Nov 9: Benjamin Banneker and the Giant Saturn V Moon Rocket

Host 1 Welcome to this day in American history for kids. on this day November 9th well imagine a rocket launch so incredibly loud that it literally shakes concrete buildings miles away

Host 2 oh wow

Host 1 yeah but you know there's not a single human on board today we are looking at how we reach the stars starting with a self-taught genius who mapped the heavens from a Maryland farm and then looking at the earth shaking machines that actually took us there

Host 2 It is such a fascinating jump, I mean we're looking at a span of over 200 years here.

Host 1 Right, a huge leap.

Host 2 Exactly. Going from trying to understand our place in the universe using hand carved wood all the way to physically leaving the atmosphere.

Host 1 So let's start on the ground back in 1731 Benjamin Banneker is born on a farm in Maryland which was a British colony back then

Host 2 Right and what makes his story so amazing is that he mostly taught himself math and astronomy which is basically just the science of the stars and planets.

Host 1 He was entirely self-taught?

Host 2 Yeah, pretty much. I mean, think about how hard it is to learn that stuff today even with the internet. Banneker was doing it through just observing the sky and reading borrowed books.

Host 1 Wow. And that brings us to the famous clock story right? Because as a young man he was gifted a pocket watch.

Host 2 He was. And instead of just wearing it he completely took it apart.

Host 1 Like a giant Lego set or something.

Host 2 Yeah exactly like that. But he didn't just rebuild it he drew every single tiny piece figured out the math and then carved bigger wooden copies of those pieces.

Host 1 Wait he carved the tiny watch gears out of wood?

Host 2 Out of wood yes and he used them to build a whole full size working clock it's like figuring out how to build a giant moving Lego machine just by looking at a tiny one

Host 1 That is incredible and he applied that same brain power to the sky didn't he

Host 2 he really did by 1789 he used math to predict a solar eclipse

Host 1 oh that's when the moon passes right in front of the sun and blocks its light right

Host 2 Exactly. And doing that with just math and no computers is wild.

Host 1 Oh, absolutely.

Host 2 And then in 1791, he actually helped survey the land for Washington, DC.

Host 1 Surveying meaning like measuring and mapping it out

Host 2 Right, exactly. He helped map out the new capital, but you know he also wrote these popular almanacs which were yearly books full of facts, tides, and weather guesses.

Host 1 oh I read about this didn't he mail a handwritten copy of one directly to Thomas Jefferson

Host 2 He did and he included a letter asking for better fairer treatment for African Americans

Host 1 That is so brave.

Host 2 It really is. Banneker showed that curiosity and hard work can take you incredibly far even without formal schooling and you know he used his voice to stand up for fairness.

Host 1 So Banneker is studying the stars in 1731 and then humans eventually decide to try and actually visit them. Let's fast forward to 1967.

Host 2 Yes, a big jump forward to the Kennedy Space Center.

Host 1 Right, the Apollo 4 mission. NASA has this giant Saturn 5 rocket on the launch pad and this thing is massive like 363 feet tall

Host 2 It was huge. But here is the crazy part it launched with absolutely zero astronauts on board.

Host 1 Zero. Just an empty rocket test flight.

Host 2 Exactly. Just a massive roaring test flight.

Host 1 And NASA says it was one of the loudest launches ever right like naturally or man-made it literally shook a press site miles away

Host 2 shook the buildings yeah it was unbelievable

Host 1 so if no astronauts were on it what was the main goal of this giant noisy test why launch it at all

Host 2 Well they had to test the rocket stages like making sure the giant sections separated properly but crucially they were testing the spacecraft's heat shield.

Host 1 The heat shield.

Host 2 That's the cover that keeps the ship from burning up on its way back right?

Host 3 Exactly.

Host 2 When a ship returns to Earth it's moving incredibly fast creating extreme heat the shield literally burns away to keep the inside safe.

Host 1 Oh so if that shield fails the whole thing just burns up.

Host 2 Right. So NASA had to launch the real thing to make absolutely sure it would survive that super fast plunge back to Earth.

Host 1 And it worked didn't it?

Host 2 The ship safely splashed down in the Pacific.

Host 1 It did.

Host 2 Mission control was completely elated which just means super happy.

Host 1 I bet. Because a successful test meant the Saturn V was finally ready to take actual astronauts to the moon.

Host 4 Oh absolutely it was a massive milestone.

Host 1 So cool. Now real quick also happening on this day in history in 1906 Theodore Roosevelt left for Panama which made him the first sitting president to travel to another country.

Host 1 country.

Host 4 Oh wow.

Host 1 Yeah. And in 1965 a massive power outage left about 30 million people in the northeastern US and Canada completely in the dark.

Host 4 Speaking of keeping things running in the dark um did you know Benjamin Banneker's homemade wooden clock kept ticking for more than 50 years.

Host 1 Thanks for tuning in again. See you back here tomorrow.