Transcript: January Week 4

PAUL
Welcome to Idaho Skies on Radio Boise. This is the fourth week of January. We’re your hosts, Paul..

RACHEL
..Rachel..

KRIS
..And Kris

PAUL
The moon reaches first quarter phase on the 25th at 4:00 PM.

KRIS
This is the best phase to go moon watching.

RACHEL
So if you got a new telescope for Christmas, tonight’s the night to get it out and look at the moon.

KRIS
Pay particular attention to the lunar terminator.

ARNOLD
I’ll be back

KRIS
No, not that kind of terminator. The terminator is the boundary between day and night.

PAUL
At the terminator, the sun is just beginning to rise.

RACHEL
Since the moon has no atmosphere to scatter sunlight, its shadows are very dark and crisp.

KRIS
But shadows on the moon are not perfectly dark. The moon’s rough surface scatters light and fills in some of the shadows.

RACHEL
Through your telescope, look closely along the lunar terminator. You’ll probably see points of light on the dark side of the terminator.

KRIS
Most of those are mountain peaks. They’re so high the sun hits the peaks hours before their base.

PAUL
Wow, what a difference 45 years can make in our success of space missions.

RACHEL
In the early 1960’s, the United States was trying to land its first spacecraft on the moon.

KRIS
Actually we were trying to hit the moon, since we hadn’t developed soft landing techniques yet.

RACHEL
The spacecraft were called Ranger. And Ranger 3 was launched to the moon 45 years ago on the 26th.

KRIS
The Ranger spacecraft sent live television images of the moon as they got closer and closer to the surface.

PAUL
Live television from a crashing spacecraft was probably better than what the three networks were showing on the air at the time.

RACHEL
The Ranger series paved the way for the moon landings of Surveyor and Apollo.

KRIS
The United States would not have a successful moon crash until Ranger 7 in 1964.

RACHEL
Due to course correction errors, Ranger 3 missed its suicidal landing on the moon by a whooping 24,000 miles, or six lunar diameters.

KRIS
Today Ranger 3 is stranded in solar orbit.

PAUL
On a tragic note, the astronauts of Apollo 1 died 40 years ago on the 27th.

RACHEL
Astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee where killed during a ground test of the new Apollo spacecraft.

KRIS
The design of Apollo was rushed in order to meet John F. Kennedy’s deadline of landing a man on the moon before the end of the decade.

PAUL
Apollo’s poor design left wire bundles exposed where their insulation could be abraded.

RACHEL
In addition, its interior was filled with flammable materials and its hatch was designed to be opened inward.

KRIS
During a ground test of January 27th, 1967, the Apollo was on internal power and had an internal atmosphere of 100% oxygen.

RACHEL
At 6:31 PM the astronauts called out that there was a fire inside the spacecraft.

KRIS
The oxygen atmosphere turned the interior of the capsule into an inferno.

RACHEL
The gases generated by the combustion of flammable materials made it impossible to open the hatch.

KRIS
The plastics inside the spacecraft generated poisonous gases that killed the astronauts before the fire did.

RACHEL
At the remains of Launch Complex 34, where Apollo 1 was being tested, there’s a plaque that reads,

KRIS
LAUNCH COMPLEX 34
Friday, 27 January 1967
1831 Hours

PAUL
Dedicated to the living memory of the crew of the Apollo 1:
U.S.A.F. Lt. Colonel Virgil I. Grissom
U.S.A.F. Lt. Colonel Edward H. White, II
U.S.N. Lt. Commander Roger B. Chaffee

RACHEL
They gave their lives in service to their country in the ongoing exploration of humankind's final frontier. Remember them not for how they died but for those ideals for which they lived.