Well, 16, the launch team wishes you
good luck and Godspeed.
We appreciate that,
and we can't do without you.
We have a launch commit,
and we have a lift-off.
The swing arm is moving back.
We've cleared the tower.
Roger, cleared the tower.
Houston is now controlling.
Not so long ago,
we left our Earth for the first time...
...to explore a neighboring world
in the solar system.
Well, Houston, Sweet 16 has arrived.
Roger, 16, copy you loud and clear.
We found a fascinating place...
...but barren and lifeless.
We've stopped,
and let's take a gander around...
...and see which way we ought to head.
Dave, if we could make it out that far,
directly ahead of us.
Look at those large blocks.
You mean as we come down the slope,
yeah, at 12:00.
One sight stood out from all the others.
When we looked back
across the moon's horizon...
...we saw the Earth, our home...
...a tiny oasis...
...beckoning across
all those miles of empty space.
I'll tell you, it looks beautiful going away
and it'll look even better coming back.
To look at our Earth from the outside...
...is to discover an entirely new planet.
We can see familiar landforms...
...like Florida and the Bahamas.
But, what's most striking from space...
...is that our world...
...unlike any other we know of...
...is a world of water.
Two-thirds of it is covered by ocean...
...glistening in layers
of blue and turquoise...
...through a delicate filigree of cloud.
All of it is wrapped in a thin layer of air...
...shielding its surface
from the harsh radiation...
...and cold vacuum of space.
If it weren't for this fragile cocoon...
...our beautiful planet
would be as dry and lifeless...
...as our nearest neighbors
in the solar system.
Mars has only a feeble atmosphere.
It's locked in a permanent ice age.
Venus, under a very dense atmosphere...
...is hotter than an oven.
Nothing could live here.
As far as we know...
...only the Earth can support life.
To learn more
about the unique environment...
...which makes life possible here on earth...
...we're now returning to space,
in a variety of craft.
We call this: "Mission to Planet Earth".
Shannon, come on up!
This is great.
Only a few hundred people
have actually seen the Earth from space.
Look at that.
Here, we can see it as a whole.
Floating beneath us...
...Sri Lanka and India.
But, now, we also see a planet...
...bathed in the light of a nearby star:
The Sun.
Ours is a world of constant change...
...shaped and reshaped
by nature's powerful forces.
Its blueness came out of the earth itself.
The ancient oceans were steamed
out of the interior...
...by erupting volcanoes.
We know this one
as the Big Island of Hawaii.
Now, whole continents appear.
Europe is on the left.
Stretching beyond Gibraltar
to the horizon...
...the Mediterranean Sea.
On the right: Africa.
Deep in the heart of Africa...
...we come upon a land of forests,
lakes and rivers.
We're crossing over Lake Victoria...
...and the broad plain of the Serengeti.
Here, beneath us...
...our planet's systems of water,
earth and air...
...interact to sustain life.
To observe this complex environment
more closely...
...we'll drop down to the surface
of the strange red lake below.
This is Lake Natron.
It's hard to believe
any life could exist here.
But, in fact, the lurid color is the life itself.
The water is teeming with red algae
that feed on white soda...
...from nearby volcanoes.
Ash, spewing from these volcanoes
for millions of years...
...nourished the great grasslands
of the Serengeti...
...where a wondrous array
of species evolved.
Each depends in some way
upon the others.
Every link between animals and plants...
...is a strand...
...in the rich fabric of life on Earth.
Of all the creatures that evolved in Africa...
...only one stood upright.
Only one developed tools and language.
For about a million years...
...humans were hunters and gatherers.
Then we discovered farming.
Now, the same land could support
many more people.
But without the Earth's life-support system
of water and air...
...not a living thing could exist.
Two hundred miles above the Earth...
...there is no air.
This astronaut must wear a spacesuit.
It supplies the oxygen he needs...
...and insulates his body
from extreme heat and cold.
Inside, the orbiter functions
somewhat like a miniature Earth.
The environment is carefully balanced
to keep the astronauts comfortable.
One system controls the temperature.
Another supplies oxygen.
On Earth...
...the forests and oceans
absorb the carbon dioxide we exhale.
