Air & Space Smithsonian: Dreams of Flight - Higher Faster Farther

Winged Migration(fr)

This documentary follows various migratory bird species on their long journeys from their summer homes to the equator and back, covering thousands of miles and navigating by the stars. These arduous treks are crucial for survival, seeking hospitable climates and food sources. Birds face numerous challenges, including crossing oceans and evading predators, illness, and injury. Although migrations are undertaken as a community, birds disperse into family units once they reach their destinations, and every continent is affected by these migrations, hosting migratory bird species at least part of the year.

Comet Collision(en)

Comets pose one of the greatest threats to life on Earth - a threat that can only be countered if we find out more about them. In 2005, in an audacious bid to do just that, NASA scientists launched a space probe to collide with a comet in the emptiness of deep space. This film follows the amazing story of mission Deep Impact, from its inception through to the final nail-biting moments when the probe and comet Tempel 1 met head-on.

Shadow Chasers(fr)

This feature-length documentary is a portrait of eclipse chasers, people for whom solar eclipses - among nature's more spectacular phenomena – are a veritable obsession. The film follows 4 of them as they travel incredible distances to witness the last total eclipse of the millennium as it sweeps eastward across Europe to India. At various points along the way enthusiasts Alain Cirou in France, Paul Houde in Austria, Olivier Staiger in Germany and Debasis Sarkar in India offer their impressions of the historic event.

Kingdom of Saturn: Cassini's Epic Quest(en)

Before the joint NASA/ESA Cassini-Huygens mission, humanity only knew what had been learned, decades earlier, with the previous limited, rapid "fly-by" Pioneer and Voyager missions. Cassini-Huygens spent more than 13 years in wildly varied orbits around Saturn, allowing the spacecraft to pass near many of its moons, as well as execute a soft-landing of its Huygens lander on the moon Titan. By mission end, it accumulated a mountain of imagery and scientific data that will continue to be studied for years to come. This film is a testament to the amazing efforts of the scientists who planned and executed the mission. It combines breathtaking images, movies, and a variety of animations to take the viewer into Saturn's complex system of rings and moons, as well as stepping viewers through some of the more exciting scientific discoveries made over the course of the elaborately complex mission.

In the Shadow of the Moon(en)

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.

Mars: One Day on the Red Planet(en)

An epic journey around Mars — built from real satellite and rover data — revealing the red planet as you’ve never seen it before.

Destiny in Space(en)

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.

Air Disasters(en)

Air Disasters exposes some painful truths behind the world of flight, using actual footage of real incidents to look at why planes crash; in aerodynamic and technical terms and in the way the industry is run.

Gravitation - Urkraft des Universums(de)

Edge of Darkness(en)

The film features amazing scenes of places never before seen gathered by key space missions that culminated with groundbreaking discoveries in 2015. It features a spectacular flight though the great cliffs on comet 67P, a close look at the fascinating bright "lights" on Ceres, and the first ever close ups of dwarf binary planet Pluto/Charon and its moons.

Battle of Midway: The True Story(en)

It's June 1942 and the world's fate is about to be decided by a handful of pilots and their untested aircraft. Experience an inside look at the Battle of Midway, captured through rarely seen battle footage and firsthand accounts from its hero dive-bombing pilot, "Dusty" Kleiss. This is an hour-by-hour recount of one of the most pivotal conflicts of the 20th century. Take a closer look at how this desperately needed victory came about through the design of U.S. airplanes, the skill of the pilots, the element of surprise, and a stroke of luck.

The Defender(en)

This documentary is about Bob Diemert of Carman, Manitoba, and his dream of building the world's next great fighter plane. His worldwide reputation as a genius at restoring "warbirds" enables him to finance his dream. The Defender is a lively, sometimes wild and funny, tale about a remarkable, modern-day folk hero.

James May on the Moon(en)

Top Gear presenter James May presents this informative program that examines the historic moon missions. Traveling to America, May meets three of the men who walked on the surface of the moon, learning how it felt and how the now antiquated technology was used to achieve such an historic feat.

The White Diamond(en)

This 2004 documentary by Werner Herzog diaries the struggle of a passionate English inventor to design and test a unique airship during its maiden flight above the jungle canopy.

How William Shatner Changed The World(en)

William Shatner presents a light-hearted look at how the "Star Trek" TV series have influenced and inspired today's technologies, including: cell phones, medical imaging, computers and software, SETI, MP3 players and iPods, virtual reality, and spaceship propulsion.

Concorde: A Supersonic Story(en)

Concorde: A Supersonic Story follows the story of the most glamorous aeroplane ever built - told by the people whose lives she touched. We uncover rare footage telling the forgotten row between the French and British governments over the spelling of Concorde which threatened to derail the whole project.

Living in the Age of Airplanes(en)

A fresh perspective on a modern-day miracle that many of us take for granted: flying. Narrated by Harrison Ford and featuring an original score from Academy Award® winning composer James Horner, the film takes viewers to 18 countries across all seven continents to illuminate how airplanes have empowered a century of global connectedness our ancestors could never have imagined.

A Remembering of Disremembering(tl)

Told through the tales of love of a retiring film projectionist and a late-blooming actress, the short documentary delves into the journey of Manila’s oldest movie theater from grandiosity to obsolescence.

Cosmic Dawn(en)

For over three decades, NASA and an international team of scientists and engineers pushed the limits of technology, innovation, and perseverance to build and launch the James Webb Space Telescope, the most powerful space observatory ever created. Cosmic Dawn brings audiences behind the scenes with the Webb film crew, and never-before-heard testimonies revealing the real story of how this telescope overcame all odds.

Solar System: The Secrets of the Universe(en)

Join our host on the International Space Station of the year 2050. Marvel at the three-dimensional sights and learn many things about the astral bodies that surround us.