[rocket engines roaring] >> Narrator: In 1957 the launch of the world's first satellite by the Soviet Union ushered in a Cold War crisis that came to be known as the race for space.

>> Recognizing the head start obtained by the Soviets with their large rocket engines gives them many months of lead time, and recognizing the likelihood that they will exploit this lead for some time to come and still more impressive successes, we nevertheless are required to make new efforts on our own.

For while we cannot guarantee that we shall one day be first, we can guarantee that any failure to make this effort will make us last.

>> Narrator: To overcome the Soviet lead President John Kennedy openly declared the finish line to be the Moon.

Before sending humans, the U.S. strategy called for first launching robotic spacecraft, a job assigned to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

>> Burke: Now we know we're doing something really important and we'd better do it right, and quickly.

>> Parks: There was no book.

We had to figure them all out as we went along.

And of course, in that environment, you're gonna make some mistakes.

>> Narrator: JPL's ambition was to explore the planets.

But to the lab's surprise, even crash landing a spacecraft on the Moon would prove a humbling experience.

[rocket engines roaring] >> Casani: We were on a new journey.

Nobody really knew where it was going to lead to.

>> Narrator: "Destination Moon."

"Beginnings of the Space Age."

Next.

[upbeat anticipatory music] [upbeat anticipatory music] In October of 1957 the Soviet Union shocked the world with the launch of the first Earth-orbiting satellite, Sputnik.

America's response, a satellite called Vanguard, was also a surprising and spectacular event.

[rocket engines roaring] [rocket engines exploding] Vanguard would be only one in a long string of setbacks for the United States' space program.

On a visit to the U.S. in 1959 Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev made sure to underscore the disparity between the two nations.

>> Newscaster: A successful Moon rocket heralded Khrushchev's arrival in America.

A scientific feat heavily capitalized on by red propaganda, it gave solid foundation to Khrushchev's boasts of Soviet achievement.

>> Narrator: America's hopes for competing in the race for the heavens rested with its newly formed space agency the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

NASA was given an assortment of technical facilities scattered across the country.

One of them was the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

>> There was about 500 employees.

Maybe half of that was engineers and scientists.

Procurement was one guy [laughs].

Now it's a whole division of people.

Parking is a big problem now.

In those days parking was no problem.

Everybody drove on lab through the main gate here.

Park wherever you want [laughs].

[thoughtful music] >> Narrator: Of all the groups NASA inherited JPL was apart.

This research center was then, like today, managed and staffed by employees of one of the world's most renowned engineering universities, the California Institute of Technology.

JPLers were accustomed to a tradition of independence.

From JPL's perspective NASA was a newcomer with no portfolio.

In contrast, JPL had built missiles and the first successful U.S. satellite, Explorer 1.

Already a place filled with confident engineers, this achievement had further bolstered JPL's self esteem.

>> I think JPL in the late '50s, there was a real swagger.

They felt that they were the best at what they did.

They had the inherited condescension towards government scientists.

And they felt that they should be able to run their own show.

Basically they thought, "Give us the money "and we'll give you a product here at the end.

"And don't bother us in the meantime."

>> Narrator: JPL was led by William Pickering.

A New Zealander by birth Pickering came to Caltech to study electrical engineering and went on to become the laboratory's Director.

When NASA asked Pickering his ideas for the nation's robotic space program, he responded with an ambitious plan that called for JPL flying an armada of spacecraft to the Moon and nearby planets.

[upbeat music] >> Interviewer: Before the conference we talk with Dr. William H. Pickering, director of JPL.

In matter of fact terms, he introduces the coming greatest adventure of man, a search for life on other worlds.

>> The long range purpose of unmanned exploration of the planets is the development of technology which will lead to eventual manned exploration.

Scientifically our objective is to assist in answering two basic questions.

What, if any, life forms exist on the planets?

And how has the solar system been formed?

>> Narrator: NASA executives who saw the Moon as the priority were shocked by Pickering's aspirations to reach so fast for the planets.

But the JPL Director held steadfast to targeting planets while still responding to NASA's insistence to first reach the Moon.

In the race for space Pickering pointed out that the Moon had already been lost to the Soviets.

America's only hope to win, he argued, was to compete on a larger playing field, the entire solar system.

[somber music] [rocket engines roaring] Whether the destination was the Moon or the planets, no one was going to go anywhere without a reliable rocket.

[rocket engines roaring] For both its human and robotic programs U.S. plans called for modifying military missiles.

But they were having problems of their own.

[rocket exploding] Lacking a powerful enough rocket to reach a planet, JPL had no choice but to throttle back its expectations and first target the Moon.

>> We were given the assignment as the NASA Center for deep space exploration.

Nobody else had that role.

Our assignment was to come up with a spacecraft that could go to the Moon.

I led the design team for that and that was pretty, pretty great stuff.

