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Space Race (bbc Tv Prog), Series starts tonight
SkyeLab
post Sep 14 2005, 04:24 PM
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Just a reminder to those with access to BBC two that the following prog is on tonight. It has had some very good write-ups!

Space Race
Wed 14 Sep, 9:00 pm - 10:00 pm BBC2


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ljk4-1
post May 23 2006, 02:32 PM
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Space Race: The Untold Story on the National Geographic Channel starting June 4.

Sunday, June 4, 2006, at 9 PM

Main Web site:

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/spacerace/

SpaceRace ep. 1 [TV-PG]

Part One of Space Race The Untold Story tells the story of the two men at the center of the race - ex-Nazi Wernher von Braun on the American team and Sergei Korolev, the Soviet project leader. Technical director of Hitler's V2 Rocket program, von Braun realized that Germany's defeat was inevitable and set off on a journey to place himself under American protection before being caught. Heading the Soviets' chase was the Russian rocket expert, Sergei Korolev, recently freed from one of Stalin's prison camps.

Also airs:

Monday, June 5, 12A

Monday, June 5, 7:00P

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/chan...0606042100.html


--------------------
"After having some business dealings with men, I am occasionally chagrined,
and feel as if I had done some wrong, and it is hard to forget the ugly circumstance.
I see that such intercourse long continued would make one thoroughly prosaic, hard,
and coarse. But the longest intercourse with Nature, though in her rudest moods, does
not thus harden and make coarse. A hard, sensible man whom we liken to a rock is
indeed much harder than a rock. From hard, coarse, insensible men with whom I have
no sympathy, I go to commune with the rocks, whose hearts are comparatively soft."

- Henry David Thoreau, November 15, 1853

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ljk4-1
post Jun 3 2006, 06:19 PM
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Russia to come out with a film on Korolev in early 2007:

http://www.energia.ru/english/energia/news...news_05-15.html

Includes a full-size mock-up of a GIRD-09 rocket.


--------------------
"After having some business dealings with men, I am occasionally chagrined,
and feel as if I had done some wrong, and it is hard to forget the ugly circumstance.
I see that such intercourse long continued would make one thoroughly prosaic, hard,
and coarse. But the longest intercourse with Nature, though in her rudest moods, does
not thus harden and make coarse. A hard, sensible man whom we liken to a rock is
indeed much harder than a rock. From hard, coarse, insensible men with whom I have
no sympathy, I go to commune with the rocks, whose hearts are comparatively soft."

- Henry David Thoreau, November 15, 1853

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ilbasso
post Jun 5 2006, 12:43 PM
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Watched Part I of Space Race last night - generally accurate if somewhat dramatised, but great special effects. I'm TiVo'ing tonight's episode and watching it tomorrow. What bothered me most about this show was that the commercial breaks became more and more frequent later in the show. At one point, there was a 2-minute commercial break only 3 minutes after the previous commercial. And the constant recapping of the story so far seemed to be aimed at people who might accidentally tune in at random points in the show.


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ljk4-1
post Jun 5 2006, 07:52 PM
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NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CHANNEL THIS WEEK

WEEK OF JUNE 5 - JUNE 11
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
***PROGRAMMING HIGHLIGHTS***

***WORLD PREMIERE*** "Space Race The Untold Story" Part 2: "Race for the Moon"

MONDAY at 9P et/10P pt

Russia's lead seemed insurmountable when cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became
the first human in space. But the race tightened within weeks when
astronaut Alan Shepard hurtled into space for the Americans.

Preview, video timeline, behind the scenes.

http://newsletters.nationalgeographic.com/....ASJ-ROc9/ngs19


***ENCORE PRESENTATIONS***

"Space Race: The Untold Story" Part 1: "Secret Weapons"

MONDAY at 7P et/8P pt

The Cold War superpowers' race for space unfolds in the story of two men:
charismatic ex-Nazi Wernher von Braun on the American team and the
enigmatic Sergei Korolev, the Soviet project leader.

