When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions, New series on the Discovery Channel Options

[ilbasso]

Just finished watching episodes 1 and 2 of the new Discovery Channel series, "When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions."

WOW!!

Wonderful footage, beautifully restored, and it looks great in HDTV. These first two episodes covered Mercury and Gemini. Subsequent episodes will cover Apollo, Shuttle, and ISS.

Due to time limitations, they didn't cover every mission (Sigma 7, and Geminis V, X, and XI were not mentioned at all). But the missions they did cover included some footage that I have never seen before, and I have been watching these missions on TV since Shepard's flight. Seeing film of Ed White's spacewalk again brought back the sense of wonder and disorientation that I felt the first time I saw it in 1965. I don't believe I ever knew that Gemini VII had been tasked with observing a Polaris missle launch - and they had film of the launch taken from orbit. They also showed film of Gemini VI's approach and rendezvous - I had previously only seen stills from the actual station-keeping with Gemini VII. And I don't recall ever before seeing a movie of Gene Cernan's spacewalk on Gemini IX.

The film clips and narration are supplemented by commentary from many of the astronauts, most surprisingly being Neil Armstrong. He almost NEVER takes part in these kinds of documentaries, so his participation certainly added to the feeling that this was a special show. John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Jim McDivitt, Jim Lovell, Frank Borman, Buzz Aldrin, and Gene Cernan also provided commentary, as did Chris Kraft and Gene Krantz.

If you get Discovery Channel, I strongly suggest you watch this! It's also coming out on DVD and Blu-Ray, with an additional 4 hours of footage.

[jmjawors]

Yeah, laurele, I was making a joke of it (albeit lamely). I have fallen victim to that one universal of truths about sarcasm not being conveyable through text.

I thought both episodes tonight were great. I wasn't alive then and don't know much about the space program leading up to Apollo, specifically Gemini. It's amazing how violently they pushed against the boundaries of their knowledge. Definitely not safe at times, but today we benefit from the risks they took.