We didn't know what we were doing and there was nobody around that could tell us.

So [chuckles] I mean, we were inventing stuff.

♪ Come and take a trip ♪ in my rocket ship ♪ ♪ We'll have a ♪ lovely afternoon ♪ ♪ Kiss the world goodbye ♪ ♪ And away we'll fly ♪ ♪ Destination Moon ♪ >> Narrator: The strategy called for first building a spacecraft that could obtain closeup images of the Moon before crashing onto the lunar surface.

These spacecraft called Rangers were to be designed and built at JPL.

♪ We'll go up ♪ >> Narrator: A second type of spacecraft would visit the nearby planets to Venus and Mars.

♪ Straight to the Moon we two ♪ >> Narrator: Meanwhile, JPL was to select and manage the work of an industrial contractor that would build a third kind of spacecraft, one capable of soft landing on the Moon.

♪ In my space mobile ♪ >> Narrator: What seemed the least challenging of these three spacecraft were the Moon-crashing Rangers.

>> You don't need a high gain antenna or solar panels to go to the Moon.

You just have batteries and antenna that big.

Fine.

They'd get us there, you see.

So our whole Ranger philosophy was planetary precursor.

>> Narrator: In charge of the Rangers was Jim Burke.

He was a Caltech graduate, a former naval aviator who had learned his trade at JPL building missiles for the Army.

>> I wasn't afraid of the job, I thought it would be fun.

Well, [laughs] turned out a little different [laughs].

>> Narrator: Burke was well liked for his infectious enthusiasm and informal style.

A demeanor that gave little hint of the enormous pressure he was now under.

>> Pressure is always part of any project management job, but young and frisky and full of pep and armed with a good degree from a good university and a lot of very smart friends, who minds a little pressure [laughs]?

♪ We're flying high ♪ ♪ Up in the sky ♪ ♪ Destination, ♪ destination Moon ♪ [upbeat jazzy music] >> Narrator: Burke stressed keeping to a schedule.

Celestial mechanics, he knew, waited for no one.

Nor would the Russians.

But Burke soon became caught up in a conflict between schedule and science.

He wanted to learn how to fly his spacecraft before tacking on major science cargoes.

NASA countered there was no point in just hitting the Moon.

That had already been done by the Soviets.

>> My version of it, then and now, was "Look, this whole thing is ridiculous.

"They shouldn't even be thinking of putting other things "on the spacecraft until we get one that really works."

>> Narrator: Next, to Burke's dismay, Ranger was saddled with a surprise requirement by NASA.

Responding to concerns by scientists that Ranger could transport micro organisms that could contaminate the lunar surface, the spacecraft, NASA demanded, would have to be sterilized.

But how?

The answer to the horror of JPL engineers was to bake the spacecraft at temperatures above 250 degrees Fahrenheit for more than 24 hours.

What that would do to an unproven spacecraft was anyone's guess.

>> What we did was to reduce our chances of success, substantially.

>> Narrator: And there continued to be a problem entirely out of the team's power to control or fix: the rockets that would get Ranger off the ground.

The first stage rocket was a converted Air Force intercontinental ballistic missile called the Atlas.

It would launch Ranger into Earth orbit.

The second stage called Agena was to kick the spacecraft out of Earth orbit and onto the Moon.

[rocket engine roaring] It was behind schedule and hampered by technical problems.

>> Everybody understood that it was a high risk mission.

And that's why they gave us two Atlas-Agenas to launch with spacecraft, whose only function was to see if we could make them work.

>> Narrator: On the morning of August 23, 1961 Ranger 1 lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

[rocket engines roaring] All went well for the first 90 minutes.

Then telemetry showed that something had gone wrong with the second stage Agena rocket.

>> The tracking stations were all focused on the part of the sky where the spacecraft was expected to be, and there's no signal, and still no signal, and still no signal.

And finally, somebody had the brilliant idea, "Why don't we turn the antennas around and point them in the other direction."

And sure enough, there it was.

>> Narrator: Though this first mission was intended only to circle the Earth, it failed to reach a proper orbit.

Designed to fly on continuous solar power, Ranger 1 instead passed into darkness and a loss of orientation every 90 minutes.

Each time, the confused spacecraft emerged from the darkness it would reacquire the Sun and fire its engines to regain a proper position.

>> So it looked as if the spacecraft were doing exactly what it was supposed to do, and would have worked just fine if it had only had the chance.

And we were in the middle of this, in the middle of the night, and Dr. Pickering walks in trying to find out what's going on.

We're all telling him what's going on.

This guy is listening to what some 23 year-old kid is telling him about this thing that's going on out in space, and it was sort of, "Hey, if you're there talking, the assumption is, "you know what you're talking about.

"And if you don't know, the only right answer is, "'I don't know.'"

>> Narrator: Within 24 hours Ranger's fuel was exhausted.

