The story of the United States' space program, from its beginnings in 1961 to the final moon mission in 1972.
4/5/1998
NASA responds to John F. Kennedy's challenge of landing a man on the moon with a group of new astronauts for the Gemini Program, who work toward the eventual lunar voyage with a series of risky and groundbreaking earth-orbit missions.
The tragic death of Apollo's first three astronauts during a pre-launch test haunts the spacecraft's designers, as they struggle to come to terms with what happened, and find a way to save the moon program.
4/12/1998
A documentary film crew follows the final preparations for the first manned Apollo launch. Now behind schedule due to the Apollo 1 fire, astronauts and launch pad personnel bet their lives--and America's space future--on its success.
NASA takes its boldest and most controversial step—an attempt to fly men around the moon and back for the first time in history—at the end of one of the most cataclysmic years of the century.
4/19/1998
Engineers at Grumman Aviation work with NASA and the Apollo 9 astronauts to design, build, and finally test-fly the world's first true spaceship—a “lunar module” which will hopefully land the first humans on the moon.
The glare of the public eye, conflicts among the crew, disastrous simulations, and a series of harrowing last-minute crises threaten the Apollo 11 astronauts' success at pulling off NASA's crowning achievement—the first lunar landing.
4/26/1998
From the perspective of Astronaut Alan Bean, see how he made an unexpected journey to the moon and his friendship with his Apollo 12 crew mates.
As the life-threatening consequences of the Apollo 13 accident escalate in real time, so do the tensions among the NASA press corps covering it. Among them, a respected, old-school TV journalist questions the confrontational methods of a younger, slicker colleague.
5/3/1998
America's first man in space, Alan Shepard, is grounded with an inner ear disorder. A thankless new desk job starts to look permanent, until fate—and surgery—bring him a chance to rescue the space program.
Geology guru Lee Silver helps Dave Scott and his Apollo 15 crew unravel the moon's mysterious origins by teaching them to become his lunar surrogates, and thus the first fully-trained “field observers” on another world.
5/10/1998
A group of young military wives struggle with their new “jobs” handling both the national spotlight and a demanding home front. Meanwhile, their astronaut husbands lose themselves in the pursuit of a national goal alternately competitive, glamorous, and deadly.
The bittersweet end of the Apollo program—and the final manned journey to another planet—is juxtaposed with a light-hearted recreation of the first cinematic imagining of such an endeavor, the 1902 French silent classic “Voyage to the Moon.”
