Скачать или смотреть Space Race: What Humans Can Accomplish When They Commit

In October 1957, a basketball-sized Soviet satellite circled Earth, beeping. America panicked. The Soviets had the high ground. Nuclear bombs could fall from orbit.

Twelve years later, Neil Armstrong stepped onto the Moon.

This episode tells the greatest engineering achievement in human history—built by 400,000 people who refused to accept impossible. NASA had fifteen minutes of spaceflight experience when Kennedy committed to landing on the Moon "before this decade is out." They didn't know if humans could survive a week in space. They didn't know how to dock two spacecraft. They didn't know how to land on the Moon. They figured it all out anyway.

The human drama: Wernher von Braun—the Nazi rocket scientist who built V-2s that killed thousands, now building America's rockets. The Mercury Seven who became celebrities before any of them flew. Apollo 1's fire that killed three astronauts and nearly killed the program. Apollo 13's oxygen tank that exploded 200,000 miles from Earth—and the improvised miracle that brought them home.

Then triumph: Apollo 8's Earthrise photo that changed how humanity sees itself. 600 million people watching Armstrong's one small step. For one moment, the whole world was united.

This is the story of what humans can accomplish when they commit. Slide rules and analog computers and pure mathematical brilliance. Young engineers given authority to make decisions that could kill astronauts—and getting it right. When we had to, we went to the Moon. We can do hard things.