drop dramatically the minimum rate for a coast-to-coast call by 1920 was $8.25 1927 five dollars and fifty cents [Music] 1943 dollars by 1963 $1 US tax in 1970 the minimum is 70 cents plus tax coast-to-coast on calls you dial yourself on weekends 70 cents for a 3-minute call from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday and 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Sunday in 1915 20 dollars and 70 cents in 1970 70 cents plus tax they said it couldn't be done but it was now these great stories of American engineering and not all glamorous chapters created by superheroes these builders were men not saints and many of the workers especially in the 19th century were often grossly abused overworked and underpaid but under good conditions and bad these workers and the designers and the engineers who did their dreaming we're certainly builders of the impossible astronauts report it feels good ignition sequence 3 [Music] [Applause] astronaut Neil Armstrong when he returned from America's greatest engineering achievement stated I felt a successful lunar landing might inspire a man around the world to believe that impossible goals are possible that there really is hope for solutions to humanity's problems and the religious philosopher TR de Chardin has predicted someday after mastering the winds the waves the tides we shall harness for God the energies of love and then for a second time in the history of the world man will have discovered fire it would seem that if American know-how running talent perseverance and just plain guts it could build this town this roadway this canal this bridge and certainly this know-how should be able to come up with imaginative answers the pessimists are saying that we can't solve our problems just as the pessimist stole the Strauss's and the bored ones that it couldn't be done but perhaps we have in our mr. day visionaries who will be able to do with communication what builders have done in engineering to solve the impossible perhaps we can start building new bridges between each other [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] they can [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] and we are [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]