The Space Shuttle: 9. What is it all for?

13 Minutes Presents: The Space Shuttle

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, History

9.5 • 4.7K Ratings

🗓️ 8 September 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Is human spaceflight worth the risk? It’s a time of soul searching for the whole shuttle crew. The space shuttle programme is put on hold for two years, as Nasa and the team come to terms with what happened.

Some leave but others stay on board to help. The shuttle team work to rebuild Nasa and the programme. But some ask the question: what is it all for?

Some scenes in this series use recreated sound effects.

13 Minutes Presents: The Space Shuttle is a BBC Audio Science Unit production for the BBC World Service.

Hosted by space scientist Maggie Aderin-Pocock.

Theme music by Hans Zimmer and Christian Lundberg, and produced by Russell Emanuel, for Bleeding Fingers Music.

Archive: Birth of the space shuttle, Nasa Archives, 1972 Ronald Reagan addresses nation after STS-51-L accident, Reagan Library, 1986 Richard Nixon launches Nasa's space shuttle program, CBS News, 1972 STS-26 launch coverage, BBC, 1988 Mission audio and oral histories, Nasa History Office

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're dead to me.
0:05.0	No, no, that's the name of our podcast. Sorry.
0:08.0	And we're back for a brand new series.
0:11.0	Not only is it British history, it was a quill drop.
0:15.0	With more fun and facts from history without taking it too seriously.
0:19.0	Empress Matilda, what is she going to do now?
0:21.7	She decides to take back some of the jewels with her.
0:25.0	I'm taking these as well!
0:26.6	I'm going to come back for Tuscany one day as well.
0:29.2	You're dead to me.
0:30.6	Again, not you.
0:32.0	Name of the show.
0:32.8	Listen first on BBC Sounds.
0:35.3	Some scenes in this series use recreated sound effects.
0:44.3	A low, flat-roofed, concrete and wood building. It's tucked into the sand dunes at Cape Canaveral in Florida.
0:58.9	We're at the beach house and little history here is needed to understand how this came to be.
1:05.7	On the seaboard side of the building, steps lead up to a broad, open balcony.
1:13.3	It looks out over the dunes towards the long stretch of sandy beach. And beyond that, the pounding Atlantic Ocean surf.
1:21.5	Back in the 50s, before the space race started, this area was a retirement community, and they had
1:26.4	hundreds of, hundreds of single-family homes out here. But now, this land is part of Kennedy Space
1:32.8	Center. All the houses are gone except for one. They kept this house as a refuge for the
1:41.1	early astronauts to come out and visit privately with their families, given the stresses
	...

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