NASA's Greatest Missions

NASA's Greatest Missions info

Humankind’s ‘final frontier’ and Discovery have always gone hand in hand. And so in 2008, to celebrate NASA’s 50th Anniversary, Discovery was the natural partner to tell the story. But we didn’t just repeat the classic stories of mankind's greatest adventures - we went deep into NASA’s vaults, finding, restoring and broadcasting original film and audio recordings that had never been seen before.

This landmark series was the complete history of human space exploration from the first Mercury flights through to the Apollo moon landings, and then the ‘next age’: The Space Shuttle, and the construction of the International Space Station. These epic stories are shown in stunning clarity and told by the astronauts and engineers who were there.

When the Apollo moonshot missions were launched the total computer power at their disposal to control the mission was less than the PC on your desk today.
And likewise, digital broadcast technology has improved so much Discovery was able to ‘clean up’ many of the images and show them with a never-seen-before clarity. The shots were simply stunning.
What most surprised audiences was the amount of ‘home movie’ footage shot by the astronauts themselves.

NASA's Greatest Missions