

Go higher, faster and farther with the Smithsonian as they explore the dreams of flight.
Narrator
Words of Wilbur Wright
Newsreel Narrator
Self
Self

Go higher, faster and farther with the Smithsonian as they explore the dreams of flight.
1995-07-04
0
A brief history of British aviation and the development of both civil and military aircraft. Made for the Festival of Britain.
0.0This 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.
5.8Twelve men who belong to one of the world's most exclusive fraternities -- people who've walked on the surface of the moon -- are paid homage in this documentary. Using newsreel footage, rare NASA photographs, and digitally animated re-creations, Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon examines the Apollo missions between 1969 and 1972 which put astronauts on the moon.
0.0Documentary about humankind’s first walk on the moon with Apollo 11, NASA’s first test mission of Orion for beyond low-space orbit, and Mars 1, the upcoming first manned mission to the red planet.
0.0Poetic documentary about the beauty of Earth and space as captured from the International Space Station.
6.6The 1960s was an extraordinary time for the United States. Unburdened by post-war reparations, Americans were preoccupied with other developments like NASA, the game-changing space programme that put Neil Armstrong on the moon. Yet it was astronauts like Eugene Cernan who paved the uneven, perilous path to lunar exploration. A test pilot who lived to court danger, he was recruited along with 14 other men in a secretive process that saw them become the closest of friends and adversaries. In this intensely competitive environment, Cernan was one of only three men who was sent twice to the moon, with his second trip also being NASA’s final lunar mission. As he looks back at what he loved and lost during the eight years in Houston, an incomparably eventful life emerges into view. Director Mark Craig crafts a quietly epic biography that combines the rare insight of the surviving former astronauts with archival footage and otherworldly moonscapes.
7.0The 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.
0.0Air 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.
6.9This 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.
6.1William 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.
6.5The Wonder of it All focuses on the human side of the men behind the Apollo missions through candid interviews with seven of the Apollo astronauts: Buzz Aldrin, Alan Bean, Edgar Mitchell, John Young, Charles Duke, Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt. They all reflect on the training, the tragedies, the camaraderie, and the effect that their space travel has had on their families.
7.2Travel 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.
6.7Take a technological thrill ride The Magic of Flight takes you on a technological thrill ride faster, higher and wider than modern science or even your imagination! Relive the first flight of the Wright Brothers, then soar with the Blue Angels as they defy the laws of gravity. Narrated by Tom Selleck.
7.6This 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.
7.5Before 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.
6.7An epic journey around Mars — built from real satellite and rover data — revealing the red planet as you’ve never seen it before.
9.5Horizon visits state-of-the-art laboratories and uses CGI to recreate the science-fiction-worthy weather experienced on other planets.
7.6Archival 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.
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.
7.2Join the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity for an awe-inspiring journey to the surface of the mysterious red planet.