NASA: the big missions

NASA: the big missions is an amazing collection of newsreels and NASA film footage of the American exploration into space spanning from 1959 through to 1979. It includes previously unseen Movietone reports and official NASA Aeronautics and Space Reports capturing some of the most dramatic and momentous occasions in space history. The video opens with newsreel footage (1959-1961) of animals in space, the first step towards man’s flight into space, then follows chronologically from the Project Mercury missions (1961-1963), the Project Gemini missions (1965-1966) and eventually the Project Apollo missions (1966-1975), including footage from two of the most famous missions, Apollo 11 when Armstrong and Aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon (20 July 1969), and the Apollo-Soyuz mission (15 July 1975) where the American astronauts and the Russian cosmonauts transfer to each other’s space ships in a rendezvous in space whilst orbiting around earth. Also includes footage on Space Lab and the development of the Space Shuttle (1975-1979). This video provides a wonderful insight into the operations of NASA, the rigorous training of the American astronauts (the first seven being Donald Slayton, Alan Shepard, Walter Schirra, Virgil Grissom, John Glenn, Leroy Cooper and Malcolm Scott Carpenter), the designing and trialling of the various rockets and space ships, the many failed launches as well as the successful and newsbreaking missions, and the continuing development and commitment to achieve what at times seemed to be unachievable - man’s conquest of space and the desire to explore the unknown. Contains some breathtaking photography shot live from space and rare archival footage of significant historical value.