Preview, video timeline, behind the scenes.

http://newsletters.nationalgeographic.com/....ASJ-ROc9/ngs19


--------------------
"After having some business dealings with men, I am occasionally chagrined,
and feel as if I had done some wrong, and it is hard to forget the ugly circumstance.
I see that such intercourse long continued would make one thoroughly prosaic, hard,
and coarse. But the longest intercourse with Nature, though in her rudest moods, does
not thus harden and make coarse. A hard, sensible man whom we liken to a rock is
indeed much harder than a rock. From hard, coarse, insensible men with whom I have
no sympathy, I go to commune with the rocks, whose hearts are comparatively soft."

- Henry David Thoreau, November 15, 1853

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ljk4-1
post Jun 5 2006, 09:21 PM
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Images from this article include a model of Sputnik 3.


Moonshot Rivalry Grabs Spotlight in 'Space Race: The Untold Story'

http://www.space.com/entertainment/060602_spacerace_ent.html

The competition between the U.S. and Soviet Union to be the first to land humans
on the Moon during the 1960s takes a personal turn in a new television
mini-series to air Sunday.


--------------------
"After having some business dealings with men, I am occasionally chagrined,
and feel as if I had done some wrong, and it is hard to forget the ugly circumstance.
I see that such intercourse long continued would make one thoroughly prosaic, hard,
and coarse. But the longest intercourse with Nature, though in her rudest moods, does
not thus harden and make coarse. A hard, sensible man whom we liken to a rock is
indeed much harder than a rock. From hard, coarse, insensible men with whom I have
no sympathy, I go to commune with the rocks, whose hearts are comparatively soft."

- Henry David Thoreau, November 15, 1853

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DDAVIS
post Jun 6 2006, 03:22 AM
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>The competition between the U.S. and Soviet Union to be the first to land humans
on the Moon during the 1960s takes a personal turn in a new television
mini-series to air Sunday.
[/quote]

I am watching 'Space Race' and have seen numerous mistakes and rewriting of the details of history. There is a lot of loose use of footage and images which roughly 'fit' in place but are absurd, like the use of an Apollo 8 Earth image in a faked newspaper with the headline 'Race To Lunar Orbit'.There is also an annoying overabundance of narration telling us what we are about to see, what we are seeing, and what we will be seeing. The historical film is marred by much of it being noticeably squeezed to fit a 9:16 format. The Mercury capsule and Saturn V is noticeably misshapen to those who know it. Otherwise the harvest of obscure US and Soviet documentary film is impressive.
I'm afraid the movie 'Apollo 13' has cast its stylistic influence on the CGI animation sequences, leaving the Vostok spacecraft behaving like a loosely fastened model buffeted in a wind tunnel instead of graceful carefully executed moves actually done. You will recall the horrendously uncontrolled looking Earth return rocket firing in the Hanks film, as opposed to the maintaining of the careful steady burn which was the real drama of the moment. In 'Space Race' SS General Hans Kammler is briefly shown, a horrible and ambitious man too little is known about. Korolev is the best recreation of the historical figures. I wish they had taken the same care with the actor playing Von Braun, who gets the benefit of doubts about his moral stance, even so they beiefly play the Tom Lehrer song. They virtually re-run the space suit urination sequence in 'The Right Stuff'.


There seems to be more commercial interruptions than ever, I once counted 7 minutes of program between breaks! (U.S.National Geographic channel) The constant presence of the invasive 'bug' on the lower right of the image is like graffiti written over a window, getting worse all the time with animated distractions adding to the insult. No respect for content producers. I wish some broadcasters would take a stand against this, it's not like cable users are ignorant of the channels they choose.

Don
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Guest_BruceMoomaw_*
post Jun 6 2006, 05:53 AM
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Yes -- the Apollo 13 movie pretty much had me enthusiastic until that ridiculous sequence. What was Ron Howard thinking?
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edstrick
post Jun 6 2006, 09:37 AM
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I recorded part 1 but have only seen bits of it. I watched most of Part 2 and was continually VASTLY irritated by incompetent, stupid, and at times apparently intentional mistakes. They continually showed in-flight live video from Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo, including launch footage. There was NONE whatever from Mercury and Gemini, and Apollo TV transmissions were never done during launch till Apollo Soyuz, and a lot of fake in-flight TV was also shown.

