[Music] The universe appears
to be infinite, but starting from his tiny
dot in one corner of the Milky Way, man is beginning
his conquest of it. [Music]
[Music]
After his first trial steps, he will one day walk
the Moon. We can marvel at such exploits,
even as we realize the chances are slight that man will venture
personally beyond his own solar system. It is a long
way to the stars.
The sole source of knowledge of objects beyond our solar system
is electromagnetic radiation. But despite the fact that
we receive almost all our knowledge through our eyes, the visible
spectrum is a narrow one. We might see many new
colors if we could see into other wavelengths, and the light
invisible to us can tell us much about the mysteries of space.
Already, this invisible light has led us to a new
understanding of the universe, and provided unsuspected puzzles
for our solution.
The envelope of air which protects life on Earth also
screens out, or absorbs, the starlight in this portion
of the spectrum, and it is these invisible radiations
that could one day tell us how stars are born and die.
And how the universe was created. For Earth-bound astronomers,
the challenge is tantalizing. Yes, it is beyond the air
that we must go if we seek a clearer image of the heavens.
Above distortion that makes the stars twinkle,
above the blotter of air that absorbs the ultraviolet,
the X-rays, the gamma rays, on which
much of the study of starlight depends.
We need a solid platform, hundreds of miles out in space,
from which to make our studies. Not a rocket, not a balloon,
but an orbiting astronomical observatory, and that is what has
been developed by scientists at the Goddard Space Flight Center,
where Dr. James Kupperian headed a group of distinguished astronomers.
[Music]
To know the stars, we must capture starlight,
light that is cut off forever from human eyes on Earth. For this,
we need special telescopes. [Dr. Kupperian]: With the Goddard telescope in space,
we can sample radiations emitted from within our own
galaxy and compare them to emissions from
galaxies tens of millions of light-years distant. It's an exciting
prospect. With the OAO man will go a long way
toward solving the mystery of the creation of matter.
[Narrator]: Through our new window on the universe, we shall search
the stars in many ways. An early project will be the mapping
of the entire sky by ultraviolet light. In charge
of making this unique celestial map is Dr. Fred Whipple.
[Dr. Whipple]: The new map of the universe, which will be very different
from these maps, will be made by a celescope.
With four such ground-controlled
telescopic cameras, we intend to make an all-sky
map in four separate ultraviolet colors.
In addition, we plan to catalog more than
30,000 very hot stars
much brighter than the Sun, many times more
than astronomers have previously recorded in
the ultraviolet. [Narrator]: This
satellite, the OAO, is the biggest and most complex
unmanned satellite in the NASA program. Built by the Grumman
Aircraft Corporation, it basically a shell, into which
various kinds of telescopes can be mounted. When it has been placed in an
orbit 500 miles beyond the Earth, this space observatory will
give us eyes to see into regions until now invisible
to man. [Music]
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[Music][Rocket launch sound]
[Rocket launch sound]
Launched by a Centaur rocket, the OAO sheds its protective fairings
in space. [Music]
The OAO powers itself
through solar panels, storing electrical energy derived from
sunlight. Once in orbit, it relies on
solar sensors and star trackers to stabilize itself.
Then, it opens its eyes to look through a new window in the
universe. With each succeeding year, a new OAO
will be orbited. The first one in space carries telescope packages
in both ends. [Music]
From a ground control station, men reach into space
500 miles to point the OAO toward any part of the sky
they wish to study.
Precision is such that the OAO could fix on the eraser of a pencil
100 miles away. Observations can be
stored by magnetic memory,
and all information flashed to Earth within seconds. Recorded as numerical
data, starlight images can be translated into pictures
by the trained scientists.
The OAO will be another significant advance
in astronomy since Galileo aimed the first telescope
to prove the Earth was not the center of the universe.
From the time when
prehistoric man wondered at the bright pin points in the sky,
astronomy has developed as a challenge.
The OAO, the Orbiting Astronomical Observatory,
will extend man's range of vision across the universe.
Man, on his
tiny planet -- a sand grain on the shoreline of the seas
of infinity--longs to find out what the stars are,
why they are there, how they came to be there,
vast, in the immensities of space, that
may, or may not, have a beginning,
or an end.
[Produced by Film Graphics, Inc.][Music]
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