“Exploration of the Planets” will take a look at the initiative by NASA in the 1970’s to explore the planets of our solar system. In 1970, President Nixon announced new objectives of the space program (1:42). The planet Mercury (2:23) is too close to the sun to be viewed through a telescope and is seen as a black sphere against it. Venus, also difficult to be viewed from telescope, has dense cloud coverage (2:41) and an image of what the surface might appear to be is shown (2:36). The Mariner spacecraft enabled photographs of Mars’ surface (3:04). Jupiter is the largest and densest of all the planets (3:19). The second largest is Saturn with its many rings (3:35). Uranus exists about 2 billion miles from Earth (2:50) in the outer parts of the solar system. No features of Neptune had been seen or documented yet (4:06) and Pluto was expected to be a snow-covered rock (4:18). All the major planets align in such a way that multi-planet travel would be possible every 175 years (4:29) and this opportunity approached in 70’s (4:55). In 1965, the Mariner 4 flew by Mars (5:07) and photographs retrieved from later Mariner missions show its 2,000 miles of craters (5:22). The Mars scape called ‘chaotic terrain’ is depicted (5:56). The early Mariner missions were only able to fly within several thousand miles of the surface (6:23). The Mariner 9 Orbiter (6:43) and Viking landing missions were able to remain in Mars’ orbit for a minimum of three months (6:51). TV cameras photographed about 80% of the planet’s surface (7:21). Photos from Mariner 9 (8:18). This information was used for the 1975 Viking lander mission (8:26). As mankind was beginning to search for extraterrestrial life, Mars was the target because of its similar composition to Earth (8:46). Viking landers were to deliver life detecting equipment to the surface (8:56). The Vikings were double space crafts with and orbiter and lander (9:03). The lander could land and prepare itself for scientific investigation (9:22) and its labs were to remain. The orbiter was to remain in orbit for years as well (10:08). In 1973, the Marnier 10 was sent out for Venus and then go to Mercury (10:38). Here would be the first use of the solar systems energy by utilizing gravitational pull from one planet to reach another (10:52). It used television cameras to photograph each planet (11:23). Venus is seen between the sun and the Marnier and only a crescent of light is caught on film (12:05). The goal was to view the surface through a hole in the cloud coverage (12:37). Images from a radar map created in 1969 follow (12:41) as radar was all that could penetrate thus far. Mercury was to be covered with high resolution photographs by the Mariner (13:20). The Mariner was to cross paths with Mercury twice to glimpse it from a different angle (13:52). The US was to send out the first reconnaissance flights to Jupiter to gather basic facts of the planet (14:28). Created to study the unchartered regions of space were two crafts knows as Pioneers (14:41). Their flights were to last 600 and 900 days and were expected to spend 6 months to a year by the asteroid belt (14:55) to understand what the risk would be in navigating the belt (15:24). After visiting Jupiter, one pioneer was to leave the solar system as the first man-made craft to do so (17:51). The other was to orbit above where the planets in the solar system inhabit (18:01). Uranus is depicted as lying on its side (19:09). Neptune has two moons although it was believed that Pluto may have been one of it’s escaped moons (19:50). Saturn has 10 moons and one of which, Titan, has its own atmosphere (20:42) and another Iapetus, is seemingly two toned (20:56). It would take 30 years for a direct route from Earth to the outer planets (21:14). Another route was determined using Jupiter’s immense gravitational pull to sling shot the craft out to the next planet (21:25). These were known as the Grand Tour missions (21:58) beginning in 76 and 77 (22:01). They expected to be analyzing data by 1988 (22:24) of every major planet in the solar system. As Neptune and Pluto were far out, the craft would need to be completely self sufficient (22:57). The Grand Tour spacecraft was complete with a computer called the ‘spacecraft brain’ which could self-isolate, diagnose and correct malfunctions (23:33). A montage of the planets precedes the conclusion of this film (23:42). Produced for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration by the Jet Propulsion Lab and Graphic Films Corp. (24:33).

This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com