NASA responds to John F, Kennedy's challenge of landing a man on the moon with a group of new astronauts for the Gemini Programme, who work toward the eventual lunar voyage with a series of risky and ground-breaking earth-orbit missions.
The tragic death of Apollo's first three astronauts during a pre-launch test haunts the spacecraft's designers as they struggle to come to terms with what happened and find a way to save the moon programme.
A documentary film crew follows the final preparations for the first manned Apollo launch. Now behind schedule due to the Apollo 1 fire, astronauts and launch pad personnel bet their lives - and America's space future - on its success.
NASA takes its boldest and most controversial step - an attempt to fly men around the moon and back for the first time in history - at the end of one of the most cataclysmic years of the century.
Engineers at Grumman Aviation work with NASA and the Apollo 9 astronauts to design, build, and finally test-fly the world's first true space ship - a "lunar module" which will hopefully land the first humans on the moon.
The glare of the public eye, conflicts among the crew, disastrous simulations, and a series of harrowing last-minute crises threaten the Apollo 11 astronauts' success at pulling off NASA's crowning achievement - the first lunar landing.
Nick Searcy
Deke Slayton
Lane Smith
Emmett Seaborn
Tom Hanks
Host
Producer
Brian Grazer