For Over 14 Years The Most Complete Space DVDs Available.
Humans Into Space
On June 10, 1969, the Apollo 11 prime and backup crews took a tour of the pad and the emergency egress procedures. Here’s the result. The audio is from the July 16 countdown. Just one of the nuggets from our Apollo 11 3-DVD set.
The first day of the countdown of the Saturn V launch vehicle involved the installation of ordnance, explosives in the form of pyrotechnics on the spacecraft and ordnance on the launch vehicle. In fact, the original description for the Mobile Service Structure was the “arming tower,” as it allowed access to the vehicle for the ordnance installation. For safety these explosives … Read More
Forty-five years ago this week, Apollo 11 was undergoing the countdown demonstration test, which ended successfully on July 3, 1969. The countdown demonstration test took the launch vehicle, spacecraft, launch crew and flight crew through a complete countdown, including fueling the vehicle. Altogether the CDDT was a six-day operation, including the loading of nearly 6 million pounds of propellants. On … Read More
45 years ago today, June 25, 1969, the first stage of the Apollo 11 Saturn V was loaded with fuel. The first stage of the Saturn V burned RP-1 (kerosene) as fuel with liquid oxygen as the oxidizer. Since this stage was the only launch vehicle stage with non-cryogenic fuel, it could be loaded in advance, even prior to the … Read More
On May 20, 1969, just two days after the launch of Apollo 10, the third Saturn V of the year headed to the pad. This was the one… Apollo 11, the first manned lunar landing attempt, scheduled for a July launch. Today’s video is an edited excerpt from the Rollout track contained on our Apollo 11: Men on the Moon … Read More
Through the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission (launch on July 16), we’ll be presenting a series of features detailing the preparations for the launch. Featuring edited excerpts from our Apollo 11: Men on the Moon 3-DVD set, our first entry concerns the arrival and erection of the spacecraft and launch vehicle, the sixth Saturn V to be launched. Activity … Read More
Every spacecraft that achieves orbital velocity must somehow give up that velocity to return to Earth. For Mercury, this meant paying off the energy into an ablative heat shield, a protective covering on the blunt end of the spacecraft designed to “ablate,” or burn off slowly, protecting the spacecraft within. After entry, Mercury detached its heat shield, which would deploy … Read More
Today’s Mercury feature examines a method of egress always planned but only used once – getting out of the Mercury spacecraft through the top. The explosive side hatch on Mercury is well known, and the normal method of egress at the end of the Mercury missions became the side hatch. Shepard squeezed out of the hatch after the spacecraft had been … Read More
Our Mercury set is 6-DVDs packed with over 24 hours of material. This week we’re highlighting some of our favorite finds from the Project Mercury experience. What does a fledgling group of engineers do when they need to test a brand new spacecraft? Find subjects to test inside the spacecraft, during flight. Before the original seven astronauts, before even Sam, … Read More
On this day in 1963 – 51 years ago – Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to orbit the Earth. Her Vostok 6 flight lasted nearly 3 days. She made 48 orbits. This footage, taken from a piece on our Mercury set, was located in the CIA record group at the National Archives. By the way, our special price on … Read More