THE SPACE AGE

politan life insurance company metropolitan with over 60,000 employees ensures one out of every five people in the United States and Canada and that same average holds true in most of the classrooms too in addition to the Home Office at one Madison Avenue you may also know the company by one of its local offices near your home there are 66 offices in New York City and more than 1,000 coast to coast or you may have used Metropolitan's Health and Safety booklets almost 2 billion have been distributed as a public service and of course everybody knows the light that never fails [Music] admission is a nickel and in 1919 five cents makes Robert Hutchings Goddard come alive in the neighborhood Nickelodeon his scientific paper a method of reaching extreme altitudes has just been published by the Smithsonian Institution its principles of rocket propulsion and flight will become classics and Robert Hutchings Goddard will become the father of the Space Age [Music] [Applause] in his laboratory at Clark University dr. Goddard begins work on a high-altitude rocket he speaks of one day reaching the moon and critics and skeptics call him the moon rocket men but dr. Goddard remains steadfast the idea of shooting for the moon is based on sound physical principles he says it can be done dr. Goddard will labor six years just to get his first liquid propellant rocket off the ground but when he does on March 16th 1926 at Auburn Massachusetts it will be one of the most significant scientific achievements in human history [Music] dr. Goddard continuous testing in Massachusetts for three years then his Rockets become so big so successful that they constitute a fire hazard in 1930 with the financial grant from the Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Foundation he moves to Roswell New Mexico [Music] a little wooden workshop is built in Roswell and it is here in the next decade but Robert Hutchings Goddard and his small staff test and pioneers so many space-age firsts but even today it is impossible to design build and fire a rocket without infringing on a Goddard patent dr. Goddard's remarkable research is recorded in his own motion pictures with their typewritten titles they are home movies but perhaps the most amazing home movies ever seen the living record of a pioneering genius these historic and exclusive motion pictures follow step by step a Goddard countdown a countdown that will set the pattern for all countdowns to come [Applause] as the countdown enters its final moments as the firing mechanism is activated Robert Hutchins Goddard personally checks the rocket down to the last detail and then with all sister go he runs to join his assistance in the truck that will carry them to still another space age first dr. Goddard's wooden block house tension and excitement build and build and build the crude little Rockets of Massachusetts have made way for larger more sophisticated models rockets that carry barometers thermometers and even cameras in their nose cones and to retrieve the instruments intact dr. Goddard is experimented with and perfected history's first rocket recovery by parachute in 1935 dr. Goddard his built and is ready to launch the 15-foot rocket weighing 85 pounds this will be one of his greatest days and finest hours Robert Hutchings Goddard has fired the world's first supersonic rocket [Music] in 1941 with America at war dr. Goddard goes to work for the United States Navy adapting his liquid fuel rocket motors for jet-assisted airplane takeoffs although his rocket has gone from vertical to horizontal and has diminished somewhat in size it does the job it is asked to do helping thrust the heavily loaded aircraft into flight [Music] this is all that America sees of importance in Robert Hutchings Goddard and his liquid propellant rocket [Music] across the Atlantic Nazi Germany has found other more terrible uses for liquid fuel rockets [Music] and when the first d2 rumbles skyward in 1944 it is laid out from nose to tail in exactly the same manner as dr. Goddard's New Mexico Rockets [Music] [Music] after the war German scientists will be asked about their awesome rockets why do you ask us these questions they reply why don't you ask your own rocket pioneer dr. Goddard we learn these things from him dr. Goddard cannot answer he has died august 10th 1945 [Music] in the years after the end of World War two the science of rocketry begins to catch up with the amazing genius of dr. Goddard two white mice are sealed in a nose cone and readied for supersonic flight into space the new rockets are bigger faster and streak higher than ever before [Music] cameras captures spectacular pictures of the earth and even more amazing films of the mice floating freely and alive in the weightless world of zero gravity man has proved that creatures can live in space on earth an airforce Colonel John Paul Stapp rides a rocket sled at supersonic speeds to see if humans can survive the pressure of gravity that builds up traveling into and out of orbit [Music] his face reflecting the strain Colonel Stapp is subjected to gravitational pressure 35 times his own weight as the sled is braked to a stop October fourth 1957 Russia orbit Sputnik 1 the Earth's first man-made satellite the 184-pound sphere circles the globe every 90 minutes flashing a series of radio signals back to earth on November 3rd 1957 the russian dog laika becomes the first living creature to orbit the earth scientists place the animal in Sputnik to attach recording devices to measure heartbeat and breathing and then launch capsule and passenger from Sputnik to 160 miles above the earth listen for the heartbeat of Laika [Music] in america a chimpanzee named ham they sent into orbit on january thirty first nineteen sixty one [Music] the launch vehicle is a redstone rocket and the procedures follow closely those to be used in Project Mercury [Music] the little space pioneer reaches a height of 150 miles before dropping back in the Atlantic 420 miles from the launch site helicopter deposits the chimp and his capsule on deck am the chimpanzee is a trailblazer in space [Music] April 1219 61 a secret launching site somewhere in Soviet Russia [Music] science has broken the chains that for centuries shackled humans to the planet Earth yuri gagarin circles the earth three times at a height of 100 miles and a speed of 18,000 miles an hour the conquest by the Soviet cosmonaut is but the first in a series of Russian space triumphs the crowd susumu Gagarin later we'll pay tribute to valentina Tereshkova first woman in space and the three-man crew of the vas got one in the United States as astronauts train and prepare for spaceflight there is little of the secrecy that shrouds Soviet rocket research Americans are kept informed step by step for brief periods in diving airplanes US astronauts experience the sensations and problems of weightlessness John Glenn is the first American to orbit the Earth the date februari twentieth nineteen sixty-two while America and the world watches and listens the former Marine pilot takes his place in the Mercury capsule that he has named friendship seven t-minus ten seconds counting eight seven six five four three two one zero ignition [Music] the clock is operating under way John Glenn circles the earth three times recording and reporting sites never-before-seen making space travel seem almost routine after some five hours the astronaut and his capsule dropped back in the Atlantic recovery ships make the pickup and John Glenn and the friendship 7 mark still another milestone on man's Road to the stars the pace of exploration in space is quickening the results are becoming more spectacular in America and in the Soviet Union cosmonauts Pavel Bure if'n Alexei Leonov hurtle into orbit on March eighteen nineteen sixty-five and carry out an amazing exploit in space they are off leaves