Friday 19 June 2009

Moon Landings on BBC archive

Of all events that took place in the Twentieth Century, the Apollo Moon landings were quite possibly the most momentous. As we are now reaching forty years since Neil Armstrong took his first steps on the Moon's surface, the Lunar landings are events that happened before many people on the planet were born. This may explain why more and more people simply believe that the Moon landings didn't happen and that the whole thing was actually faked. But, for the people of the 1960s, the mission to get to the Moon and back was very real.

On the BBC website, there is a now a collection of television and radio programmes which cover the Apollo Moon landings. As many of these programmes were originally broadcast before and around the time of the missions, they allow us to see for ourselves how real the events were for people at the time and their thoughts, hopes and concerns about the missions. The earliest item in the archive is an episode of The Sky at Night broadcast in 1960, just after the first man (Yuri Gagarin) had entered space. There are a further four episodes of The Sky At Night in the collection from 1961 (looking at the possibility of life on the Moon), 1969, 2006 and 2007. Also available are several news reports from the late 1960s, an episode of Panarama from 20th July 1969 which asks whether going to the Moon is a waste of money and a few more recent programmes looking back at the missions.

This is a great opportunity to view and listen to rare broadcasts which tell the story of one of mankind's greatest leaps. As far as I'm aware, they are only available in the UK, but let me know if you know any different!

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