Ranger 1 languished seven days before being incinerated, as it reentered the atmosphere over the Gulf of Mexico.

[daunting music] 12 weeks later Ranger 2 met the same fiery fate when, once again, the second stage Agena rocket failed to properly fire.

>> It's almost a relief that Ranger 2 only lasted a day, 'cause we'd been there before, we'd done that, we didn't wanna see that again.

So it was discouraging.

>> Narrator: The first two Rangers were test flights in Earth orbit.

The stakes were much higher for Ranger 3.

This time the destination was the Moon.

Yet for a third time a rocket failure doomed the mission.

>> Again, we had a launch vehicle problem.

In this case it wasn't that the launch vehicle failed to give us a boost, it gave us too big a boost.

>> Narrator: But not all that had gone wrong could be blamed on the rocket.

Ranger 3's central computer failed causing the spacecraft to lose its orientation.

Instead of pictures of the lunar surface the spacecraft beamed back a blank screen.

[daunting music] [rocket engines roaring] On the fourth try the Atlas and the Agena rockets finally worked.

But as soon as Ranger 4 separated from the Agena the spacecraft's master clock in the central computer stopped working.

Without a brain no further commands could be executed.

The unresponsive Ranger crashed into the far side of the Moon, but provided no images and no science.

>> It just flat failed.

And that was kind of a setback, that was a blow.

>> Narrator: Some in the American media, desperate for anything positive to say, picked up on the point that for the first time an American spacecraft had at least actually hit the Moon.

JPL continued to plow ahead with its fifth attempt.

>> Newscaster: Ranger 5 flight preparations are continuing at the checkout facility at Cape Canaveral.

Certain modifications have been made on this craft to possibly eliminate the unexplained failure which occurred in Ranger 4.

[daunting music] >> Narrator: For a second time the rockets worked setting the Ranger on a course to collide with the Moon.

But yet again, the spacecraft malfunctioned.

Ground controllers could only watch as electrical power was lost, followed by the sickening realization that Ranger 5 was, yet, another failed mission.

[daunting music] ♪ Born to lose ♪ ♪ I've lived my life in vain ♪ >> Narrator: The once confident JPL engineers we're now deeply shaken.

Crash landing on the Moon had been the least of their ambitions.

>> Many of us had to go back and testify in front of Congress.

Special committee set up to check on us.

That was not a pleasant time.

>> I think NASA was of a frame of mind that said, "Maybe we ought to cancel this contract."

But we persuaded them "Give us a year before Ranger 6 and we'll try and get all the bugs out of this thing.

>> Narrator: "What," the humiliated JPLers asked themselves, "had caused so many things to go wrong?"

Had all the science experiments, many tacked on late, overwhelmed the engineers?

Had sterilization fried the electronics?

>> You can find specific problems, what caused them to fail at the time, and you could still go in and fix those.

But when you have a series of failures, it's more than just that.

And my own belief is that the people who are in charge of it at that time were giving too much priority to schedule and doing it as quick as possible as opposed to doing it in a more careful, deliberate fashion to make sure it worked.

>> Changes were demanded by NASA and heads began to roll.

One of them was Ranger Project Manager Jim Burke.

>> It always hurts if you get fired, that's not fun.

But in my case, I sorta thought getting fired was deserved, in part because of the sterilization business, but also some other things that I knew I had done wrong.

But as far as being dejected, downcast, suicidal, you know, all of those thoughts, nothing of the kind.

That's the kind of emotional state I was in.

I was much more, sort of, anticipating a future success and thinking to myself "How are we gonna get there [laughs]?"

♪ Born to lose ♪ ♪ And now I'm losing you ♪ ♪ Now I'm losing you ♪ [upbeat music] ♪ Oh, oh ♪ ♪ Oh, oh ♪ ♪ Oh, oh ♪ ♪ Hey, Venus ♪ >> Narrator: Even in the midst of the Ranger crisis JPL was hard at work on other missions.

In the summer of 1962 final preparations were underway for the first U.S. attempt to reach Earth's nearest planetary neighbor.

Venus provided the best chance for a spacecraft to reach its destination.

The spacecraft though was not what JPL engineers had first planned on sending.

>> There was to be a new design, really a second generation spacecraft that was specifically designed to go to Mars and to Venus.

But the design was not far enough along for it to be used for the Venus '62 opportunity.

So we actually took a Ranger, we called them Mariner 1 and Mariner 2, are the first two Mariner missions to Venus, but they were Ranger spacecraft.

Not many people know that.

>> Mariner R is a hybrid design using features of both the Mariner A and the Ranger spacecraft.

The key experiments are a microwave radiometer and an infrared radiometer.

>> Narrator: JPL was also beginning to understand the importance of underscoring with the public the risks involved in space exploration.

