Planet Earth is the only home we have ever known but it's becoming more apparent that we cant stay here forever and whether thats down to climate change, killer asteroids or some other horrifying disaster Earth will eventually die. There is good news however, we are currently in the middle of a new space race where by the goal is for people to have settlements on the moon, mars and beyond.
We all think we know the story of space and that it was conquered by the Americans but thats not the real story. The actual conquers of space were a dedicated group of men and women from the other side of the iron curtain. After decades of secrecy they are now free to tell their extraordinary stories of how they risked everything to take the first steps into space.
After 45 years it would look as though we are planning on going back to the moon, across the world science are gearing up for whats being called the second moon race. Behind it lies a prize which some believe could change the world, it is believed that the moon contains a new source of energy that could potentially provide the earth with unlimited amounts of energy for hundreds of years to come, r
One man has pursued a dream his entire working life, lead engineer Alan Bond believes he is now on the threshold of realizing this dream, to build a revolutionary spacecraft that achieves earths orbit in a single leap. If their calculations are correct their revolutionary design will herald a new era in spaceflight.
At the height of the cold war the US and Soviet Union are locked in an nuclear standoff. In October 1957, the Soviets stuned the world by orbiting the earth with the worlds first satellite, Sputnik. This in itself contributed to a shift in public opinion with regards to superpower capabilities, the US was always considered to be on top but after the launch, this was no more.In this film Nova t
Mars, the red planet, we have long wondered if it has ever sustained life. Some have dreamt of walking on its surface but more than four decades after they landed on the Moon, NASA are imagining a two year voyage across space to Mars but to do it, they require new rockets on a new scale, a new way of surviving in space and a new bread of astronaut. To finally complete a mission of this scale would
In the most ambitious and expensive interplanetary space mission of all time, the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft made a seven-year trek across the Solar System to attempt first contact with the Earth-like moon of Titan by landing a probe on its unseen surface.The first close up images of Saturn and its many moons were taken in the early 1980s by the Voyager One Deep Space Probe. One moon stood out
This summer, the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way is getting ready to feast.A gas cloud three times the size of our planet has strayed within the gravitational reach of our nearest supermassive black hole. And across the globe, telescopes are being trained on the heart of our Milky Way galaxy, some 27,000 light years from Earth, in the expectation of observing this unique cosmic spect
Around the world, a new generation of astronomers are hunting for the most mysterious objects in the universe. Young stars, black holes, even other forms of life. They have created a dazzling new set of super-telescopes that promise to rewrite the story of the heavens.This film follows the men and women who are pushing the limits of science and engineering in some of the most extreme environme