James Burke released banger after banger. From his Apollo coverage to Connections to The Day the Universe Changed, I can honestly saying that, growing up with these programs, he deserves most of the credit that I studied physics and am an engineer today. I wish I could meet this man and say thank you for covering these topics and instilling a curiosity in young adults that created a generation.
Wow, this is good! A British perspective on the Apollo program is so enlightening for Americans such as myself. This is very fresh and well done. I've been watching some videos of James Burke's BBC coverage of the moon missions of my youth and I am impressed with him!
James Burke was an avid follower of Apollo. You might also know a man called Patrick Moore (later 'Sir'). He covered Apollo missions for the BBC along with Burke. He was also an astronomer. He made detailed maps and charts of the Moon - NASA actually used these charts and the astronauts used them while in lunar orbit. Moore became good friends with Neil Armstrong.
Oh and because I'm British, I can put it into this perspective - James Burke was our own version of Walter Cronkite when it came to space. I was nowhere near being born when Apollo happened, but BBC showed re-runs when I was a kid in the late 80's. That's one of the things that got me interested.
As a working engineer many of the issues discussed in this film are still relevant today, i.e. the testing regime and assumptions that sadly failed the Apollo 1 crew. NASA and Apollo were so pioneering that we use this programme as the benchmark today. Thanks for posting video.
Stanislav Grof, Czech-American Psychologist-Psychiatrist with over 60 years of consciousness research brought me here, 03/23/2021. This film influenced so many people. Individuals whose lives became incredibly important to later generations like mine, 1969- on.
The Apollo 1 fire so freaked me out, I literally didn’t eat for a week. In my family, you weren’t supposed to show strong emotion or talk about it, but the idea that they burned alive to shrunken charcoal made me sick, literally. I couldn’t keep anything down. My mother brought me to the doctor who said I had a hard “stomach flu.” I missed two weeks of school, after which time I couldn’t continue to fake it. I steeled myself and dragged myself to school every day, but was plagued by nightmares and intrusive thoughts so I couldn’t concentrate.
Not sure if it's any better but they didn't burn, it was the smoke inhalation that did it. Most of their suits were still white and intact, but it's still a horrific tragedy.
The information gleaned from the moon also falls inline with Robert Schoch’s findings of the younger dryas period in history, the end of the last ice age then the cold snap followed by a rapid end to the ice age, very interesting stuff.
Burke talks to 3 of the "Four Horsemen" who pushed NASA to increase the Apollo science effort. L to R: Jerry Wasserberg, Bob Walker, Jim Arnold (the 4th horseman Paul Gast d. 1973) 37:13 uphill fight for science 41:46 46:00 47:41 48:28 Wasserberg's startling lunar bombardment results 50:23 Burke: Do you know the origin of the Moon? Wasserberg's emphatic and sly "No. ... Do you?" is a straight man's pitch to Jim Arnold. Their exchange is my favorite moment.
Thank you very much LM5 for posting the two documentaries from 1979, I don't remember seeing them at the time, and you forget what an educated and lucid presenter James Burke is. A valuable timepiece with a lot of relevant information even 40 years later. Thank you
WOW!!!!! Wonderful gem from the BBC archive. And the protagonists interviewed - Jim Webb ,Thomas Paine ,Gene Kranz , Bob Gilruth ,George Low, Dale Myer, Rocco Petrone, Jim McDivitt, Harrison Schmitt , Jim Lovell , Dave Scott - Apollo Royalty ! Well done for finding it and thanks.
I always use this time in our history to kinda like guide me how to deal with stress. Just listened to Mike Collins last interview and his honest answers to leading questions, leading down a political path inappropriate to the topic. His answers were kindly guiding the interviewer away. Nicely done!
When I was a kid in the sixties, I remember my father bringing home a piece of white material that was very light, like styrofoam. It was a ceramic heat shield tile. Man, I was hooked. With all of the constant turmoil at the time, I thought the space program was incredible and a good thing for the whole world. Since then, so many amazing missions have been extremely successful among many countries. I see that same excitement and optimism again now throughout the world. Plans for the near future are in the works. I don’t think I’ll be around for the international Moon Orbital Docking Station or a manned mission to Mars, but I believe it will happen. Right now I’m on the edge of my seat waiting for launch of the James Webb Telescope. What an incredible time to be alive. I have so much admiration and respect for all of these brilliant, visionary, hard working and brave people. It’s such a great example of what people can accomplish when they work together. All I did was pay my taxes and I think it was money well spent. I am so glad there are people with the ability to do what I cannot. We have learned so much about the universe just within my lifetime, it blows me away. I think it must inspire children everywhere to take a serious interest in science, moral ethics and collaboration. Yeah!