This film called "Clouds of Venus" was a mixture of actual events and recreations, with all the characters, some real, some fictional, emphasizing how difficult the Mariner mission would be.

>> This spacecraft must operate unattended for nearly four months.

[rocket engine roaring] >> Narrator: Mariner 1 blasted off the launchpad on July 22, 1962.

>> Control Room: [indistinct] going on very nicely.

>> Narrator: At first all went according to plan as the Atlas rocket accelerated through Mach 1, 2 and 3.

>> Control room: 20 seconds into programming, over.

>> Narrator: But then the Atlas began fishtailing and veering off course.

>> Control room: We're not on trajectory.

>> Range Safety: This is Range Safety, standby.

>> Narrator: Mariner was only seconds away from separating from the errant rocket when the range safety officer had no choice but to give the destruct command.

>> Ranger Safety: Destruct command.

Repeat, destruct command.

[rocket exploding] >> Ranger Safety: [indistinct] blew up.

>> Narrator: Analysis showed that the cause of the rocket failure was a software error.

A single misplaced symbol of code had resulted in the loss of the first U.S. spacecraft destined for another planet.

>> It was offset a little bit by our knowledge that we had another one to go, you know.

Maybe we can [chuckles] resurrect things here, and that's because we put all the energies into that.

>> Now I'll call on Bob Parks, our Planetary Program Director.

Bob.

>> Thank you.

Gentlemen.

Mariner 2 operations are all on schedule.

Now obviously this is a high risk mission.

Even if the Mariner launching is completely successful, we have many critical flight problems to face.

[rocket engines roaring] >> Narrator: With the software problem corrected Mariner 2 lifted off and began its three and a half month journey to Venus.

An early critical event was deploying the solar panels to convert sunlight into electrical energy.

>> Numbers came out.

When you net analyzed them, that there was a 1% chance of success, in a sense that all of these components would work.

>> Engineer: The first 14 critical operations are complete.

We wait now for Sun acquisition.

>> [Command Engineer] Sunlock we're in.

[people cheering] [people whistling] >> Engineer: Like command said, "We're in.

Maybe."

[daunting music] >> The Earth sensor, when we first turned it on up there and locked on the Earth, it was working fine, but it was working at a much lower level of sensitivity than we had designed into it.

As we got farther and farther away from Earth, we knew that if that sensitivity stayed like that we wouldn't be able to stay on locked on the Earth all the way to the planet Venus.

>> Narrator: As Mariner 2 raced away from Earth the signal strength continued to lower.

If the signal could not be boosted all communications would soon cease.

There would be no science return, only another mission failure.

>> And just a few days before it would have stopped at being able to track, the signal strength jumped up to where we designed it [chuckles].

And we were able to do the rest of the mission just fine with that Earth tracker.

[deep thoughtful music] >> Narrator: Another pressing issue was keeping Mariner 2 on a proper course.

>> Tuesday afternoon, it is decided to go ahead with the trajectory correction.

Goldstone engineers send roll, pitch and velocity commands to the spacecraft.

The motor is fine [anticipatory music] and shuts off on time.

Now we must wait.

New tracking data will determine if the flight path has been corrected.

Two hours later newsmen gather at JPL.

>> A mid-course maneuver was successfully accomplished.

The spacecraft has reacquired the Sun.

>> Have we gone past the point of any further correction?

Are we now going for broke?

>> That is correct.

We can make no further correction, either right now or later on.

We still have approximately 100 days to go before we arrive at Venus.

>> For 100 days JPLers worked around the clock steadying what was becoming an evermore troublesome spacecraft.

[daunting music] One of the members of the team was a 22 year old flight controller who was both a pioneer in exploring the planets and venturing into the male-dominated world of engineering.

>> I found myself not only involved in the planning of the operations, but the actual conduct of the operations.

And before I knew it, I was 22 and I had been assigned as one of several flight controllers on Mariner 2.

I was good at that work.

I was good at operations work.

I had a shift of my own, usually midnight to eight in the morning [laughs].

Women didn't have opportunities like that and there were some number of people who were pretty sure that they shouldn't.

That flight was probably the largest experience in growing up a young woman could have.

I got through it and I was very proud of myself for getting through it.

But from then on everything seemed easier.

>> Narrator: In December Mariner 2 was closing in fast on Venus, but it was in a precarious state.

Portions of the spacecraft were overheating.

Several critical telemetry sensors had stopped working altogether.

It was taking all the energy the solar panels could produce to keep the spacecraft functioning.

On December 14th Mariner 2 made its closest approach to Venus, flying by at a distance of 20,000 miles.

In Pasadena a steady stream of science data came pouring back as audible sounds throughout mission control.

[Mariner signals beeping] Scientists were elated.

Although most of the results were more confirmations than new discoveries.

There was no onboard camera, so there were no pictures.

There was also no sign of a magnetic field or a radiation belt like Earth's.

