The Space Movie

Commemorating the space agency's 50th anniversary, follow John Glenn's Mercury mission to orbit the earth, Neil Armstrong's first historic steps on the moon, unprecedented spacewalks to repair the Hubble stories, and more!

Using original footage and interviews, this documentary tells the nail-biting story of Apollo 13 and the struggle to bring its astronauts safely home.

With more than 27 years of service, the space shuttle Discovery has clocked more time in space than any other shuttle. She has flown more than 148 million miles, and has become one of the most storied spacecraft in American history. Join us as we celebrate her remarkable past and follow her final flight: to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. It's an emotionally charged mission full of logistical challenges. Discovery is a robust, but very fragile aircraft, and getting her to D.C. in one piece will require some innovative engineering.

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

The first American space station Skylab is found in pieces scattered in Western Australia. Putting these pieces back together and re-tracing the Skylab program back to its very conception reveals the cornerstone of human space exploration.

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.

One Small Step: The Story of the Space Chimps is the dramatic and moving real-life tale of the United States Air Force chimponauts and their NASA compatriots.

The Dream Is Alive takes you into space alongside the astronauts on the space shuttle. Share with them the delights of zero gravity while working, eating and sleeping in orbit around the Earth. Float as never before over the towering Andes, the boot of Italy, Egypt and the Nile. Witness firsthand a tension-filled satellite capture and repair and the historic first spacewalk by an American woman.

A testament to NASA's Apollo program of the 1960s and '70s. Composed of actual NASA footage of the missions and astronaut interviews, the documentary offers the viewpoint of the individuals who braved the remarkable journey to the moon and back.

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.

Moonscape is a free and freely downloadable high-definition documentary about the first manned Moon landing. Funded and produced by space enthusiasts from all over the world, it shows the full, unedited Apollo 11 landing and moonwalk, using only the original TV and film footage and the original audio and photographs. All this material has been scanned, digitized and restored from the best available sources. The live TV broadcast, the 16mm color film footage shot on the Moon and in Mission Control, and the Hasselblad 70mm color photographs taken by astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong, have been fully synchronized with the audio recordings (including the onboard and Mission Control recordings) and are presented in real time, as they happened, with full subtitles in English or Italian.

The 1960s was an extraordinary time for the United States. Unburdened by post-war reparations, Americans were preoccupied with other developments like NASA, the game-changing space programme that put Neil Armstrong on the moon. Yet it was astronauts like Eugene Cernan who paved the uneven, perilous path to lunar exploration. A test pilot who lived to court danger, he was recruited along with 14 other men in a secretive process that saw them become the closest of friends and adversaries. In this intensely competitive environment, Cernan was one of only three men who was sent twice to the moon, with his second trip also being NASA’s final lunar mission. As he looks back at what he loved and lost during the eight years in Houston, an incomparably eventful life emerges into view. Director Mark Craig crafts a quietly epic biography that combines the rare insight of the surviving former astronauts with archival footage and otherworldly moonscapes.

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.

From the unique vantage point of 200 miles above Earth's surface, we see how natural forces - volcanoes, earthquakes and hurricanes - affect our world, and how a powerful new force - humankind - has begun to alter the face of the planet. From Amazon rain forests to Serengeti grasslands, Blue Planet inspires a new appreciation of life on Earth, our only home.

With access to the scientists and engineers responsible for the Curiosity rover's on-the-ground experiments, NOVA captures its landing on Mars

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.

Sally Ride's groundbreaking journey as the first American woman in space concealed a deeply personal story. Her life partner, Tam O'Shaughnessy, unveils their covert 27-year romance and its accompanying sacrifices.

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.

Twelve men who belong to one of the world's most exclusive fraternities -- people who've walked on the surface of the moon -- are paid homage in this documentary. Using newsreel footage, rare NASA photographs, and digitally animated re-creations, Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon examines the Apollo missions between 1969 and 1972 which put astronauts on the moon.