''When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions'' (or ''NASA's Greatest Missions: When We Left Earth'' in the UK) is a 2008

Discovery Channel Discovery Channel, known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery, is an American cable channel that is best known for its ongoing reality television shows and promotion of pseudoscience. It init ...

HD documentary miniseries consisting of six episodes documenting American

human spaceflight Human spaceflight (also referred to as manned spaceflight or crewed spaceflight) is spaceflight with a crew or passengers aboard a spacecraft, often with the spacecraft being operated directly by the onboard human crew. Spacecraft can also be ...

from the first Mercury flights and the

Gemini program Project Gemini () was the second United States human spaceflight program to fly. Conducted after the first American crewed space program, Project Mercury, while the Apollo program was still in early development, Gemini was conceived in 1961 and ...

, to the

Apollo program The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the United States human spaceflight program led by NASA, which Moon landing, landed the first humans on the Moon in 1969. Apollo followed Project Mercury that put the first Americans in sp ...

and its Moon missions and landings, to the

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable launch system, reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. ...

missions and the construction of the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...

. The miniseries was created in association with

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

to commemorate the agency's fiftieth anniversary in 2008. It first aired on June 8, and concluded on June 22. Each airing consisted of two hour-long episodes. The miniseries was then released on DVD on July 10, 2008, and released on Blu-ray disc on August 12.

Production

Development

Discovery partnered with NASA in September 2007 to create the series. The Discovery team went through 500 hours of archived film and selected 150 hours of it to be transferred to high definition. Discovery donated the high definition film back to NASA. The airing of the miniseries was timed to coincide with NASA's 50th anniversary.

Executive producers and showrunners

The miniseries features interviews from Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Space Shuttle astronauts including

John Glenn John Herschel Glenn Jr. (July 18, 1921 – December 8, 2016) was an American Marine Corps aviator, astronaut, businessman, and politician. He was the third American in space and the first to orbit the Earth, circling it three times in 1 ...

and

Neil Armstrong Neil Alden Armstrong (August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012) was an American astronaut and aerospace engineering, aeronautical engineer who, in 1969, became the Apollo 11#Lunar surface operations, first person to walk on the Moon. He was al ...

, as well as NASA officials including flight directors

Chris Kraft Christopher Columbus Kraft Jr. (February 28, 1924 – July 22, 2019) was an American aerospace and NASA engineer who was instrumental in establishing the agency's Mission Control Center and shaping its organization and culture. His protégé ...

Gene Kranz Eugene Francis Kranz (born August 17, 1933) is an American aerospace engineer who served as NASA's second Chief Flight Director, directing missions of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs, including the first lunar landing mission, Apoll ...

, and

Glynn Lunney Glynn Stephen Lunney (November 27, 1936 – March 19, 2021) was an American NASA engineer. An employee of NASA since its creation in 1958, Lunney was a flight controller, flight director during the Project Gemini, Gemini and Project Apollo, Apo ...

, former president

George H. W. Bush George Herbert Walker BushBefore the outcome of the 2000 United States presidential election, he was usually referred to simply as "George Bush" but became more commonly known as "George H. W. Bush", "Bush Senior," "Bush 41," and even "Bush th ...

and long-time NBC space journalist

Jay Barbree Jay Barbree (November 26, 1933 – May 14, 2021) was an American correspondent for NBC News, focusing on space travel. He was the only journalist to have covered every non-commercial human space mission in the United States, beginning with th ...

. The series was narrated by actor

Gary Sinise Gary Alan Sinise (; born March 17, 1955) is an American actor, director, producer, musician and humanitarian. Among other awards, he has won a Primetime Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Tony Award, and four Screen Actors Guild Awards. He has ...

, who played astronaut

Ken Mattingly Thomas Kenneth Mattingly II (March 17, 1936 – October 31, 2023) was an American Naval aviator (United States), aviator, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, Rear admiral (United States), rear admiral in the United States Navy, and astronaut who ...

in the 1995 film ''

Apollo 13 Apollo 13 (April 1117, 1970) was the seventh crewed mission in the Apollo program, Apollo space program and would have been the third Moon landing. The craft was launched from Kennedy Space Center on April 11, 1970, but the landing was abort ...

''. It was executive produced by Richard Dale and Bill Howard and edited by Peter Parnham and Simon Holland. One purpose of the series was to tell the space race story to the under 40 generation, which did not experience it firsthand.

Music

The score was composed by

Richard Blair-Oliphant Richard Blair-Oliphant is a composer of music for film and television. He has been a composer on over 40 projects, including the series '' How the Universe Works'' and '' I Shouldn't Be Alive'', as well as the televised broadcast of the 62nd Prime ...

and conducted by

Benjamin Wallfisch Benjamin Mark Lasker Wallfisch (born 7 August 1979) is a British composer, conductor, and music producer known for his work on film scores. He has contributed to over 50 feature films since the mid-2000s, including notable works like ''Blade Ru ...

( ''Atonement'' 2007, ''

The Soloist ''The Soloist'' is a 2009 biographical drama film directed by Joe Wright, and starring Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr. The plot is based on the true story of Nathaniel Ayers, a musician who developed schizophrenia and became homeless. Originall ...

'' 2009). Music and sound were nominated for a 2009

News and Documentary Emmy Award The News & Documentary Emmy Awards, or News & Documentary Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the American television industry. Bestowed by the National Academy of Television Arts and Scien ...

for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music and Sound.

Episodes

Release

The first two installments of ''When We Left Earth'' originally premiered on Discovery Channel June 8, 2008. Two more episodes were played on the following two Sundays. The miniseries was released on DVD on July 10, 2008, and was released on Blu-ray disc on August 12. The third episode, "Landing the Eagle", was re-aired on July 20, 2009 for the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing. The first episode was re-aired December 11, 2016 in honor of John Glenn, who died December 8, 2016.

Reception

The astronauts involved with the film believed the high definition version of the footage helped capture what they really saw. Astronaut

Charlie Duke Charles Moss Duke Jr. (born October 3, 1935) is an American former astronaut, United States Air Force (USAF) officer and test pilot, and young Earth creationist. As Lunar Module pilot of Apollo 16 in 1972, he became the tenth and youngest pe ...

said, " tcaptures what we see and what we felt and what we experienced, the reality, the vividness, the emotional side of it." Cary Darling of ''Herald and Review'' said that the miniseries is less about NASA's setbacks, and more about a "great-to-look-at, old-fashioned hero worship of those who dare to reach for the heavens." ''High-Def Digest'' said this documentary was special because of its focus on human elements instead of scientific milestones, but wished it could have focused on efforts by other countries as well.

References

External links

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''When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions'' on Discovery
{{Space Shuttle Discovery Channel original programming Television series about the Apollo program 2008 American television series debuts Documentary films about the space program of the United States 2008 American television series endings Films about astronauts Films about the Apollo program