For a planet considered Earth's twin for its size and near proximity, Venus revealed itself to be a hellish world filled with carbon dioxide and where surface temperatures are hot enough to melt lead.

[upbeat music] If the science return was modest, the public reaction to the technical achievement was enormous.

For the first time the United States could point to its first "first" in the race for space.

"It is a proud time for the U.S." "Time" magazine proclaimed.

"No achievement by a Russian cosmonaut or U.S. astronaut "nor experiment made by any of the myriad other satellites "that have been shot aloft has taught man nearly so much "as the improbable voyage of Mariner 2."

William Pickering found himself featured on the cover of "Time."

Pasadena honored the JPL Director by naming him Grand Marshall of the Tournament of Roses Parade.

[people cheering] [people whistling] [upbeat music] NASA arranged for Pickering and his management team to meet John Kennedy at the White House.

In the Oval Office they presented the president with a model of the spacecraft.

Mariner 2 likely saved Pickering his job and JPL its leadership role in exploring the solar system.

[light upbeat music] 20 days after passing Venus, Mariner 2 transmitted half an hour of telemetry and then went silent.

Today the spacecraft is a mute piece of metal that endlessly circles the Sun.

But inside the spacecraft's thermal blanket is a small American flag, secretly placed aboard against official wishes as a patriotic act to honor the very first "first" in space for the United States.

[upbeat music] The success of Mariner 2 and a reconstituted Ranger team buoyed hopes that the next attempt to hit the Moon would be different than the previous five attempts.

The new Ranger project manager was Bud Schurmeier.

His resume was identical to that of his predecessor Jim Burke.

Schurmeier was also a Caltech graduate and a former Naval aviator.

The two men were also close friends, which helped to reformulate the project.

>> I know it was a big job, but I don't know, I guess that I just said, "Okay, let's jump in and do it.

"By golly we're gonna make this thing successful."

>> Narrator: The worrisome requirement of sterilizing, the spacecraft once deemed a vital concern was abandoned.

To the dismay of scientists all science experiments were tossed off except one: sending back live television pictures of higher quality than could be seen through earthbound telescopes.

>> There were a lot of scientists that said, "Pictures, that's not science.

"That's just public information."

Over the years that attitude has changed so markedly and so much information has been obtained just from the photographs, that it has been an outstanding scientific instrument.

>> Narrator: When Ranger 6 reached the launch pad in January 1964, it could claim the distinction of being the world's most tested spacecraft.

[equipment banging] The destination was a candidate landing area for the Apollo astronauts.

Ranger missions were originally intended to help select these sites.

But running so far behind schedule the best Ranger could now do was to provide closeup images of where the Apollo mission planners had already decided they were going to go.

[upbeat music] [rocket roaring] The Ranger 6 launch went perfectly.

The only anomaly came when telemetry showed that the spacecraft's television camera had inexplicably turned itself on for 67 seconds.

But, just as quickly, the camera had turned itself back off.

>> Everybody sort of scratched their head and said, "What was that?"

And put it on the back burner and didn't worry about it.

>> Narrator: Other than this one minor glitch all systems were normal.

Navigators confirmed that Ranger 6 was right on target to hit the Moon in the early hours of February 1st, 1964.

A guarded Pickering declared to the press that he was cautiously optimistic.

>> That was I think a 66-hour flight to the Moon.

Everything was going great.

We're gonna have a success here.

I drove in with my van with all of the champagne bottles in a wash tub, with ice in them, all set to celebrate.

>> Narrator: As the spacecraft neared the Moon JPL's auditorium was packed with reporters.

They listened as mission control announced the final minutes of Ranger 6.

18 minutes before lunar impact the spacecraft directed its two television cameras to turn on and warm up.

>> We should now start getting video.

And all through this agonizing last moment he said, "There's no video, "no video, no video."

>> Pickering: 118, holding steady, no video.

>> Engineer: Roger.

[signal beeping] >> Pickering: No video.

>> Engineer: Roger.

>> Pickering: Still no video.

>> Engineer: Roger.

>> It was just heartbreaking.

We got all the way to the Moon and we got no pictures.

Everything worked flawlessly we thought up till then.

>> Narrator: The unthinkable, the unbearable, the unbelievable had occurred.

After the Atlas missile, the Agena second stage and Ranger itself had for the first time flown a picture-perfect mission.

The television camera, the sole goal of the revamped Ranger mission, had failed to turn on.

>> That was really disastrous to us all.

>> Narrator: A shell-shocked Pickering arose from the console and declared he never wanted to go through such an experience ever again.

>> It was a very sad experience for the lab, probably the low point in the lab's history.

>> You know, we were terribly disappointed because we had stopped and regrouped, as they say, but had missed a design flaw in the system.

We got bit by it.

[hollow music] [hollow music] >> You have six Rangers which fail.

