How an electric lineman's tool manufacturer in Centralia, Missouri, helped save the first American space station from catastrophe.
The true story of technical troubles that scuttle the Apollo 13 lunar mission in 1970, risking the lives of astronaut Jim Lovell and his crew, with the failed journey turning into a thrilling saga of heroism. Drifting more than 200,000 miles from Earth, the astronauts work furiously with the ground crew to avert tragedy.
NASA may have just gotten one step closer to the answering the question: are we alone? The Spitzer Telescope has made a groundbreaking discovery of exoplanets that could be similar to our own. And as Kepler also continues its search, our understanding of the universe continues to be redefined.
In the summer of 1977, NASA sent Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 on an epic journey into interstellar space. Together and alone, they will travel until the end of the universe. Each spacecraft carries a golden record album, a massive compilation of images and sounds embodying the best of Planet Earth. According to Carl Sagan, “[t]he spacecraft will be encountered and the record played only if there are advanced space-faring civilizations in interstellar space. But the launching of this bottle into the cosmic ocean says something very hopeful about life on this planet.” While working on the golden record, Sagan met and fell madly in love with his future wife Annie Druyan. The record became their love letter to humankind and to each other. In the summer of 2010, I began my own hopeful voyage into the unknown. This film is a love letter to my fellow traveler. - Penny Lane
It has been said that 10,000 years from now only one name will still be remembered, that of Neil Armstrong. But in the four decades since he first set foot on the moon, Armstrong has become increasingly reclusive. Andrew Smith, author of the best-selling book Moondust, journeys across America to try and discover the real Neil Armstrong. He tracks down the people who knew Armstrong, from his closest childhood friend to fellow astronauts and Houston technicians, and even the barber who sold his hair, in a wry and sideways look at the reluctant hero of the greatest event of the 20th century.
This documentary records the journey undertaken by Jacques Cousteau, his 24-member team, and an NFB film crew to explore the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, one of the world's richest fishing areas. They discover shipwrecks, film icebergs and observe beluga whales, humpback whales and harp seals. The film also includes a fascinating sequence showing Calypso divers freeing a calf whale entrapped in a fishing net.
Before the joint NASA/ESA Cassini-Huygens mission, humanity only knew what had been learned, decades earlier, with the previous limited, rapid "fly-by" Pioneer and Voyager missions. Cassini-Huygens spent more than 13 years in wildly varied orbits around Saturn, allowing the spacecraft to pass near many of its moons, as well as execute a soft-landing of its Huygens lander on the moon Titan. By mission end, it accumulated a mountain of imagery and scientific data that will continue to be studied for years to come. This film is a testament to the amazing efforts of the scientists who planned and executed the mission. It combines breathtaking images, movies, and a variety of animations to take the viewer into Saturn's complex system of rings and moons, as well as stepping viewers through some of the more exciting scientific discoveries made over the course of the elaborately complex mission.
How in 1959, during the heat of the Cold War, the government of the United States decided to create a secret military base located in the far north of Greenland: Camp Century, almost a real town with roads and houses, a nuclear plant to provide power and silos to house missiles aimed at the Soviet Union.
Spacecraft OSIRIS-REx attempts to grab a piece of an asteroid to bring back to Earth so scientists can study it to learn about the planet's origins.
Archival material from the original NASA film footage – much of it seen for the first time – plus interviews with the surviving astronauts, including Jim Lovell, Dave Scott, John Young, Gene Cernan, Mike Collins, Buzz Aldrin, Alan Bean, Edgar Mitchell, Charlie Duke and Harrison Schmitt.
A respectful overview of Dr. Marvin E. Grunzke’s career that included training Ham, the first chimpanzee launched into orbit by NASA.
July 1969. America made history and sent the first humans to the moon. High-quality NASA footage and extensive news broadcasts bring this sensational moment in history bursting back into life. Live news footage from every corner of the globe recreates the excitement and elation that surrounded the event, as 600 million people tuned in to watch Neil Armstrong's remarkable first steps.
Travel alongside the astronauts as they deploy and repair the Hubble Space Telescope, soar above Venus and Mars, and find proof of new planets and the possibility of other life forming around distant stars.
This film shows how far we have come since the cold-war days of the 50s and 60s. Back then the Russians were our "enemies". And to them the Americans were their "enemies" who couldn't be trusted. Somewhere in all this a young girl in Oklahoma named Shannon set her sights on becoming one of those space explorers, even though she was told "girls can't do that." But she did.
Join the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity for an awe-inspiring journey to the surface of the mysterious red planet.
Some 220 miles above Earth lies the International Space Station, a one-of-a-kind outer space laboratory that 16 nations came together to build. Get a behind-the-scenes look at the making of this extraordinary structure in this spectacular IMAX film. Viewers will blast off from Florida's Kennedy Space Center and the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Russia for this incredible journey -- IMAX's first-ever space film. Tom Cruise narrates.
Showcased in beautiful IMAX format, this documentary takes viewers into the hearts, minds and world of chimpanzees as it profiles legendary scientist Dr. Jane Goodall's work among the chimps at Gombe Park on Africa's Lake Tanganyka. Dr. Goodall and other researchers give us an up-close look at the daily lives of the Gombe chimp families -- Fifi and sons Freud and alpha male Frodo, along with Gremlin, Gaia and the endearing Galahad.
With access to the scientists and engineers responsible for the Curiosity rover's on-the-ground experiments, NOVA captures its landing on Mars
Social isolation affects millions of people, even Mars-bound astronauts. A savvy NASA psychologist is tasked with protecting these daring explorers.
All of the necessary technologies required to reach the Moon was first tested during Project Gemini, which comprised of ten missions in the mid-1960s.