In space, the crew uses special canisters
to clean the air.
For a short time, this artificial system
supplies to the astronauts...
...what the Earth
has always provided for us.
Its natural systems slowly recycle the air...
...the water and even the rock.
In one cycle...
...heat from the sun evaporates water
from the ocean to form clouds.
Winds drive the clouds over land.
Rain from the clouds
falls back to the Earth...
...and then runs down to the sea...
...where the cycle begins once more.
Heat stored in the clouds
can drive them upwards...
...into towering thunderheads.
Inside them,
powerful electric charges are building.
You can see lightning on Earth from space.
Astronaut Charlie Bolden:
Probably, my favorite spectacular view
is nighttime...
...watching lightning all over the Earth...
...as it goes from cloud top to cloud top...
...over hundreds of miles...
...almost like somebody
is conducting an orchestra, you know...
...and the lights flash
in response to the music and everything.
You float up in the window
and look for long periods of time...
...in amazement,
at what's going on down there.
In places where there is a lot of rainfall...
...an abundance of life springs forth.
The plants produce oxygen...
...which we and the other animals breathe.
Life on Earth is easy to see from space.
Costa Rica and Panama are green with it.
But other places in the world
get almost no rain.
In the Namib Desert,
only wind has shaped the surface...
...sweeping the parched sand
into dunes, nearly 1,000 feet high.
In some of the driest deserts...
...people have drilled for water
trapped in the rocks, deep below the sand.
Each one of these tiny circles
is an irrigated field...
...half a mile in diameter.
But this is a short-term gain.
It will take only 50 years
to use up all the water...
...but more than 10,000 years to replace it.
In some regions, like the Sahara...
...the amount of rainfall can change
drastically within a single generation.
When we started looking at Lake Chad
from space...
...we saw that it was shrinking.
Soon a wave of droughts...
...brought starvation
to the people living here.
We don't know why
these local changes occur...
...but we do know
that the Earth's climate, as a whole...
...has changed over much longer periods.
During the last million years...
...great sheets office
advanced and retreated several times...
...burying Northern Europe
and much of North America.
This is the Hubbard Glacier in Alaska.
Trapped deep inside these frozen walls...
...is a record of climate change...
...going back thousands of years.
By analyzing samples of the ancient ice...
...we may learn to predict
our future climate.
Ten thousand years from now...
...perhaps the sites of Montreal,
Detroit and Copenhagen...
...will again lie buried
beneath a mile office.
And it's moving. Looks good.
To observe large-scale changes
on the Earth...
...we use satellites.
The TDR satellite will act as a relay...
...linking scientists
with dozens of spacecraft...
...watching different parts of the globe.
Kathy, it looked like we had
a good deploy on time.
Everything looks good.
Some study ocean currents...
...others monitor the health of crops.
They also warn us when storms develop.
Of all the storms...
...the most dangerous
and unpredictable are hurricanes.
Without help from satellites...
...we could not prepare ourselves
for the onslaught.
We are under a hurricane warning.
Officials of Civil Defense
are advising voluntary evacuation...
...of the Berry Islands.
Hurricane Hugo,
after ravaging Puerto Rico...
...tore into South Carolina.
What was once a national forest...
...is now a heap of kindling.
Where once there was a house...
...only the front steps remain.
Overnight...
...nature's fury
has devastated entire communities.
But, then, as quickly as it struck...
...the storm vanishes...
...and the eastern seaboard
is calm once more.
There are, however, other catastrophic
events affecting our planet.
They are far more violent than any storm.
The Earth is continually pelted
by a hail of objects from space.
Most are tiny
and burn up in the atmosphere.
But, every now and then,
a big one gets through.
Some 30,000 years ago,
a piece of an asteroid...
...weighing perhaps 300,000 tons...
...slammed into Arizona.
It blasted out a crater
almost 600 feet deep.
As collisions go, it was a small one.
From space, we can see the scars
from much bigger impacts on Earth.
This one in Canada is 60 miles across.
The effects of a similar collision
may have wiped out the dinosaurs.
The young Earth was once
completely covered by impact craters.
But most have been erased...
...by the powerful forces
which keep changing the face of our planet.
