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13 Minutes Presents: The Space Shuttle

13 Minutes to the Moon: 4. Fire to the Phoenix

13 Minutes Presents: The Space Shuttle

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, History

9.54.7K Ratings

🗓️ 2 June 2019

⏱️ 46 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Nasa’s ambitions for a historic Moon landing by the end of the 1960s are threatened by a deadly launchpad inferno. Three astronauts are killed, and it is one of the Apollo programme’s darkest moments. After making safety changes, Nasa turns tragedy into triumph. It sends a crew into space, tests the Apollo spacecraft, and paves the way for Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s legendary first steps on the lunar surface.

Hosted by Kevin Fong.

Starring: George Abbey Walt Cunningham Glynn Lunney Gerry Griffin John Aaron Jerry Bostick

Courtesy of the Johnson Space Center Oral History Project: Chris Kraft Gene Kranz Wally Schirra George Jeffs

Courtesy of CBS News: Gus Grissom Ed White Roger Chaffee

Theme music by Hans Zimmer for Bleeding Fingers Music #13MinutestotheMoon www.bbcworldservice.com/13minutes

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

I'm Mariana Spring, the BBC's social media investigations correspondent.

0:06.0

In my podcast, I've been investigating what happened to the daughter of a conspiracy theorist who died having rejected chemotherapy.

0:13.0

It would mean the world to me if I could make it that she wasn't just another in the long line of people that die in this way.

0:19.0

How does this reflect the rise of health conspiracy theories on social media and beyond?

0:24.8

The new series of Mariana in Conspiracy Land.

0:27.9

Listen on BBC Sounds. As they descend to the surface of the moon,

0:43.3

as they descend to the surface of the moon during the final 13 minutes before landing, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin are in their spacesuits, visors down.

0:55.0

Surrounding them in their cramped cabin is an atmosphere of pure oxygen.

1:04.8

Apollo spacecraft's life support systems were a critical link in the chain of survival for the astronauts.

1:11.8

Failures here could lead to deadly consequences,

1:15.3

something NASA discovered at terrible cost in January, 1967.

1:24.1

Here's Neil Armstrong talking in 2001 with some emotion about the darkest moment in the Apollo program.

1:32.4

The disaster that struck Apollo 1.

1:35.3

A fire in pure oxygen during testing of the command module capsule on the ground at the launch pad in Florida.

1:43.0

A catastrophe that killed his astronaut colleagues, Gus Grism,

1:46.7

Roger Chaffey, and Ed White. Ed White and I, we were good friends, neighbors. Very traumatic times.

1:56.3

You're much more likely to accept loss of a friend in flight, but it really hurt to lose a minute

2:04.4

ground test. That was indictment of ourselves. I mean, we didn't do the right thing somehow.

2:11.9

That's doubly, doubly traumatic.

2:14.4

Yeah. doubly traumatic.

2:27.3

We choose to go to the moon. Captain, we're go for landing.

2:29.3

He'll get you here, go for landing, over.

...

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