Smarter Every Day this is a really big day

because I live in a hometown where

there's a gigantic rocket plant

owned by United Launch Alliance.

They make a vehicle called the

Delta IV Heavy right over there.

It's about to throw the fastest

man made object in the history

of all the objects, into space to go

touch the sun.

Which is difficult, because it's harder

to go to the sun then it is to go

to Pluto.

You gotta be screamin', you gotta go fast.

It has to do with Delta Vs and stuff like that,

trust me it's hard.

But they can do it, because it's a really big rocket

and it's a really little probe

called the Parker Solar Probe.

I got an email inviting me to

the actual pad just before roll back.

And if you don't know what that is

it's a big deal.

Especially since the CEO of United Launch Alliance

is gonna be on that tower with us.

I'm excited and I'm gonna try to be very professional

when we do it.

But I'm stinkin' excited.

Let's go.

(fun funky music)

how you doing Sir.

- Good to meet ya.

- Ya you as well.

Thanks for inviting me to your shot here.

- Oh, we're happy to have you.

- That's pretty cool.

- I love your channel.

- Thank you very much.

- I am a subscriber.

- I like your hard hat there.

Is that actually a hard hat.

- It is a hard hat.

(laughter)

- That's pretty good.

So you're actually gonna let us go up

with you on roll back.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

- It's a big-- that's a treat.

- It is, we're gonna ride a 10 million pound

building 30 stories high while it

heads to the other end of that pad.

- Really?

What's the speed of that thing?

It's gotta be pretty slow.

- Well it's you know, it's a blistering

third of a mile per hour.

- [Destin] You studied at Cal Poly right?

- I did yeah.

- [Destin] So aerospace engineering.

- Mechanical

- [Destin] Mechanical.

That's my undergrad too.

There we go.

Three segments, the way I understand

the two on the side, they're 100% the whole time.

- Yes.

- [Destin] But the one in the center core

you throttle that back.

- Right.

- [Destin] And that's just to conserve fuel

so you can have a better performance, right.

- We're gonna empty the ones on the outside first,

then we're gonna shed those and then

without that weight, with that weight gone,

we go to full throttle on the center core.

And in a very short amount of burn

we'll almost double the velocity.

- [Destin] Okay so you get through Max Q

with all three, all three cores.

Is that the correct terminology?

The cores.

- Yeah, we call 'em cores or common cores.

- [Destin] Okay.

- So you can think of kind of like

Kerbal Space here.

So we're just bolting three rockets together.

- [Destin] Once you ramp it back up

you have a better Propellant Mass Fraction

with what's left of---

- Exactly.

- [Destin] Right, okay, that makes perfect sense.

- So on all of our rockets we us Cryo

on the upper.

Delta has Cryo on the lower and of course

Atlas uses Kerosine.

- [Destin] It's my understanding

you have a kicker stage at the end there

that's solid right?

Now that's abnormal.

- That is, that's very unusual.

And that's because Parker Solar Probe

has to have so much energy and make

so much velocity to get to the sun.

Because of course as you know

you and I we're in orbit right now

around the sun, 67,000 miles an hour,

you got to take that energy out

to get any closer.

It's actually really hard to go in.

Much easier to go out.

Roll the rocket out here, so all three cores

came out in a giant truck, flipped it up

vertical into that building then we

finished it.

And then when we're ready the building

rolls away.

- Man, yeah, I'm able to comprehend

less and less about what you're saying

as we walk closer.

(laughter)

for you this is old hat.

But I mean, imagine studying this stuff

in school and like actually seeing it

for the first time.

It's pretty rad.

- I'll let you in on a secret.

- What's that?

- I'm coming up on my 400th launch

and it feels the same every time.

- [Destin] Does it really.

Ignition starts, you start thrust

- Then we release and then now the rocket

is under Thrust Vector Control

to keep it oriented in the right way.

- [Destin] Right, and I've gotta imagine

that TVC is way easier with a Heavy.

