Explorer 1: The Beginning of the Space Age (2007)
• December 1st, 2007 • 0h 53min
Documentary
Overview
"Explorer 1" is the second episode of "Beginnings Of The Space Age". The 60-minute documentary reveals how JPL and the U.S. Army could have been the first to place a satellite into Earth orbit, had they only been given the chance. That opportunity was lost when the Eisenhower administration, unsure of what the Soviet reaction would be to a satellite launched (in part) by the U.S. Army military, hesitated and assigned the project to a civilian-led program called Vanguard. The Soviet Union launched Sputnik in October 1957, shocking the world and creating the "Race for Space" in the midst of the Cold War. Only after the Vanguard rocket exploded on the launch pad were JPL and the U.S. Army given its chance. The result was Explorer 1, the first successful U.S. satellite, which also achieved the first space science results.
Make sure to check your pop-up blocker!!
Trailer
Similar Movies
For All Mankind
Released on: 1989-11-01
Documentary, History
A testament to NASA's Apollo program of the 1960s and '70s. Composed of actual NASA footage of the m...
A Remembering of Disremembering
Released on: 2020-08-07
Documentary
Told through the tales of love of a retiring film projectionist and a late-blooming actress, the sho...
The First Scientific Science-Fiction Film
Released on: 1993-01-01
Documentary
A short documentary about Fritz Lang's film 'Frau im Mond', and its relation to the science and hist...
Space Station 3D
Released on: 2002-04-17
Documentary
Some 220 miles above Earth lies the International Space Station, a one-of-a-kind outer space laborat...
Comet Collision
Released on: 2006-05-24
Documentary
Comets pose one of the greatest threats to life on Earth - a threat that can only be countered if we...
Mars: One Day on the Red Planet
Released on: 2020-01-05
Documentary
An epic journey around Mars — built from real satellite and rover data — revealing the red planet as...
Touching the Asteroid
Released on: 2020-10-22
Documentary
Spacecraft OSIRIS-REx attempts to grab a piece of an asteroid to bring back to Earth so scientists c...
Kingdom of Saturn: Cassini's Epic Quest
Released on: 2017-01-01
Documentary
Before the joint NASA/ESA Cassini-Huygens mission, humanity only knew what had been learned, decades...
Shadow Chasers
Released on: 2000-09-23
Documentary
This feature-length documentary is a portrait of eclipse chasers, people for whom solar eclipses - a...
Zero Gravity: Life on the International Space Station
Released on: 2022-01-01
Documentary
European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst and his NASA colleague Reid Wiseman are launched int...
Moonscape
Released on: 2013-12-29
Documentary
Moonscape is a free and freely downloadable high-definition documentary about the first manned Moon ...
Failure Is Not an Option
Released on: 2003-08-24
Documentary, History
The Space Race comes alive through the eyes of the ultimate insider - retired NASA Mission Control F...
Lunar
Released on: 2017-05-11
Documentary
In the year 1957 the cold war expands to space. The Soviet-Union sends Sputnik as the first manmade ...
The Voyagers
Released on: 2010-09-25
Documentary
In the summer of 1977, NASA sent Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 on an epic journey into interstellar space....
Searching for Skylab, America's Forgotten Triumph
Released on: 2019-02-08
Documentary, History, Family
The first American space station Skylab is found in pieces scattered in Western Australia. Putting t...
Sally
Released on: 2025-01-28
Documentary
Sally Ride's groundbreaking journey as the first American woman in space concealed a deeply personal...
Cosmic Fireballs
Released on: 2001-10-01
Documentary
214 million years ago a gigantic meteorite broke up and impacted Earth. 65 million years ago, the im...
Edge of Darkness
Released on: 2015-11-01
Documentary
The film features amazing scenes of places never before seen gathered by key space missions that cul...
Space: The Longest Goodbye
Released on: 2024-03-08
Documentary
Social isolation affects millions of people, even Mars-bound astronauts. A savvy NASA psychologist i...