Just outside Paris, inside a hi-tech vault, and encased in three vacuum-sealed bell jars, rests a small metallic cylinder about the diameter of a golf ball. It may not look like much, but it is one of the most important objects on the planet. It affects nearly every aspect of our lives including the food we eat, the cars we drive, even the medicines we take. It is the Kilogramme, the base unit of mass in the International System of Units. Yet over time, its mass has mysteriously eroded by the weight of an eyelash. A change that, unbeknownst to most, unleashed a crisis with potentially dire consequences. The film follows the ensuing high-stakes, two-year race to redefine the weight of the world, and tells the story of one of the most important objects on the planet.
Follow the four civilians as they launch into space on a three-day trip orbiting Earth and reaching an altitude higher than that of the International Space Station. The SpaceX Dragon mission, dubbed Inspiration4, is making history as the first all-civilian mission to orbit. In the first episode, preparations begin for the mission. The commander is Jared Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur who purchased the flight for all four passengers, and the second crew member is a 29-year-old cancer survivor, Hayley Arceneaux.
Science may soon make the dream of traveling to Mars a reality, but how will we live once we get there? How will we manage our basic human needs of food, water, and shelter on a planet known for its barren surface conditions, high radiation levels, and toxic dirt?
To survive Mars, our species will need to evolve how we eat, drink, and build our homes. Will we need our genes to evolve as well? Sometime in the future humans will leave Earth to colonize Mars, and in doing so will begin to adapt to life on another planet in surprising ways. Evolutionary biologist Dr. Scott Solomon foresees a series of changes to our species from the size of our hearts and heads to the pigments in our skin.
In this series, we will explore how we can survive Mars. Our species will need to evolve how we eat, drink, and build our homes. In the first episode, humans seem to be on the cusp of reaching Mars, but how did we get to this point? Our journey to our neighboring planet traces a path connecting Nikola Tesla, Nazi weapons of war, a Cold War space race, and a string of blockbuster discoveries made by some of NASA’s most talented robots.
Professor Brian Cox tackles some of the most challenging and intriguing questions facing science. He looks back on a decade of discovery and towards the next space frontier. Brian believes we are at the start of a new age of space travel, where space flight is on the verge of becoming routine. In this episode, he explores the latest science and takes a new look at his old films and asks: how far can we go in our exploration of the cosmos?
The film follows the ensuing high-stakes, two-year race to redefine the weight of the world, and tells the story of one of the most important objects on the planet.