posted 05-29-2004 09:11 PM               

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The Race To the Moon combines top programming from A&E and The History Channel to deliver the ultimate 35th anniversary celebration of this world-changing event. Experience the ultimate insider's view of the Apollo space program by the man who served as NASA's primary flight director for over 30 years and examine recently declassified documents revealing NASA's plans to send men to Saturn by 1970. Take a nostalgic trip with Mike Wallace back to the early days of the space program, and return to the present-day triumphs and tragedies of one of our greatest technological achievements--the Space Shuttle. This 2-volume DVD set features the following programs:

Failure Is Not An Option: Retired NASA Flight Director Gene Kranz recalls the "whiz kid" atmosphere of the space program's early days and the exploits of the astronauts who took our dreams to the moon.

Modern Marvels: Apollo 13: An unexpected disaster leaves the crew of Apollo 13 lost in space. In many ways, this failed moon mission is one of NASA's finest moments.

History Undercover: Code Name: Project Orion: Explore the grand dreams of the top-secret US space program in the 1950s. Renowned physicists like Freeman Dyson discuss visions of battleship-sized rockets and spaceships hitched to comets.

Modern Marvels: The Space Shuttle: The complete story of the shuttle, from its conception in the 1950s to its triumphant launch in 1981. Plus, an exclusive peek at the next-generation space shuttle, the futuristic X-33.

Includes commentary by NASA Mission Control flight director Gene Kranz, writer-producer-codirector Rushmore DeNooyer, and editor-coproducer Tony Bacon on "Failure Is Not an Option".

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posted 07-29-2004 06:31 PM               

Today I watched the documentary on the Orion nuclear rocket program. It was pretty good. Not amazing, but relatively balanced. This show originally ran around 1999 or so, and contained a few dated references, but it was pretty good. There was one bit of sloppy writing, where the narrator said that the Orion would have been self-contained, like the Biosphere II project. This comment was then followed by several of the program members who said that it would not really have been like Biosphere II at all. You'd think the editor would have caught that. There were also a few other odd comments as well. For instance, they kept talking about a 50-person crew, but then one guy said that it would be the equivalent of a small town of around 5000 people. This just didn't make sense.

If I have one complaint about the overall package, it is that these documentaries are not really about the race to the moon. The Orion, space shuttle, and Apollo 13 documentaries are not really about the moon race. The "Failure is not an Option" documentary can fit in that category, but only loosely.