George Trimble, vice president of engineering for the Glenn L. Martin Company of Baltimore, discusses Project Vanguard, the U.S. contribution to the 1957-58 International Geophysical Year. He shows a three-stage rocket and a diagram of its launch and various stages. It will circle the earth in an elliptical orbit every 90 minutes for several weeks, sending back scientific data during that time. A film of White Sands Proving Grounds shows the Martin Company's Viking high altitude rocket, the first designed by the Naval Research Laboratory for scientific research and the Vanguard's first stage. A camera in its tail records the curvature of the earth and other information about its flight. The film also shows the fires and crashes of previous Viking failures as well as the launch of the first Viking from the deck of the U.S.S. Norton Sound while carrying instruments. Lynn Poole interviews three of the project's engineers: Elliott Felt, who explains how the automatic pilot works; Don Markarian, who explains the fins on the Viking rocket for roll control and other details on a model of the craft; and Leonard Arnowitz, who shows an actual Viking motor. Mr. Trimble says the qualities of a rocket engineer include a pioneering spirit and a desire to create something new. He also notes that an engineering degree is important, but 40% of his employees do not have one, taking current technical and science courses instead. He stresses that although a slide rule has become the sign of an engineer, imagination is just as critical.

Host Lynn Poole reviews highlights of programs from the past year: "A Hospital Never Sleeps" (1/21/52) takes viewers behind the scenes at Johns Hopkins Hospital at night; "Artist and the Doctor" (12/17/51) reveals medical artists' work, including photographic art and "moulage" at the Department of Art as Applied to Medicine founded by Max Brodel in 1885 at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine; "The World From 78 Miles Up" (9/11/51) shows film clips, diagrams, and explanation of the operation of the Navy's Aerobee rocket as it gathers atmospheric data; "Solar Power for Food and Fuel" (2/11/51) describes solar energy research and offers an explanation and microscopic view of plant cells engaged in photosynthesis; "Is It True?" (10/22/51) differentiates between the myths and facts about hypnosis; "It's a Fact" (12/3/51) demonstrates the facts of radiant heat using a Crooke's radiometer and explains Bernoulli's Principle; "Krilium for Tomorrow" (2/4/52) introduces Monsanto's soil conditioner for creating porous soil for better plant growth and uses time lapse photography to show plants' growth rate in the product.

In this third in a series of programs on space exploration, Dr. Wernher von Braun, rocket expert, explains and demonstrates a three-stage rocket and its role in the construction of a three-story space station, which will be a launch pad for trips to the moon. He shows viewers both a prototype space station model and moon rocket model and an animated version of the workings of the two.

Dr. Herbert Friedman, astrophysicist with the U.S. Naval Research Lab, uses a piano to demonstrate that the range of the spectrum from red to violet is one octave of electro-magnetic frequency and notes that the earth's atmosphere blocks all but thirteen of the total sixty octaves of radiation frequencies. He shows a photo of Karl Jansky and a picture and soundtrack of lightening-produced "whistlers," which Jansky studied. In a 1945 film clip, V-2 rockets carry a Lyman alpha solar disk camera above the earth's atmosphere to study ultra-violet wavelengths such as the Lyman alpha line, discovered by Theodore Lyman at Harvard in 1912. The eponymous camera is described in a film as are the photon counters used in the rocket to send data from the flight to the ground. Pictures reveal the sun's characteristics, such as sunspots, flares, and plages. A 1959 detailed photo of the sun taken with the Lyman alpha camera shows the Lyman alpha regions. Another film discusses the study of solar flares and the use of "push button" rocketry to measure them. A film shows two-stage rockets launched from the Pont Arguello, CA U.S. Naval Missile Facility to study the ultraviolet x-ray emissions of solar flares. A chart displays the sun's photosphere surrounded by outer and inner coronas and a chromosphere. An animated segment and film clips document the attempt to photograph the sun during the October 12, 1958 total eclipse. Dr. Friedman concludes the program by explaining the detection of ultra-violet nebulosity in the night sky and lists questions researchers are trying to answer about Lyman alpha light and hydrogen-filled galactic space.