Historic
Cold War rivalry and the acceleration of space exploration; Preparations for Hubble’s final servicing mission; Chasing a Comet - Launch and the difficult path to rendezvous; Space Debris - Monitoring orbital debris
Project Mercury Begins -The start of NASA & America’s first manned space program; Mars Express - The European Space Agency’s Mars Satellite; The Soyuz Launch System - The gradual evolution of Russia’s Soyuz launcher
Project Mercury Advances - America’s first manned space program finally puts a man in orbit; Camera Tracking - The array of special cameras that follow a spacecraft at launch; The International Space Station - The building and operation of the orbiting laboratory
Project Gemini Commences - Did Gemini give the US a lead in the space race?; Venus Express - The last days of ESA’s Venus probe; EMU - NASA’s Extravehicular Mobility Unit; Deep Space Communications - ESA’s worldwide network of giant dishes
Project Gemini Advances - NASA refines the techniques needed for rendezvous; Cassini At Saturn - In the Cassini probe’s final years of activity, its handlers are asking it to do more complex and risky assignments; Learning More About Mars - An interlinked group of satellites and rovers are paving the way for a manned mission to Mars
Project Gemini – Docking and EVA - In the final phase of the Gemini program NASA struggles with docking and spacewalks; Curiosity - Roving Mars - On the surface of Mars the Curiosity rover is changing the way we think about the red planet; Swarm - A constellation of satellites is trying to discover why the Earth’s magnetic field is diminishing rapidly.
The Apollo Program Begins - At the very beginning of NASA’s moon project things go wrong; Caves - ESA’s special training program for astronauts; Planck - Mapping the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation
Rebuilding Project Apollo - After the Apollo 1 disaster NASA resumes manned space flight; Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 - Monitoring the Earth’s CO2 levels in unprecedented detail; Zero Gravity Training - Parabolic flights and their role in weightlessness training
Beyond Earth Orbit - The Apollo program takes bold new steps; IXV Re-Entry Vehicle - Europe is working to perfect a re-entry vehicle; Galileo Satellites Lost and Found - Navigation satellites go into incorrect orbit
Not much is known about the life of Neil Armstrong except he walked on the Moon. Find out more.
After 25 years the untold human side of the Apollo 16 moon mission is now made available to the public, as the crew members finally reveal their riveting experience. An engaging and definitive documentary looking at this historic mission through the eyes of those who participated in it. Included in this program are interviews with all three astronauts, Commander John Young, Lunar Module Pilot Charles Duke, and Command Module Pilot Thomas Mattingly.
Between 1969 and 1972 twelve men walked on the surface of the moon. It was seen as the first chapter in an ambitious program of space exploration. But what started with NASA’s Apollo missions ended with the Apollo missions. Humanity’s boldest venture is now 50 years in the past. Although the Apollo missions were relatively short, it can not be underestimated just how groundbreaking its achievements were.
Neil Armstong in 1969 was the first and, Eugene Cernan, commander of Apollo 17, was the last man to leave his footprints on the moon in 1972. He believed “Man would be on his way to Mars by the turn of the century…” Instead, 40 years later, it is “Curiosity” and “Opportunity”, two robots, who are roaming the surface of Mars today.What happened to the astronauts’ dream to return to the moon, set foot on Mars and go further still?