I was eleven when Apollo 11 went to the moon. I was really literally over the moon. I never saw this interview as in those days kids were sent to bed I would have understood o well I hope NASA will re open again the push for space travel. The world has greatly changed and we need hope in our hearts for a better safer world. The goal should be world peace and saving our beautiful planet earth. Godbless
Thank goodness for Burke for preserving these details for us. It would take many thousand hours to video document all that went into these missions and it would take people of the caliber of intelligence and artistic skill of Burke to capture it in an interesting way.
Thanks to LM5 for letting us view Burke's program. Without his tireless efforts, most of us would never have seen material like this. It's an interesting, non-American perspective, with clear differences of the space race that we older 'Americans' who lived through the times were mostly not exposed to. 13:14 Wait, what??? Houston was marsh land in the 1960s??? It's unfortunate that flammable and inflammable are synonyms which seem like antonyms. But, that's beside the point of this video. 46:17 In light of the soon to be return to the Moon, maybe the archival treatment of the 844 pounds of Apollo Moon rocks should be reconsidered. I don't mean offered up on eBay, but 844 pounds is a good deal of material that could more liberally available to lesser institutions.
JB was always excellent. Connections is still one of the best series ever made... Oh, Remember when you could buy glasses you could actually Fing see out of?
For those who want to hear the Apollo 1 tragedy unfold there is a 32 minute audio on RU-vid of it, including the last 19 seconds. You hear the frustration because of the difficult time communicating they were dealing with, lastly, you hear that there is a fire. Sadly the last you hear from the crew was the youngest member screaming as he died.
We had only one TV channel and one radio channel here in Norway at that time. I remember going to the UK and you had three!!! Even with commertials and everything! I was in heaven! (Norway was pretty red in those days, LOL.
Igor Flexus what I find amazing is even with the hundred plus channels we can all get now the only thing worth watching is the programs made when we only had 3 Progress can go horribly wrong sometimes
I'm not sure about that. I've noticed this 'gets educated' becoming something of a cliche on YT as well. ( Also 'gets destroyed' , 'gets schooled') - all a bit childish really.
I like the narrator. He was in a program where he looked at 10 things we made...and he had to go back in time to get all the pieces. I forget what the program was called.....but it was a great show.
This excellent British documentary would've been lost if not for lunarmodule5 - Nothing like James Burke asking hard questions of Americans. It's a 1776 thing.
@@rdubb77 This doc has been up on you tube for a number of years now. I had an audio recording of the original TV broadcast (in 1979, we hadn't acquired our first VHS video recorder). It's one of the most revealing doc on Apollo ever - and it interviews many key people, sadly most of whom have now passed away.
WRT Apollo 8 going without the LM, I wonder about another option, that surely must have occurred to someone, and why it wasn't considered. The LM was not ready, but couldn't they have prepared a LM that could serve as a lifeboat in case of an emergency requiring it? It would not have needed to be able to fly. In some ways, it could have been safer than a fully flight-ready LM, since it would not be fueled. Some parts could be left out, so some weight could be saved. OTOH many things could be learned even while using a LM in that limited capacity. Keep in mind, that it was well understood that a LM might be needed on such an emergency basis. That was not just dismissed as a far-out possibility.
Good video,ironically the ending,ends with my most coveted photo,being in a photography family,I have a poster of that picture of the earth from the moon,and it is truly humbling and exhilarating at the same time just a stunner...of a photo.it was damage a little from a leaky porch roof but its still golden,and priceless,why I'm not sure but it just is great video....enjoyed it totally.I have a friend who almost went to work at NASA but was insulted by the pay rate,so he told me.THANKS....
I kept a similar photo in my office at Boeing. And to it I attached the words from John Denver's song 'The Eagle and the Hawk" - "Reach for the heavens and hope for the future and all that we can be is not what we are."
I’m looking for the documentary, The other side of the moon(1990). You got the name of this program wrong😑 This is Project Apollo: the other side of the moon.🙁
Raul Its an effect of aging. As you age your ears continue to grow, add in gravity and you too will be wearing dumbo's ears someday. Blame mother nature.
