John GlennNASA: 50 Years of Space Exploration

This DVD set collects a good number of different documentaries. It is a collection of "period pieces" produced during the same time periods as the events they document, just like the "NASA: History of Exploration" DVD set (more on that below). Video and audio quality are as a result poor. However, this series does a good job of summarizing manned space flight from the Mercury missions through the space shuttle and ISS eras. While including some of the exact same documentaries as "NASA: History of Exploration", these are actually in order, making them much easier to follow, and include a better collection "set". There are more Apollo mission episodes in this collection as well, and they are the highlights of this series. The Space Shuttle Challenger tragedy episode is disappointing, with too much time spent on crew bios at the beginning (if this was intended as an homage it could have been done much better). A second poor start is provided by the terrible initial footage of the explosion that even includes what appears to be some VHS tape static between clips. The rest of the episode does a thorough, if quite dry, job of documenting the cause of the explosion. However, the meaning or significance of some of the reported findings is not always immediately apparent. This episode in particular also showcases the lack of modern graphics enhancement that could have made the fuzzy close-up shots of smoke plumes and fire jets much clearer. Overall this is a reasonably good collection spanning most of human space exploration, but I would recommend “When We Left Earth” much more highly, and specifically for the Apollo missions I consider “From the Earth to the Moon” to be the very best.

This is a fantastic documentary about the NASA moon program. All the videos are from NASA's own video records made at the times of these space-flights. It really has the feeling of the REAL THING, and it truly is. NOT just a video made by a 3rd party, this is the REAL DEAL made by the people themselves, some who died in the effort. One of the BEST video collection about the space program that I have ever seen!! (and I have a lot of them!!).

We bought this set thinking we were in for some educational and informative entertainment. Not! We are NASA Buffs and we're let down by the ending. We followed every step of the Columbia, from take off to it's sad disater when it actually took place. But this DVD does not even explain ANY details of what happened to our heros. It covers their lives and how they gave their lives for mankind, but not anything about the disater. We didn't expect to see anything gruesome, but we wanted to know more about our lost astronauts. And it only spent about 5 minutes on the unfortunate fire onboard the Apollo 12. Such a let down.

Was a gift and the grandchildren loved the movie.

Bought this for my soon to be 10 year old grandson who is fascinated with the Apollo 11 mission trip, so thought he would like this. Only saw part of the DVD's with him, but really liked what we saw and he seemed very excited to have it for his birthday.

Good history!

This documentary takes you back to the beginning of NASA. It shows all the steps it took to get the moon and back.

Excellent series of the Space Program. The victories and the defeats of the USA exploration of space. Greatproblems but they were overcome and NASA got the job done.

I wouldn't advise anyone to buy this box-set unless your a fanatic on the Space Program. The picture quality is poor and certainly it brings you back to the times watching a TV with 525 lines. Information and technical data is good but it gets boring and I kept falling asleep before the end of each disc.Price was excellent.

This was a christmas present for my son in law, who is very interested in space and the stars. He was very please with this DVD.

My Dad has passed away now but he LOVED NASA..

Pour les passionnés de la conquête spatiale...seulement, et encore...Beaucoup de vidéos sont de l'époque, ce qui est immersif, mais leur intérêt reste limité.Un e impression de "fourre tout" se dégage de ce produit, avec à la clé peu de réelle satisfaction d'en avoir appris plus sur le programme spatial américain.Le boitier est joli, mais c'est à peu près tout...

とても濃密なビデオ。もちろんアメリカの宣伝的なものであることは確かだが、これだけの不可能を可能にする豪快な業績が余すところなく収録してあって、それでこの値段はたまらない。百科事典を買うより遥かに価値がある（リージョン・フリー！）。もちろん字幕などないが、こういう映像には説明は要らない。むしろマーキュリー計画やアポロ13号、スペースシャトルでどんな事故が起きたのかといったことは他の映画にもなっていて予備知識としてはあるので苦にならない。ちょっと学習してからこれを観るのも正しい。　そして、映像はどれも真実の映像である。画質が粗いのはどんなニュース映像もそうであって、むしろ歴史の断片として感じるには丁度良い。アポロの着陸船の離発着の様子などは『2001年宇宙の旅』のような優雅さだ。極限の世界を遊泳する宇宙飛行士。月面の映像も相当な量が出てくるが、やっぱり信じられないことをやっていることに改めて驚きを禁じ得ない。あの空に輝く月まで行って、転んだり唄歌ったりしているのだから。　宇宙空間や、地球を大写ししたビデオというのは、アニメなどではあっても実は余りないように思う。周回軌道で地球一周を追うようなビデオがあるといいなとも思う。このDVDでもそういうシーンでところどころ時間を忘れて見入ってしまうところがあり、非常に見所豊富。それでこの値段は安い。