Worse than that, much of the dialog was badly overdramatized and just continually sounded fake. There were a lot of scenes where von Braun would probably not have been present or in charge. One was the scene of VB arguing about the Apollo 8 flight objectives after the Apollo 6 problems. It was terribly stagey and seemed utterly fake and out of character and "out of bureaucracy"

They referred -- several times -- to Mercury Redstone putting the astronaut in orbit, till when they finally covered that flight, they remembered it was suborbital.

They cover the in-flight failures on Apollo-6 (Saturn 502) without EVER mentioning that the Saturn 5 had already had a near-perfect flight on Apollo 4.

I could go on, but it's too painful. Overall, I give it a C+, considering how truely bad it could have been, and the general narrative is substantially accurate.
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ljk4-1
post Jun 6 2006, 01:24 PM
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QUOTE (BruceMoomaw @ Jun 6 2006, 01:53 AM) *
Yes -- the Apollo 13 movie pretty much had me enthusiastic until that ridiculous sequence. What was Ron Howard thinking?


He was thinking he had an audience that was weaned on Star Wars
and Star Trek in terms of their knowledge of space physics.

Be grateful that the Apollo 13 crew wasn't beamed back to Earth by
Scotty at the transporter controls at the last dramatic moment.
Though I am sure they wouldn't have minded at the time.


--------------------
"After having some business dealings with men, I am occasionally chagrined,
and feel as if I had done some wrong, and it is hard to forget the ugly circumstance.
I see that such intercourse long continued would make one thoroughly prosaic, hard,
and coarse. But the longest intercourse with Nature, though in her rudest moods, does
not thus harden and make coarse. A hard, sensible man whom we liken to a rock is
indeed much harder than a rock. From hard, coarse, insensible men with whom I have
no sympathy, I go to commune with the rocks, whose hearts are comparatively soft."

- Henry David Thoreau, November 15, 1853

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dvandorn
post Jun 6 2006, 10:22 PM
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I've watched all of Part 1 and the second half of Part 2, and I'm really rather disappointed. There are some nice touches, some (rather rare) moments that are right on -- and then comes another string of horribly over-dramatized scenes, in which the characters act totally out of character with even the fictional portrayals they had been building up.

The "soul-searching" von Braun, being asked to support not only manning the third flight of the Saturn V but sending it to the Moon, has already been mentioned, but it is truly one of the awful moments. From what I've read, von Braun and his team were very well satisfied, by August of 1968, that AS-503 (what became Apollo 8) would be quite safe to fly men on. Heck, by May of '68, a month after Apollo 6, they knew what had happened with AS-502 and were confident of the fixes.

In actuality, when von Braun was asked about sending men to the Moon on AS-503, his response was "It makes no difference to the rocket how far we go." No soul-searching there, he was confident of his gargantuan baby.

And then there was the very concept of suggesting that the Apollo 11 crew, while on the Moon, was visually tracking Luna 15 and watching it detour to avoid landing right on top of them (or so the narration would have had you believe). That was pure fiction -- and not very good fiction, either.

As for the good moments -- there was the scene with Korolev in which the crew designing their lunar lander came in to complain that they didn't know if the Moon's surface was hard or soft, and it made a lot of difference as to how they designed the landing gear. The team was specifically complaining that there was no one who "had the authority to determine" whether the lunar surface was hard or soft. Korolev, with a long-suffering look that said all too much about how many idiots he had to deal with every day, grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled on it, while stating aloud what he was writing, "The Moon's surface is hard. S.P. Korolev. There, give them this and GET OUT!"

The sequence of the Soyuz 1 flight was actually well done, too. It looked good, and the sequence when the fellows sent to meet the landed capsule came upon its charred, shattered remains was really effective -- and heart-wrenching.

