Mission Control: The Unsung Heroes of Apollo

The spectacular moon landing in 1969 was also a success of more than 100 technicians and engineers from Germany, some of whom had already revolutionized weapons technology and built rockets in Hitler's service during World War II. The documentary analyzes the entanglements of German NASA employees with the Third Reich.

Apollo astronauts and engineers tell the inside story of Apollo 8, the first manned mission to the moon. The U.S. space program suffered a bitter setback when Apollo 1 ended in a deadly fire during a pre-launch run-through. In disarray, and threatened by the prospect of a Soviet Union victory in the space race, NASA decided upon a radical and risky change of plan: turn Apollo 8 from an earth-orbit mission into a daring sprint to the moon while relying on untried new technologies. Fifty years after the historic mission, the Apollo 8 astronauts and engineers recount the feats of engineering that paved the way to the moon.

Designed for class instruction and career education, and to prove that space exploration isn’t just for the boys. The film interviews women employed in the space transportation programs of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and shows the variety of positions that they hold as electrical engineers, aerial photography analysts, safety specialists and astronaut mission specialists. It notes how the women obtained their training and qualified for their positions. Astronaut Anna Lee Fisher, Dr. Patricia Cowings, Shirley Chevalier, Sue Norman, Sharon Orkansky, Brenda Willis, and Astronaut Catherine Sullivan are profiled. Narrated by Ricardo Montalban. Winner of NAACP Image Award For Picture Of The Year

When the world was in turmoil, three men went faster and farther than anyone thought possible. This is the story of the first people to leave the Earth and travel to the Moon — this is Apollo 8. Through restored archival films and audio, Apollo 8 astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders tell you in their own words how their three different stories got them into the same tiny capsule pointed at the Moon — and what happened next.

John Glenn goes on another journey into outer space for tests on how old age is affected there. His whole life is chronicled in this informative documentary, from his first mission above to his experience as a senator and finally, his blast into space at age 77.

In the 1950s and early '60s, a small band of high-altitude pioneers exposed themselves to the extreme forces of the space age long before NASA's acclaimed Mercury 7 would make headlines. Though largely forgotten today, balloonists were the first to venture into the frozen near-vacuum on the edge of our world, exploring the very limits of human physiology and human ingenuity in this lethal realm.

Challenger Disaster: Lost Tapes follows the story of the Space Shuttle Challenger and its crew, specifically Christa McAuliffe, the first civilian to be launched into space. The events of the days leading up to the disaster are detailed in this unique film, which uses no narration and no interviews. Instead the story is told solely with reports of journalists covering the story, extensive recordings from the NASA team, and interviews with McAuliffe and others who were part of this one-of-a-kind mission. Using rarely seen images and audio recordings, this show takes viewers behind the scenes of this compelling and historic story in a way never before seen.

An average student in average small-town America, inspired by the astronauts she saw on TV, Eileen Collins nurtured a secret dream to fly to space herself. In the 1970's the US military selected women pilots for the first time, and Eileen became one of those daredevil test pilots. Proving herself in this man's world, she then inspired thousands of others when she became NASA's first female pilot of a space shuttle. SPACEWOMAN will show Eileen's experience of the epic violence of a space shuttle launch, a historic docking with a Russian space station, and follow the dramatic tale of one of the most perilous and important missions in the history of space travel. It also tells the very human story of a family, examining the tough background that made Eileen a woman who could manage fear and take command, and as a mother, guide the journey of her own family alongside her extraordinary and risky endeavors.

WBGU-TV celebrates the 50th anniversary of the moon landing (July 2019) with a special collection of interviews from the friends and family of Neil Armstrong, the first astronaut to step on the moon. Through never-before-seen footage and home movies, interviewees share memories of growing up in Northwest Ohio. The documentary also includes as a look at the momentous 1969 Homecoming Celebration.

New Horizons is the first mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt of rocky, icy objects beyond. Principal Investigator Alan Stern leads a mission team that includes the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Southwest Research Institute, Ball Aerospace Corporation, the Boeing Company, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Stanford University, KinetX, Inc., Lockheed Martin Corporation, University of Colorado, the U.S. Department of Energy, and a number of other firms, NASA centers and university partners.

The Academy Award® nominee Cosmic Voyage combines live action with state-of-the-art computer-generated imagery to pinpoint where humans fit in our ever-expanding universe. Highlighting this journey is a "cosmic zoom" based on the powers of 10, extending from the Earth to the largest observable structures in the universe, and then back to the subnuclear realm.