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When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions
2008 · TV series · documentary · 60 min episodes · 1 season
A miniseries documenting American human spaceflight, spanning from the first Mercury flights through the Gemini program to the Apollo moon landings, the Space Shuttle, and the construction of the International Space Station. It was created in association with NASA to commemorate the agency's fiftieth anniversary in 2008.
10 positive2 neutralfrom 12 commenters
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14 comments on Hacker News
I absolutely love that beautiful film footage, particularly well-exhibited in one of my favorite documentaries, the spectacular "When We Left Earth" (a lovely and lengthy series). That said...
Modern rockets have the ability to stream a great deal more data, including live camera streams, than the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo or Space Shuttle could. This increased real-time data bandwidth is probably much more valuable than high-dynamic-range cameras were.
If you like exploring outer space:
Apollo 11 (2019). A feature-length documentary telling the story of the first people to land on the moon, told entirely without narration, using gloriously high definition archival footage.
If you like that and want more NASA history, I also loved When We Left Earth (2008), which is a six-part series covering the history of NASA's manned spaceflight programs: Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and then on to the space shuttle, ISS, etc.
If you like exploring our planet:
The Rescue (2021). The story of the kids soccer team who was trapped in a flooded cave in Thailand for nearly three weeks in 2018 and the huge international effort that ultimately saw them rescued safely by hobbyist cave divers after the Thai navy seals decided it was too dangerous to attempt.
I don't disagree with you, actually. I was fixating on his unproven statements and I couldn't see past that. Can't really argue with you.
Was the documentary "When We Left Earth"?
Nobody else has mentioned this, so I will:
When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1233514/
Pretty great, with high quality historical footage as well. I think you can buy the HD streaming version on Amazon for $10 (258 minutes long, broken into six segments).
Silicon Valley (by PBS) is another:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2547530/
"When We Left Earth" is a fabulous TV mini-series and Bruce McCandless is interviewed a few times.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_We_Left_Earth:_The_NASA_Missions
Those who haven't heard about him should watch "When We Left Earth", a fantastic documentary miniseries about NASA.
He was one of the many NASA astronauts interviewed.
You're forgetting about all the other Apollo landing missions. The later ones have fantastic color video footage, remastered in full HD for episode 4 of the fantastic documentary series When We Left Earth.
The whole 6 part documentary series are worth watching for anyone remotely interested in space, but here's a small sample of the quality of the moon landing video footage: https://kristofferR.com/files/moonlanding_footage_HD.mkv
"When We Left Earth" It's a great documentary TV miniseries about american spaceflight. Must-watch for every space fan.
I highly recommend the Discovery Channel mini-series "When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions". This mini-series covers the entire breadth of the NASA missions, from Mercury to the International Space Station. This series is available on Netflix: www.netflix.com/WiMovie/70218722
If "When We Left Earth" sparks your interest. I suggest watching "Apollo 13" and "The Right Stuff" next.
Lastly, I'm currently reading the excellent book "Moon Lander: How We Developed the Apollo Lunar Module". This book gives an insiders view of what it took to build the Lunar Module (LM). I particularly appreciate that the book covers a lot of the hard work, arguments, and drama that are often forgotten when we romanticize the past.
Yeah, it really is an incredible bit of footage. If you can watch the series, though, it makes it so much better, because it really expresses the breakneck pace that these guys were working on. They would go from major milestone to major milestone within weeks or months of each other. I got the sense that they knew very little in the beginning, and basically had ballistic missiles, and they had to become very proficient very quickly to meet their goals.
If you can't see it on Netflix, it looks like it's very cheap on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/When-We-Left-Earth-Missions/dp/B001BEK8CY/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1381972026&sr=1-1&keywords=when+we+left+earth
The series that that clip is from ("When We Left Earth") is soul stirring throughout. It's one of the most inspirational things I've ever seen. And it's on Netflix! They should really show it in schools, it's incredible.
Link: http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/When_We_Left_Earth_The_NASA_Missions/70218722
The discovery documentary "when We left Earth" is excellent and features a lot of interviews of the original astronauts.
If you like watching about this, I recommend ``When we left the Earth'' miniseries by Discovery Channel.
Focuses on people of the early space era, with narratives provided by several known and unknown participants.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_We_Left_Earth:_The_NASA_Missions
I've never wanted $25 million as bad as while watching the new "When We Left Earth: The NASA missions" mini-series on Discovery HD.