what the hell just happened
americans weren't winning the space race
from the start the russians
are sprinting around the track and we
are still at the starting block tying
our shoelaces
nasa was in its infancy a large goal
like project mercury
it seems like science fiction it seems
like something that is insurmountable
we need to work fast need to work smart
our very way of life
is at stake
you gentlemen are accustomed to testing
dangerous
unproven aircraft and yet you've made it
this far in one piece
these guys that went up that were
treated as heroes they were just
regular people there was a lot of very
very young men in their 20s
who were just trying to get something up
on its legs in doing so with an
incredible amount of success considering
how inexperienced they were
and how little they actually truly had
at their disposal
welcome gentlemen to the center for
human space exploration
where are the planes putting a man into
space
when making a long distance phone call
was virtually impossible
the tenacity they had to be able to do
that
all at the risk of a man's life all
while the entire world is watching
how incredible it was that these people
did this there was a lot of
making it up as you go where are we on
the procedures manual we don't have any
procedures lenny we will have procedures
when you write the manual
there were a lot of people trying to
figure out what do we even need
what are the systems what is this we
have a public launch
of a test rocket in four days if we
don't get these
procedures down cold we really could
blow up titusville
but for nasa and for america any of our
setbacks our rockets keep exploding
congress thinks we're the biggest money
pit in the nation's history any of the
embarrassments that the russians would
have and probably did cover up
we let the entire world see the russians
are flying clear to the moon you guys
can't even get a rocket off the ground
the manned space program was a stand-in
for
a larger struggle between two nations
and two sets of ideas
[Music]
i think the entire impetus of nasa was
exploration
we wanted to go further you look around
and the globe is totally explored and
what do you do you look up
this opportunity presents itself and
they have to see if they do indeed
have the right stuff
you