The actors did their best, though not everyone was well-cast physically. For instance, there was a fellow playing Korolev's assistant (not Glushkov -- I don't know if they even named him) who physically resembled Korolev a lot more than the guy who was playing Korolev. He was a bear-like, heavy-set man, was Sergei Pavlovich, and while the actor playing him captured the essence of the man quite well, he was a short, wiry kind of guy. Entirely unlike Korolev in real life.

So, I thought they did a very good job capturing the frustrations of working within the Soviet system, and had some very nice CGI animation. Other than that, it was fictionalized docu-drama, which left out a lot of the really interesting things (like von Braun breaking his arm escaping from Nordhausen) and put in their place tired old cliches.

Of everything in this genre, about the only thing I've seen which was even worse in script and general execution was the extremely distorted travesty they made out of an already distorted book, the Shepard/Slayton piece, "Moonshot." That thing just plain stank.

-the other Doug


--------------------
“The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.” -Mark Twain
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ljk4-1
post Jun 7 2006, 03:26 PM
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QUOTE (dvandorn @ Jun 6 2006, 06:22 PM) *
Of everything in this genre, about the only thing I've seen which was even worse in script and general execution was the extremely distorted travesty they made out of an already distorted book, the Shepard/Slayton piece, "Moonshot." That thing just plain stank.


Ah yes, the one with the plainly doctored image of Shepard golfing on the Moon.

Quoted from here:

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a14/a14.clsout2.html

[Readers should note that, while the golf-shot picture in Al's book Moonshot bears some resemblance to the TV images, it is actually a composite made up of pieces of various Hasselblad images. The only actual record of the golf shot is the TV coverage. Al and Ed had already put their Hasselblads into the ETB at about 135:06:06.]

[Not long after I bought a copy of Moonshot, Andrew Chaikin and I had a long telephone conversation about the composite and worked out - at least in general terms - how it was put together. Journal Contributor David Harland tells us that the 1994 hardback UK edition published by Virgin Books contains the composite, while Brian Lawrence tells us that the 1995 edition does not.]

[In the composite, the LM and LM shadow come from a left/right reversal of AS14-66 9276. Note the LRRR which is sitting in the footpad of the ladder strut. In reality, the LR-Cubed was deployed at the ALSEP site during the first EVA. Both of the astronaut images in the composite come from a pan Al took at the beginning of EVA-1 shortly before 114:53:34. The image of "Al" is actually a left/right reversal of Ed's image from AS14-66- 9240. In the real photograph, Ed is doing a TV pan. In the composite, the TV camera has been removed and the golf club has been added. The image of "Ed" in the composite is taken from another frame in Al's earlier pan, AS14-66- 9241. And, once again, the TV had been removed from a left-right reversal of the original images. Similarly, the image of the U.S. flag has been taken from AS14-66- 9232- or one of the other tourist pictures Al and Ed took during the flag deployment. I have not yet identified the precise images from which the MET and the S-Band were taken; but, the MET image is very similar to the one in AS14-67- 9361, which Al took at the ALSEP site at the end of the ALSEP deployment. Finally, the ball and the shadows of the S-Band legs - like the golf club - appear to have been drawn in.]


--------------------
"After having some business dealings with men, I am occasionally chagrined,
and feel as if I had done some wrong, and it is hard to forget the ugly circumstance.
I see that such intercourse long continued would make one thoroughly prosaic, hard,
and coarse. But the longest intercourse with Nature, though in her rudest moods, does
not thus harden and make coarse. A hard, sensible man whom we liken to a rock is
indeed much harder than a rock. From hard, coarse, insensible men with whom I have
no sympathy, I go to commune with the rocks, whose hearts are comparatively soft."

- Henry David Thoreau, November 15, 1853

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Bob Shaw
post Jun 8 2006, 11:30 AM
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oDoug:

Von Braun didn't break his arm 'escaping from Nordhausen' - instead, his official driver fell asleep at the wheel and crashed their car during a night-time journey. Von Braun got the driver and himself out of the burning car, though he didn't remember how. His arm was broken and re-set at least once, but for the rest of his life caused him pain.

Bob Shaw


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