From orbit, we see evidence
for the most astonishing...
...geological discovery of our time:
The Earth's crust is broken
into about a dozen moving plates.
Here, a giant crack extends out
to the right...
...from the Sinai Peninsula
through the Dead Sea.
In a closer view...
...you can see how the Sinai,
shaped like a triangle...
...has wrenched away from Saudi Arabia,
on the far right.
The rift that opened between them
lies under the Gulf of Aqaba.
Most of the rifts are on the sea floor.
To search for them,
we need vehicles similar to spaceships.
We are on a journey, two miles down...
...to the very bottom of the ocean.
We will enter a world
that has never seen sunlight.
And yet, the ocean floor
is alive with exotic creatures.
They thrive on nutrients in the water...
...which is heated
by the Earth's great furnace beneath.
Here, in mid ocean,
at the boundary between two plates...
...molten rock pushes up from the interior.
These lava chimneys
are actually miniature volcanoes.
Just as one of the Earth's systems
recycles water...
...another recycles rock.
As new crust
is added to the Earth's surface here...
...the other edge of the plate...
...perhaps thousands of miles away...
...sinks back into the Earth's interior.
As it melts...
...volcanoes erupt.
This is Sakura-jima Volcano, in Japan.
You can see its smoke
all the way from space.
Here, two great plates
are slowly crushing together...
...pushing up the Himalayas...
...the highest mountain range on Earth.
From just beneath us,
the snow-capped peaks...
...stretch over a thousand miles
towards the horizon on the left.
Almost all of North America,
here on the right...
...lies upon a single plate.
On the left, the Pacific plate
is sliding northward past it...
...at the stately pace of a halfinch per year.
The Gulf of California, in the center...
...marks the boundary
between the two plates.
Along this boundary...
...the infamous San Andreas Fault
runs northward.
Using satellite pictures...
...a computer can take us on
an imaginary flight along the San Andreas.
The actual height of the terrain
has been exaggerated...
...to accent the network of valleys
formed by the fault's many traces.
As the two plates slide past one another...
...they lock together in some places.
The strain builds.
Near San Francisco,
the strain reaches the breaking point.
Something has to give...
...and when it does,
we are rocked by an earthquake.
Magnified by the computer...
...first a sharp wave,
traveling at 10,000 miles an hour...
...moves out from the epicenter.
Then comes a series of rolling waves.
These inflict most of the damage.
It is impossible to know yet
how many more fatalities there are...
...following this earthquake, which hit at
5:04 yesterday, in the middle of rush hour.
The earliest efforts to rescue
came last night from all sorts of people:
Cops, firemen, people right here
in the neighborhood who...
...risked their lives to rescue strangers.
Everything started shaking.
I started running.
I didn't know where to run 'cause...
...l was getting too scared...
...and my mom couldn't get me
because the floor was moving too hard.
Some buildings, though still standing,
had to be demolished.
In time, the houses and highways
are rebuilt...
...better designed to withstand
the next earthquake.
People will always be subject
to nature's powerful whims.
In Japan, another fault zone...
...millions live with the same uncertainty.
One day, almost certainly...
...we'll learn to predict earthquakes.
But, in the meantime,
we try to live in harmony...
...with our sometimes turbulent planet.
After each assault, we pick up the pieces,
and carry on.
And sometimes, we wonder
if there could be any other place...
...as wonderful in all the universe.
But, now, a new force...
...as threatening as any in nature...
...has begun to change the Earth.
We are that force.
To our ancestors,
only a few centuries ago...
...the forests, oceans and skies...
...seemed vast and almost limitless.
But all that has changed.
It is only now that we can see it
from space...
...that we realize the magnitude
of what we are doing to the Earth.
As settlers cleared land to create
the great farms of the American Midwest...
...more and more valuable topsoil...
...eroded into the Mississippi.
Flowing southward down this great river...
...the silt is carrying pesticides.
They are pouring into the Gulf of Mexico.
The Yangtze River in China...
...is a natural conveyor belt for soil
from the plateau above it.
Now it doubles as a dump
for sewage and industrial wastes.
But an island, far away, has become
the most eroded place on Earth.
Madagascar was once cloaked
in lush forest.
