''When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions'' (or ''NASA's Greatest Missions: When We Left Earth'' in the UK) is a 2008 Discovery Channel HD documentary miniseries consisting of six episodes documenting American human spaceflight from the first Mercury flights and the Gemini program, to the Apollo program and its Moon missions and landings, to the

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program ...

missions and the construction of the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ( ...

. The miniseries was created 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 on June 8, and concluded on June 22. Each airing consisted of two hour-long episodes. The miniseries was then released on DVD on July 10, 2008, and released on Blu-ray disc on August 12.

Production

Development

Discovery partnered with NASA in September 2007 to create the series. The Discovery team went through 500 hours of archived film and selected 150 hours of it to be transferred to high definition. Discovery donated the high definition film back to NASA. The airing of the miniseries was timed to coincide with NASA's 50th anniversary.

Executive producers and showrunners

The miniseries features interviews from Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Space Shuttle astronauts including John Glenn and Neil Armstrong, as well as NASA officials including

flight director Flight controllers are personnel who aid space flight by working in such Mission Control Centers as NASA's Mission Control Center or ESA's European Space Operations Centre. Flight controllers work at computer consoles and use telemetry to mon ...

Chris Kraft Christopher Columbus Kraft Jr. (February 28, 1924 – July 22, 2019) was an American aerospace and NASA engineer who was instrumental in establishing the agency's Mission Control Center and shaping its organization and culture. His protégé ...

Gene Kranz Eugene Francis "Gene" Kranz (born August 17, 1933) is an American aerospace engineer who served as NASA's second Chief Flight Director, directing missions of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs, including the first lunar landing mission, Ap ...

, and

Glynn Lunney Glynn Stephen Lunney (November 27, 1936 – March 19, 2021) was an American NASA engineer. An employee of NASA since its creation in 1958, Lunney was a flight director during the Gemini and Apollo programs, and was on duty during historic even ...

, former president George H. W. Bush and long-time NBC space journalist Jay Barbree. The series was narrated by actor

Gary Sinise Gary Alan Sinise (; born March 17, 1955) is an American actor, humanitarian, and musician. Among other awards, he has won a Primetime Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Tony Award, and four Screen Actors Guild Awards. He has also received a sta ...

, who played astronaut

Ken Mattingly Thomas Kenneth Mattingly II (born March 17, 1936) is an American former aviator, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, rear admiral in the United States Navy and astronaut who flew on the Apollo 16, STS-4 and STS-51-C missions. Mattingly had b ...

in the 1995 film '' Apollo 13''. It was executive produced by Richard Dale and Bill Howard and edited by Peter Parnham and Simon Holland. One purpose of the series was to tell the space race story to the under 40 generation, which did not experience it firsthand.

Music

The score was composed by Richard Blair-Oliphant and conducted by Benjamin Wallfisch ( ''Atonement'' 2007, ''

The Soloist ''The Soloist'' is a 2009 drama film directed by Joe Wright, and starring Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr. The plot is based on the true story of Nathaniel Ayers, a musician who developed schizophrenia and became homeless. The film was released i ...

'' 2009). Music and sound were nominated for a 2009

News and Documentary Emmy Award The News & Documentary Emmy Awards, or News & Documentary Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the American television industry. Bestowed by the National Academy of Television Arts and Scien ...

for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music and Sound.

Episodes

Release

The first two installments of ''When We Left Earth'' originally premiered on Discovery Channel June 8, 2008. Two more episodes were played on the following two Sundays. The miniseries was released on DVD on July 10, 2008, and was released on Blu-ray disc on August 12. The third episode, "Landing the Eagle", was re-aired on July 20, 2009 for the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing. The first episode was re-aired December 11, 2016 in honor of John Glenn, who died December 8, 2016.

Reception

The astronauts involved with the film believed the high definition version of the footage helped capture what they really saw. Astronaut Charlie Duke said, " tcaptures what we see and what we felt and what we experienced, the reality, the vividness, the emotional side of it." Cary Darling of ''Herald and Review'' said that the miniseries is less about NASA's setbacks, and more about a "great-to-look-at, old-fashioned hero worship of those who dare to reach for the heavens." ''High-Def Digest'' said this documentary was special because of its focus on human elements instead of scientific milestones, but wished it could have focused on efforts by other countries as well.

References

External links

*
''When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions'' on Discovery
{{Space Shuttle Discovery Channel original programming Television series about the Apollo program 2008 American television series debuts Documentary films about the space program of the United States 2008 American television series endings Films about astronauts Films about the Apollo program