SPACE FLIGHT #1 "Thunder in the Skies"
This is the cleanest copy of the 1980s PBS classic I could find, because I myself paid to have it taken straight from a plastic-wrapped PBS-issue VHS boxed set of the four-part series. Which I obtained as a rare collectible from Amazon.
I am re-posting to this platform as a form of historical preservation. Especially the interviews, which are priceless given the fact most of those being interviewed are now dead.
I was told when I inquired of WETA that no laser disc nor any DVD of this wonderful series has ever been issued. And it is not available via streaming.
So, I give to you the first episode. See it. And hear the men who lived the events, in their own words.
Narration:
Martin Sheen (actor)
Interviews:
Hugh Sidey (journalist)
Wernher von Braun (scientist/engineer)
Krafft Ehricke (engineer)
Walter Cronkite (journalist)
Tom Wolfe (author)
Charles Elwood "Chuck" Yeager (test pilot)
Scott Crossfield (test pilot)
John Logsdon (space analyst)
Jim Oberg (space historian)
Charles "Pete" Conrad Jr. (astronaut)
Donald Kent "Deke" Slayton (astronaut)
James Arthur "Jim" Lovell Jr. (astronaut)
Walter Marty "Wally" Schirra Jr. (astronaut)
Alan Bartlett "Al" Shepard Jr. (astronaut)
Russell Louis "Rusty" Schweickart (astronaut)
Robert Voas (NASA psychologist)
Historical figures:
Robert Goddard (scientist)
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (scientist)
Hermann Oberth (scientist/engineer)
Walter Dornberger (scientist/engineer)
Florence "Pancho" Barnes (pilot/proprietor)
Jack Ridley (test pilot)
Milburn "Mel" Apt (test pilot)
Dwight D. Eisenhower (U.S. President)
Sergei Korolev (scientist/engineer)
Nikita Khrushchev (politician)
Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom (astronaut)
Malcolm Scott Carpenter (astronaut)
Leroy Gordon "Gordo" Cooper Jr. (astronaut)
John Herschel Glenn Jr. (astronaut)
Neil Alden Armstrong (astronaut)
Subjects:
World War 2
Peenemünde Army Research Center
V2 (A4) ballistic missile
Operation Paperclip
Sputnik satellite
White Sands Missile Range
Edwards Air Force Base (Muroc)
Happy Bottom Riding Club
X-1 & X-1A
X-2
Douglas D-558-2
X-15
Sound Barrier
Cold War
R-7 ballistic missile
Laika (canine)
Project Vanguard
Explorer 1
Junu I
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Project Mercury
Redstone
U.S. military test pilots
The Mercury 7
Space Shuttle