When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions (2008)

The thing that makes the Discovery Channel's six-episode overview of NASA's successes and failures so compelling is that it never focuses on the technological advancements, engineering miracles, or scientific discoveries that transformed the organization into such an important American mainstay. Granted, it briefly touches on each of these areas, but the series primarily trains its sights squarely on the men and women who made it all possible, documenting their struggles, perseverance, and sacrifice over the course of five decades of space exploration. Packed with interviews and a mind-boggling amount of revealing archive footage, it leaves very few stories untold, masterfully immersing its audience into each emotional milestone. You'll experience the tension filling the control rooms, the joy flooding the cockpits, and the horror overwhelming the astronauts amidst NASA's most terrifying ordeals (i.e. the Challenger explosion and the Columbia re-entry). Even when the series dug into events and missions I initially knew virtually nothing about, I was left feeling as if I had been there to witness each one first hand.

I'm sure the fact that my childhood was spent staring at the stars made it much easier to sink into When We Left Earth (as well as retain my enthusiasm through more than eight hours of feature and supplemental content), but I can't imagine anyone, even the most casual dreamer or student of history, will find themselves shrugging their shoulders or growing bored with the series. It not only captures the pride, joy, and heartache that littered man's journey into space, it provides a thorough glimpse into our nation's past and introduces dozens of people who drastically changed the course of our modern world.

The following episodes are spread across three BD-25s in this 4-disc Blu-ray set:

Ordinary Supermen: NASA selects seven men to become the first astronauts. They're all test pilots, prepared to risk their lives. No one has ever survived a vertical launch on top of a rocket, but it's the only way they know to put an astronaut into earth orbit. America's first astronauts, the Mercury Seven, are on a journey into the unknown. Six of the men ride into space, each launch taking NASA further forward in their quest to conquer space.
Friends and Rivals: Nine new astronauts arrive at NASA; their mission, to test all the procedures required to land men on the moon and bring them safely back to earth. Each Gemini mission launches two men into space, leading to some of NASA's greatest moments – Ed White's spacewalk, the first orbital rendezvous of Gemini 6 and 7, and Neil Armstrong's first space docking.
Landing the Eagle: The Apollo program is set to achieve the ultimate prize of the Space Race, landing men on the moon. But a fire breaks out in the pressurized capsule of Apollo 1, resulting in the deaths of three beloved astronauts. However, NASA rebounds, launching men into deep space and landing Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon.
The Explorers: Apollo 13 puts the astronauts to the ultimate test, returning a damaged spacecraft back safely to earth. Apollo 17 sends man for the longest mission yet to the surface of the moon, but it's the last lunar mission for generations. Now, it's time for a new phase in the program. Converting an unused Saturn V rocket, NASA launches Skylab, America's first space-station.MS-DOCU
The Shuttle: For its first 20 years, NASA launches capsules carrying a maximum of three people. However, new requirements for a bigger cargo bay prompt a breakthrough in spacecraft design. The development of the re-usable shuttle leads to a revolutionary approach to space travel. Meanwhile, the pioneers of NASA's manned programs are leading the way into the modern era of the space-age.
A Home In Space: One of the most complex instruments ever built, the Hubble Space Telescope is expected to transform mankind's understanding of the Universe. But once it's in orbit, NASA discovers a serious problem – a defective main mirror. NASA sends a team of astronauts to fix the problem in its greatest and highest profile mission since the Apollo era. It gives NASA the confidence to begin construction on the International Space Station.

This set also includes a fourth disc dedicated to a variety of special features (detailed at length in the Supplements section of this review).