Now loggers and farmers
have cut most of it down.
With nothing to cling to...
...the thin red soil has washed down the
mountain slopes into the Betsiboka River...
...choking its mouth completely.
Off the coast of South America...
...the Atlantic is awash
with brown sediment...
...pouring out from the Orinoco
and the Amazon.
Upriver...
...lies the largest continuous rainforest
in the world.
This is home to nearly half
of all the species found on Earth.
They are sheltered from sun and wind...
...by its great moist canopy.
People depend upon the rainforest
for food...
...and the rare medicines
its plants produce.
Like those who settled in Europe
and North America...
...people in search of a better life
are clearing the land for farming.
The cut trees are left to dry, then burned.
Almost one acre of tropical rainforest...
...is destroyed every second.
Some 100 species...
...most of which we've never even seen...
...are driven to extinction every day...
...lost to the planet forever.
In destroying them...
...we are tampering with the fabric of life...
...cutting the very strands
that bind us all together.
Only from space can you see
how much is burning.
The smoke spreads thousands of miles
across to the Andes Mountains.
Soon we will see roads here, then farms.
Towns will expand to cities.
Eight million people live here,
in Los Angeles.
Six million vehicles
and thousands of factories...
...release chemicals into the atmosphere.
This is the West Coast Air Quality
Management District...
...with an air quality update
for the Los Angeles and Orange Counties.
We're suggesting that persons
with heart or respiratory diseases...
...should reduce physical activity.
Smog permeates the air we breathe.
Not only are we polluting our air...
...we may also be altering our climate.
Around the globe...
...cars and factories belch huge amounts
of carbon dioxide into the air...
...faster than our oceans
and depleted forests can absorb it.
Our numbers are increasing
by nearly one-hundred million every year.
We consume enough energy...
...to be visible all the way from space.
There are now more than five billion of us
spread across the Earth.
In this satellite view,
you can see the continents...
...outlined by the lights
of the great coastal cities.
In North America.
In Europe and in Asia.
But our planet does have limits.
The carbon dioxide
and other greenhouse gases we produce...
...act like a blanket...
...trapping the sun's heat
inside our atmosphere.
Beneath it,
the Earth's temperature may be rising.
Without intending it...
...we are now conducting
an uncontrolled experiment...
...on the Earth's life-support system...
...and we cannot predict the consequences.
But already there are clues.
High in the stratosphere,
a thin layer of ozone...
...shields us
from the sun's deadly ultra-violet rays.
You can't see the ozone...
...but our satellites
and other instruments...
...have detected a hole
bigger than Europe...
...in the ozone over Antarctica.
We have created the hole...
...with chemicals we use
in our everyday lives.
Faced with this evidence,
the nations of the world...
...recently agreed to restrict
and eventually ban...
...production of those chemicals.
Looking out past the shuttle's tail...
...Astronaut Jim Buchli:
Look at how thin the atmosphere is.
Everything beyond that thin blue line...
...is the void of space.
And everything below it
is what it takes to sustain life.
And everything that we do...
...to this environment...
...and our quality of life...
...is below that little thin blue line.
That's the only difference between...
...what we enjoy here on Earth...
...and the really harsh, uninhabitable...
...blackness of space.
That's not very wide, is it?
Our world is a special place...
...where millions of species coexist...
...each one an integral part
of our planet's fabric.
What we do will determine their fate...
...and ours.
We can undo the damage we have caused.
The Earth we inherited
can again be a garden...
...beautiful and bountiful.
Everything we need for life is here.
Shimmering blue...
...it is our haven
in a vast black sea of space.
This is our home.
It will be home to our children...
...and to their great-grandchildren.
It is home to all the nations of the world.
It's home to the people of Mexico.
Home to the people of Greece and Turkey.
It's home to Israelis and Arabs.
It's home to the Vietnamese.
It's home to the aboriginal people...
...and the farmers
of the Australian outback.
It's home to the people of Japan.
It's home to the peoples of the Caribbean.
It's home to all of us.
It`s our only home...
Format: MKV
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Video: 1280x720 ~ 6597 kbps 23.976 fps
Audio: English 640 kbps 5.1
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