<p>On 12th April 1981, the space shuttle Columbia made history becoming the first ever reusable space craft to fly into orbit. It marked the start of a 30-year shuttle programme which revolutionised the history of manned space exploration. Using NASA and BBC archive we tell the story of this historic test flight.
Photo: NASA photo shows the first launchin ... Show More
Oct 8
The remote island that was evacuated to 10,000km away
On 10 October 1961, a volcanic eruption threatened the population of Tristan da Cunha, a British Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic, and all 264 islanders were evacuated to the UK. Two years later, the majority voted to return. In an interview she gave to the BBC in 1961, M ... Show More
10m 43s
Dec 2022
Apollo 8 Goes to the Moon
December 21, 1968. Apollo 8, the first crewed spacecraft to successfully orbit the Moon and return to Earth, launches from the Kennedy Space Center.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
16m 35s
Apr 2021
Episode 29: First Space Shuttle Flight: Astronaut Bob Crippen on the Legacy of STS-1 & Columbia
The spotlights came on in the predawn hours of April 12th 1981, illuminating a spacecraft like no other, the space shuttle. Just before liftoff, Columbia's crew climbed inside for the very first test flight into space.
28m 46s
Jun 2021
Apollo–Soyuz: The End of the Space Race
The space race officially began on October 4, 1957, at 7:28 PM Moscow Time. That was when Sputnik was launched into orbit as the first artificial satellite, and from that moment, it was on. But when did the space race end? That is a much trickier question and there is no formal a ... Show More
10m 30s
Apr 2020
Apollo 13: The drama that gripped the world
50 years since the Apollo 13 mission, how millions of TV viewers followed the famous rescue of the three NASA astronauts. Also, the women who led the way in America’s space programme by spending two weeks under water and what happened when Skylab crashed to Earth in 1979. Plus, a ... Show More
51m 47s