With each failure the pressure on JPL became more intense.

And after number six, this was really a catastrophe.

>> The program came to a halt and there was a Congressional investigation and a number of investigations by NASA headquarters.

>> I had no fear that the lab was gonna fall apart.

It was quite the opposite.

Everybody pulled together, basically, "What can I do to help?"

>> We were young kids [chuckles] and anxious to figure out what went wrong and fix it.

The demoralizing part was the pressure that NASA put on JPL.

But that's the business we're in.

>> Narrator: Six months after the debacle of Ranger 6 JPL was ready to try once more.

The television system that had failed was completely reworked by the television contractor and JPL.

It had required working three shifts a day seven days a week.

The next one, seven, was a severe strain on everybody because it had to work.

And if it hadn't worked, there's no telling what JPL would have been like or what would have happened to JPL.

It was a sobering experience.

[rocked engines roaring] >> Narrator: Launch through the 66-hour cruise was a textbook flight.

Three days after liftoff JPL's auditorium was once again filled beyond capacity with people and tension.

>> Controller: Magnetic tape recorders were started at 13:07:00 Zulu at both Pioneer and Echo sites.

We're anticipating F channel warmup at 13:07:19.

[daunting music] >> Controller: Coming up on impact minus 18 minutes.

>> Controller: Channel F still in warmup.

>> Controller: We are one minute to full channel power.

All magnetic and kinoscope recorders are go.

This is Goldstone TV control.

F channel is still in TV warmup.

We are anticipating turn on momentarily.

We are five seconds for full power.

We have full power on F channel.

Full power on F channel.

[people clapping] [people cheering] All kinoscope recorders are recording.

All magnetic tape recorders are recording.

Video is very strong.

Video is very clean.

This is Goldstone TV control.

[people clapping] Preliminary photographic analysis of the video indicates we have good signal strength from the Moon.

We definitely are able to see craters.

We have excellent video.

10 seconds to impact, video still good.

Excellent signal strength.

Three, two, one.

Impact, impact occurred at 13:25:50.

All video data was excellent, right up to impact.

Cameras were functioning.

Transmitters were functioning properly.

This is Goldstone TV control.

>> Controller: Go Roger.

>> Controller: When impact occurred the auditorium erupted in a great cheer.

[people clapping] [people whistling] People shook hands and hugged one another.

Some wept.

One hard-nosed engineer likened the event to a spiritual experience.

>> There was joy all around as you can imagine after the trials and tribulations of getting to that point.

>> There was not a dry eye in that room.

Failure was nothing to be afraid of, you learn.

Success was such an emotionally overwhelming situation that it let loose.

>> Jim: Some people had smuggled in some champagne.

And champagne bottles were opened.

It was a great celebration.

>> Within the middle of the festive atmosphere somebody handed me a little note that said "Dr. Pickering wants to see you."

What did he want to see me about?

I went up to his office and he handed me a photo.

He said "Here, Jim."

It was the first high resolution picture.

[thoughtful music] That was good.

[thoughtful music] [light upbeat music] >> Narrator: Later in the day after Ranger 7's crash landing the most detailed pictures of the Moon ever taken were presented to an anxious press.

>> This is a great day for science, and this is a great day for the United States.

What has been achieved today is truly remarkable.

We have made progress in resolution of lunar detail, not by a factor 10, nor by a factor 100, but by a factor of 1,000.

[audience clapping] >> Narrator: Next Pickering and NASA officials rushed to Washington to brief president Lyndon Johnson.

Two more Rangers would fly to the Moon.

Though scientists were pleased with the images they did little to resolve questions about Earth's orbiting companion.

"Rangers pictures are like mirrors," one scientist declared, "and everyone sees their own theories reflected in them."

Of all the questions NASA wanted answered the most important was knowing what the surface would be like for Apollo astronauts.

Was it solid?

Would it support the weight of an astronaut let alone their lander?

Or would layers of dust stack like lunar quicksand and swallow them whole?

[daunting music] NASA had hoped the answers would come from Surveyor.

This was JPL's first experience in overseeing on behalf of NASA the work of an aerospace company.

And the process had not gone smoothly.

The Surveyor Program had started in 1960 as a very hands-off contract arrangement.

That was how NASA wanted it.

In fact, NASA hoped JPL would adopt more to the industry's ways of working.

But the contractor Hughes Aerospace was struggling for good reasons.

Surveyor was far more technically challenging than the Rangers.

This spacecraft not only had to soft land on the Moon, it had to do so autonomously.

It was also expected to send back images and science data from the lunar surface, not for a day, but for weeks.

By 1964, the project was over its budget by a factor of five and far behind in its schedule.

Surveyor was in deep trouble.

[metal clanging] By then NASA realized it was the contractor who actually needed to learn from JPL's experiences with Ranger and Mariner.

JPL was instructed to make Surveyor its highest priority.