Because you have a larger moment arm

from the center.

- That's right, that's right.

- [Destin] Okay, awesome.

- Yeah, very good.

- We've got everybody in position

for the tower roll.

So when guys go up there very important

that you don't distract or talk

or disrupt the guys are gonna

be on a headset.

So they're gonna be focused on the job,

so just do that.

And the last thing, you guys are gonna

be up on level 6 for your briefing.

Be careful up there and stay safe.

- [Destin] Yes Sir, thank you very much.

- Alright, thank you.

- [Destin] So these clamps open up pneumatically

and then the whole thing pushes back.

- You got it.

- [Destin] And we're gonna be up there

when it happens.

- Yes we are, we're gonna ride it.

- [Destin] That's awesome, let's do it.

(steam hissing)

(clunking shoes hitting metal)

- [Destin] Wow.

(high pitched humming)

(equipment noise drowns out speaker)

- We're good.

- Good to see you.

(high pitched humming)

- We're gonna walk down here so we don't

distract these guys.

- [Destin] 'Cause they're in the middle

of an operation.

- Alright so here you are.

This is the top of one of those side cores.

- [Destin] Right.

- And you can see here, here's the center core

so the second stage is gonna be basically

inside there.

And then up she goes.

- Wow.

So, you're saying you have to point

with Cryo and you point the solid.

- And we're gonna point the solid

so when the Cryo burns out,

we're gonna light the solid.

- Because you don't have Thrust Vector Control

on the solid.

- This one does.

- Oh, how does that work.

- So it has a vectorable nozzle,

so it has it's own actuators that

can point the nozzle.

When that's burned out whatever about

44 or 45 minutes from lift off,

that's it, we separate the spacecraft

and it will arrive in its first Perihelion

out in November.

And then it will be seven years

of doing that loop.

So 24 passes on the sun and about

every third pass it's gonna get close enough

to Venus to affect it's trajectory

and pull it in closer and closer and closer.

- You really, you really live and breathe

this stuff don't you.

- That's what we do.

- No, you do.

- Oh yeah, sure.

I love rockets.

I've been doing rockets my whole life.

- Really, that's awesome.

What was your first rocket launch.

- First professional launch or

my first launch.

- First launch.

- Okay, I was---

- [Destin] That counts the same to me.

- Alright, I was nine years old.

And I'm old enough to have seen the moon landing.

So I was pretty stoked by that.

And so I'm out in the back of my grandmothers barn

and I find a case of 80 year old moldy dynamite.

And I figured there's only one thing to do with that

you know so I'm gonna build rockets out of it.

- [Destin] Wow.

- So I took the sticks you know,

I cut them open with my pen knife,

I made my own rockets, and I'm proud to tell you

that even at nine years old, some of my rockets

made it partly into the sky before

they detonated.

(laughter)

- [Destin] That's fantastic.

- And I got all 10 fingers.

- [Destin] Now that's the true measure

right there.

So I spoke of the scientists involved

and they told me about Andy here.

Do you know the backstory there.

- So Andy's pretty special to this mission

because it's so hard to get to the sun

and do a mission like this.

The original designs for this type of probe

are just impractical.

And this gentlemen Andy he came up

with the innovative approach,

the trajectory that we're gonna use,

that really made this mission possible.

Without him we would not be standing

here today talking about this.

- So we just started roll back right.

- Yes.

- [Destin] So I can see that we're physically moving

away from that.

It's very slow.

How many tons are moving right now?

- This building weighs 10 million pounds.

- [Destin] Okay, wow.

- We're gonna move it about 300 feet.

- Really.

Okay, and so is it gonna go at this velocity

the whole time.

- It's actually gonna speed up a little bit

in a few minutes.

- [Destin] Really.

- But it's not exactly blistering speed

as you can imagine.

It's a gentle trip.

It'll take us about 45 minutes

to make that 300 foot journey.

- [Destin] What kinds of things

are you looking at right now.

Like, you kind of just understand