The film tells the story of the ill-fated Nazi Land Speed record attempts. This is a story of engineering excellence, Grand Prix racing, Nazi propaganda, celebrity, and an intense rivalry which would leave a speed record unbroken for 79 years and one of Nazi Germany's best racing drivers dead. During the rise of the Third Reich two German car manufacturers were ordered to build the most high performance vehicles the world had ever seen. What followed was a rivalry that would reap Grand Prix victories, international domination that was a propaganda coup, and provide world fame to its drivers who risked their lives smashing speed records that would stand for 79 years. All under the direct orders of the Fuhrer himself. Bugatti and Alfa Romeo dominated racing before 1934. But the years from 1934 to 1939 were six tumultuous years in which Grand Prix racing was dominated by the German Auto Union, the arranged marriage of Audi, Horch, Wanderer, and DKW, and Mercedes-Benz teams and provided a spectacle of speed, sound and fury never previously attained and never since matched. There are few periods of racing that have excited as much interest, event attendance and sophistication of equipment as the era of the Silver Cars. They were so far ahead of their time that many of their accomplishments were not duplicated until Mercedes went racing again in the early 1950s. There is also something about men who faced the challenges of staying in a cockpit of a highly sophisticated machine capable of 200 mph with no safety systems. They were giants and among them were Italian Tazio Nuvolari and two greatest German pilots of the thirties, Rudolf Caracciola of Mercedes and Auto Union's Bernd Rosemeyer who duelled with faster, more innovative and sleeker machines, developed in wind tunnels. This special documentary charts the rise of Nazi Germany's dominate 'Silver Arrow' Grand Prix and Speed Record cars of the 1930's. Leading motor racing and World War 2 experts James Holland, Richard Williams, Eberhard Reuss and Chris Routledge tell the story of the Nazi funded Auto Union and Mercedes Benz 'National Racing Cars'. Hitler's Supercars interweaves the rise of the Third Reich with the racing exploits it funded and what propaganda messages these racing cars where sending.
Meet Perseverance, NASA's latest rover, as it heads to Mars to answer one question: did life exist on the red planet? On the way, it will lay the foundation for human exploration of our closest neighbour. Today, Mars is hostile to life. It's too cold for water to stay liquid on the surface, and the thin atmosphere lets through high levels of radiation, potentially sterilizing the upper part of the soil. But it wasn't always like this. Some 3.5 billion years ago or more, water was flowing on the surface. It carved channels still visible today and pooled in impact craters. A thicker carbon dioxide atmosphere would have blocked more of the harmful radiation. The Mars 2020/Perseverance rover is designed to better understand the geology of Mars and seek signs of ancient life. The mission will collect and store a set of rock and soil samples that could be returned to Earth in the future. It will also test new technology to benefit future robotic and human exploration of Mars, as the Ingenuity Helicopter.
In the 1960s, US President John F Kennedy proposed landing a man on the moon before the decade was finished. This film has interviews with most of the surviving astronauts of the Apollo program who were making ready to make that great voyage with an army of experts determined to make the endeavour possible. Through training, tragedy and triumph, we follow the greatest moments of one of Humanity's great achievements. The documentary reviews both the footage and media available to the public at the time of the missions, as well as NASA films and materials which had not been opened in over 30 years.
The International Space Station is the ultimate extreme home. Costing $150 billion, it is the most expensive structure humans have ever built, in the most inhospitable environment known to man, with no air food or water. Assembled at 250 miles above the earth, it's an epic engineering challenge. We're going to take it apart and uncover what's going on inside the ISS. Its superstructure secrets will help our species reach other planets and beyond. Using photo-real computer graphics, we take it apart to uncover the extraordinary innovations that enable it to support life in the deadly vacuum of space.
The most innovative area of human motion lies not on Earth, but with the exploration of space. Space is the most hostile environment we know. Navigating it involves crossing unprecedented distances. It's the greatest engineering challenge humanity has ever undertaken. Meet the pioneers who've dreamed of reaching other worlds, pushing the boundaries of space exploration, and the private space entrepreneurs jostling to offer the tantalizing prospect of cheap, frequent travel beyond the atmosphere into Earth orbit.
NASA’s next era will be its greatest yet. That is the clear 'roadmap' painted by Journey To Space. The film absolutely annihilates the perception that the space program died with the end of the Space Shuttle Program by showcasing the exciting plans NASA and the space community are working on, and the challenges they must overcome to carry out audacious missions such as landing astronauts on Mars and capturing asteroids. In the past half century, humans have punched through the stratosphere, walked on the moon, and lived continuously in orbit. In the coming decades, our unquenchable curiosity will take our species beyond the cradle of Earth to touch the face of another world. Strap in for the next giant leap. Next stop ... Mars!
Bugatti and Alfa Romeo dominated racing before 1934. But the years from 1934 to 1939 were six tumultuous years in which Grand Prix racing was dominated by the German Auto Union, the arranged marriage of Audi, Horch, Wanderer, and DKW, and Mercedes-Benz teams and provided a spectacle of speed, sound and fury never previously attained and never since matched. There are few periods of racing that have excited as much interest, event attendance and sophistication of equipment as the era of the Silver Cars. They were so far ahead of their time that many of their accomplishments were not duplicated until Mercedes went racing again in the early 1950s. There is also something about men who faced the challenges of staying in a cockpit of a highly sophisticated machine capable of 200 mph with no safety systems. They were giants and among them were Italian Tazio Nuvolari and two greatest German pilots of the thirties, Rudolf Caracciola of Mercedes and Auto Union's Bernd Rosemeyer who duelled with faster, more innovative and sleeker machines, developed in wind tunnels.
This special documentary charts the rise of Nazi Germany's dominate 'Silver Arrow' Grand Prix and Speed Record cars of the 1930's. Leading motor racing and World War 2 experts James Holland, Richard Williams, Eberhard Reuss and Chris Routledge tell the story of the Nazi funded Auto Union and Mercedes Benz 'National Racing Cars'. Hitler's Supercars interweaves the rise of the Third Reich with the racing exploits it funded and what propaganda messages these racing cars where sending.