>> And he said, "We've got to put people in residence "at Hughes for an extended period of time, "probably two or three years."

That was a difficult, trying period because we were growing up at the same time that Hughes was growing up.

And we didn't always mesh.

A trying time.

>> Narrator: JPL responded by assigning hundreds of its engineers to the project.

They flooded into Hughes elbowing their way into the minutia of the project.

>> After kind of an initial or adjustment period [chuckles], I think everybody turned to and began to recognize the importance of Surveyor and certainly the importance that NASA placed on Surveyor as being the precursor for Apollo.

It just couldn't afford to fail.

>> Narrator: Standing 10 feet high, the Surveyors weighed over 2,000 pounds.

The first one was a stripped down model carrying only a television camera.

Surveyor 1's testing program had gone so poorly that the flight's primary objective was only to operate through its mid-course maneuver.

It was not even expected to hit the Moon let alone soft land.

>> In those days we launched a lot of them because we expected failure.

The Surveyor 1 was deemed by Hughes Aircraft and by NASA headquarters on the day of the launch as being kind of the engineering test model.

If they had met the majority of its objectives, they would be pretty happy.

But it's pretty obvious they had a higher expectation of failure.

>> We are now well into the countdown at approximately three minutes before liftoff.

All systems are reported in excellent condition at this time.

>> Controller: Pressurization, go Atlas.

>> Controller: Go Centaur.

>> Controller: Atlas autopilot, go.

Centaur autopilot, go.

Launch director, go.

[rocket roars] >> Indistinct: looks good.

Doppler readout is nominal.

Chamber pressure looks good.

Lift off was at 07:41 Pacific Daylight Time on an azimuth to 102 degrees.

The aerodynamic shroud is off and Grand Bahama is tracking.

Lift off plus four minutes and three seconds.

As shown by the animated diagrams in the monitor the Atlas-Centaur separation has occurred.

Centaur cut off.

Surveyor is injected on its lunar flight path.

Separation and report that the landing legs are extended.

The Surveyor is now in space.

[thoughtful music] >> Narrator: 63 Hours after launch, Surveyor 1 was only 1,000 miles away from the Moon with the speed increasing as the Moon's gravitational attraction beckoned.

>> Hibbs: Vernier ignition retro is now firing, ignitions look stable.

Falling steadily.

63,000 feet, 3,500 miles an hour.

[rocket engine roaring] Now 30,000 feet.

Retro burnout confirmed.

>> The vehicle was supposed to enter a fixed rate of descent.

So that happens.

>> Hibbs: 28,000 feet, 425 feet per second, 24,000 feet.

Falling steadily.

Now to 12,000 feet.

10,000, all signals normal.

Surveyor reported in excellent condition.

All signals good.

1000 foot mark.

800 feet.

600.

400 feet.

200 feet.

100 feet, 13 feet per second speed.

>> A certain distance above the surface, the engines are all supposed to shut off.

And then its supposed to drop to the surface.

The engines all shut off.

And you could hear a pin drop.

It worked.

we're down.

It's still transmitting.

>> Narrator: Surveyor 1 touched down at five miles per hour.

A mere one second off the intended landing time.

>> Hibbs: The Moon behind it is very dark as anticipated.

>> Narrator: For the first time an American spacecraft had achieved a soft landing on another celestial body.

[people clapping] [people cheering] Surveyor 1 operated for six weeks surprising engineers by surviving a bitter cold lunar night.

In all, the sturdy lander sent back more than 11,000 images before its battery ceased to work.

Surveyor 1 now rests where it landed in July 1966, telling us of its presence by casting a silent but long shadow on the lunar surface.

[thoughtful music] Six more surveyors were launched over the next two years, providing a treasure trove of science about the Moon.

Although two of the missions would fail, the increasing ratio of success to failure demonstrated that JPL was clearly learning from its past mistakes.

And NASA had the answer to its question.

The lunar surface was solid and suitable for landing by the Apollo astronauts.

[thoughtful music] >> Armstrong: It's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

>> When Neil Armstrong first set foot on the Moon on July 20th, 1969, JPL could point with pride that they had helped to create the pathway, at least in providing the evidence that a soft landing by the Apollo astronauts was possible.

>> And it gave engineers and NASA a lot of confidence about, you know, that we wouldn't sink into the dust.

>> Narrator: Alan Bean was the fourth person to walk on the Moon.

Assigned to Apollo 12, Bean and mission commander Pete Conrad's task was to improve on the navigation of Apollo 11.

The first mission to land on the Moon had missed its intended landing site by four miles.

They said, "Look, we've got to demonstrate "and develop capability to land exactly where we wanna."

And that's the job they gave us.

>> Narrator: Apollo 12's assignment was to attempt in essence, a pinpoint landing.

>> So then they said, "Well, how are we gonna know "if we really landed there?