There are numerous errors in this video. The reporter seems to completely lack the understanding of this: Everything that was being done was being done often for the 1st time. That entire systems had to be invented for every area. Things that still add so much to our lives in so many areas even today.
Well, to put it very simply, you move the control stick in the direction you want to go, you put the brakes on to slow down and hit the gas to speed up. See Newton's 3rd law you cretin.And stop yelling.
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Simple, centuries old PHYSICS. This is why most doubters look so bad, and that is most junior high science students understand basic physics much better than most doubters do. In fact, the more ignorant a doubter is, the more convinced they are their imaginings are the truth and not just a failure to understand the field they are critical of.
Flat Sabbath - One question - how does someone with severe lack of brain function manage to use RU-vid, but can't figure out how to turn off the damn CAPS LOCK button!
@@scheusselmensch5713 Actually you have it backwards, at least in earth orbit. If you are behind the vehicle you are trying to catch, you actually brake. This drops you to a lower orbit and you speed up. Orbital mechanics are not intuitive.
It seems to me that James Burke became more negative in his conclusions concerning the Apollo program. Compare his closing comments in this broadcast, which included positive comments on zero defect engineering, reliability demonstration tests, and systems analysis, to his beginning comments on the ITV broadcast for the 25th anniversary of Apollo 11 - it wasn't 'the greatest scientific achievement ever'; it wasn't 'the greatest example of American high teach'; and it basically 'failed'. I understand his comments on the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 were even more negative (about the program as a whole).
I agree, the American space effort of the 60s and early 70s was spectacular both in failure and success. With respect to the Soviets, I don't think James Burke ever mentioned any of their failures (and there were many). Bits of this video felt like a hatchet job, although in the end it had a more nuanced positive conclusion. That said, I do think this video is certainly worth watching. From my 68 year old perspective, the Apollo endeavor was the ultimate engineering and human endeavor of my lifetime, it sure beats war, computers, and facebook.
So - then, why is NASA developing the hardware and planning missions to go back to the moon? To do more science? To establish a ISS-style permanent presence on the lunar surface, or a stepping stone to Mars or other manned exploration of space? Frankly, I don't see it. Other than Mars, where can human beings go (without warp drive, that is), and for what purpose? China plans a manned moon mission in this decade or early in the next), but that's obviously a national pride thing, with science as a secondary objective. IMHO, most if not all of the science of a manned return to the Moon could be accomplished by a combination of rovers, like the ones we already have exploring Mars, and sample-return technology (technically simple and a lot cheaper than having humans along for the ride.
@20:00 This is the first time that NASA kills a crew. A PURE Oxygen environment....with an electrical short= FRIED. Then they forgot about temp. effects upon rubber- and O ring failures. Then they forgot about velocity of objects (foam) striking other object. Made of tile. Seems to me that NASA has a low regard for 101 Safety...and Physics. Because ALL three of these instances.....are 101 No Shits.
I have never and will never understand how NASA did not regard foam strikes with severe suspicion and left it to a computer to determine if one was worth bothering to look at. I can ram a sponge ball through concrete if enough velocity is behind it, this is high school physics, I have no great education yet I understand the basics of compression of a medium under velocity at the point of impact which focuses much of the energy of the objects in motion onto a small area of impact. NASA regarded their wing tip materials as indestructible, I didn't.
Space Shuttle disasters: Winter launches. If they don't do winter launches, then no disasters. They should have discountinued cold weather operations after the Challenger in 1986. I can't say definitively the second one was due to weather, but the first evidently was.
@@anonymike8280 Challenger was a combination of poor decision making, along with a defective design and the weather. Columbia was not weather related. But mis-management played a role, although nothing could have been done anyway. As soon as Columbia went into orbit with the damage she was doomed. Apollo 1 was a poorly designed spacecraft - the new Command Module would be vastly improved. And despite what some think, NASA did not kill the Apollo 1 crew. In 1967, everyone had 'Go-Fever', including the astronauts. They had to get to the Moon before 1970 and nobody took the time to stop, breathe and realise what was happening. The theory about NASA killing Apollo 1 astronauts is just idiotic conspiracy theory bullcrap.
It's a shame they haven't been back for close to 50 years. It's mankind's greatest achievement imo. With the technology today we could get better footage. You'd figure Russia or China would've done it. I hope in 50 years they don't forget to learn how to make an airplane.
