''Moon Machines'' is a

Science Channel Science Channel (often simply branded as Science; abbreviated to SCI) is an American pay television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The channel features programming focusing on science related to wilderness survival, engineering, man ...

HD documentary miniseries consisting of six episodes documenting the engineering challenges of the Apollo program to land men on the Moon. It covers everything from the iconic

Saturn V Saturn V is a retired American super heavy-lift launch vehicle developed by NASA under the Apollo program for human exploration of the Moon. The rocket was human-rated, with three stages, and powered with liquid fuel. It was flown from 196 ...

to the Command Module, the Lunar Module, the

Space Suit A space suit or spacesuit is a garment worn to keep a human alive in the harsh environment of outer space, vacuum and temperature extremes. Space suits are often worn inside spacecraft as a safety precaution in case of loss of cabin pressure, ...

s, the Guidance and Control Computer, and the

Lunar Rover A lunar rover or Moon rover is a space exploration vehicle designed to move across the surface of the Moon. The Apollo Program's Lunar Roving Vehicle was driven on the Moon by members of three American crews, Apollo 15, 16, and 17. Other rov ...

. It was created by the team that made '' In the Shadow of the Moon'' in association with

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...

to commemorate the agency's fiftieth anniversary in 2008. It first aired in June 2008 in the U.S. and UK, and was released on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

a year later in June 2009.

Overview

The miniseries features interviews with around 70 of the 400,000 engineers who worked on the Apollo program during the 1960s and early 1970s. These interviews are intercut with archive film, sourced by Footagevault from NASA's various film archives stored at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, the

Glenn Research Center NASA John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field is a NASA center within the cities of Brook Park and Cleveland between Cleveland Hopkins International Airport and the Rocky River Reservation of Cleveland Metroparks, with a subsidiary facilit ...

in Cleveland, Ohio, and from the National Archives in Washington. The miniseries is narrated by actor Bill Hope.

Music

The score was composed by Philip Sheppard.

Episodes

Part 1: The Saturn V Rocket

The first episode of the series documents the creation of the iconic

rocket.

Part 2: The Command Module

The second episode is centered on the construction of the

Apollo Command Module The Apollo command and service module (CSM) was one of two principal components of the United States Apollo spacecraft, used for the Apollo program, which landed astronauts on the Moon between 1969 and 1972. The CSM functioned as a mother shi ...

and the setback of the

Apollo 1 Apollo 1, initially designated AS-204, was intended to be the first crewed mission of the Apollo program, the American undertaking to land the first man on the Moon. It was planned to launch on February 21, 1967, as the first low Earth orbita ...

fire.

Part 3: The Navigation Computer

The third episode details the story of MIT's work on the Apollo Guidance Computer.

Part 4: The Lunar Module

The fourth episode features the Grumman project to build mankind's first true spacecraft, the Apollo Lunar Module.

Part 5: The Space Suit

The penultimate episode focuses on the teams that created the remarkable Apollo pressure suit.

Part 6: The Lunar Rover

The series' final episode centers on the design and perfection of the novel Lunar Roving Vehicle, carried to the Moon on the Apollo J-class missions.

Awards and nominations

Part 2, the story of the Command Module, won a Grand REMI from the WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival in 2009

References

External links

* {{IMDb title, 1203167, Moon Machines 2008 American television series debuts 2008 American television series endings American documentary television films Documentary films about the space program of the United States Films about the Apollo program Science Channel original programming