"Well, let's pick some place that's got something there "that doesn't look like all the rest of the craters "on the Moon."

>> Narrator: The answer was to use a landmark, but not a natural landmark.

They chose Surveyor 3.

>> The interesting thing to me was, they didn't know where Surveyor 3 had landed either.

Okay, we're out of 19,000 feet; I've got some kind of a horizon out there; I've got some craters, too, but I don't know where I am, yet >> Bean: Okay.

>> Conrad: I'm trying to cheat and look out there.

I think I see my crater.

>> Bean: Hey, baby.

>> Conrad: I'm not sure.

It's P64, Pete.

>> Carr: Roger, over.

>> Conrad: Hey, there it is.

There it is!

Son of a gun right down the middle of the road.

>> Bean: Outstanding, 42 degrees, Pete.

>> Conrad: Hey, it's targeted right.

>> Bean: 42.

Look out there.

>> Conrad: I can't believe it.

>> Bean: Amazing.

Fantastic.

>> We found that crater and we were gonna land on the near edge of it.

But there was too many blocky rocks there, so we overflew it and then landed on the far right corner.

And we still didn't know that Surveyor 3 was there.

We said, "We're at the right crater.

"I hope Surveyor 3 is here."

>> Conrad: I'm headed down the ladder.

>> Bean: Okay, wait, let me get the old camera on you.

>> Conrad: Okay.

That may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me.

[light gentle music] Boy, that sun's bright.

That's just like somebody shining a spotlight in your hand.

Boy, you'll never believe it.

Guess what I see sitting on the side of the crater!

>> Bean: The old Surveyor, right?

>> The old Surveyor.

Yes sir [laughs].

Does that look neat!

It can't be any further than 600 feet from here.

It was just starting to come into light.

The solar panels were just illuminated.

And there it was sitting, right where it was supposed to be.

So it felt really good.

>> Narrator: Apollo 12's mission included bringing back to Earth parts of Surveyor 3.

But the spacecraft had landed in what appeared to be a deep crater.

>> So we began to talk about how are we gonna get down there?

This is too steep.

We're liable to slip down in the crater and can't get out.

We don't have any ropes with us.

We were concerned about it.

When we got out the next day and looked over there, the sun was on that slope.

And then it was obvious that it was about 13 degrees and we wouldn't have a problem.

[thoughtful music] We were concerned about one thing, whether or not the surveyor, which was down inside this crater, would it continue to slip?

And it would slip down on us or something.

Now, you're closer than 15, don't go any closer >> Bean: Maybe I'd better back up a little.

That a boy.

Okay, now let me get that footpad.

That's a beautiful shot there.

Now look, you can see which way it came in.

See the way these gear pads dug in over there, dug up dirt and still sitting there.

>> Conrad: Why didn't you get yourself in the photo too.

Hey, big smile.

>> Bean: Okay.

>> Conrad: Okay, Al, we're ready to start getting a TV camera.

>> Bean: Okay.

>> Narrator: The television camera was of special interest, because of the number of different components it contained.

Scientists and engineers wanted to know what two and a half years of exposure on the Moon had done to them.

>> Conrad: I'd better be careful.

I'm gonna get dust on it.

>> Conrad: There was, you know, there was optics in there.

There was wire, there's lubrication, all different kinds of metals, so that's why this thing seemed important to bring back.

It was a lot more difficult to cut those stanchions for Pete.

So he fooled with it a while and rotated them and cut through.

We weren't gonna be denied.

>> Conrad: Okay, two more tubes on that TV camera and that baby's ours.

[astronauts laughing] >> Astronaut: Beautiful.

>> Then we looked around for other things that we could get and of course the scoop was right there.

They didn't ask us to bring it back, but it looked pretty tempting.

>> Astronaut: Let's get the scoop while we're at it.

Didn't think you were gonna leave without a scoop, did you?

>> Astronaut: No.

>> Narrator: When parts of Surveyor were brought back to Earth, scientists made what seemed an astounding discovery.

They found inside the camera a common bacterium, streptococcus mitis.

Had this bacteria survived a trip to the Moon and back?

Or had it been introduced in the lab?

>> We've found out over the years since that time that life is very tenacious and comes up even at the bottom of the ocean, out of volcanic vents.

There's life down there.

So I think this is just an example of life from Earth going to the Moon and, and staying there.

>> Narrator: Whether or not Surveyor brought bacteria back to the Earth remains an unsolved mystery, but the assertion raised in a new and serious way the question of life existing elsewhere.

In the years since first touching the Moon Mars has become a prime candidate as a place where microbial life might have once or might still exist.

And it was Mars where NASA and JPL next set its sights.

And perhaps one day in a future not as distant as we might think another astronaut will again bend down and touch a robotic explorer.

One that once roamed the surface of the red planet.

[thoughtful music] [thoughtful music]