This film “Within this Decade” draws its title from John F. Kennedy’s speech, which challenged America to land a man on the Moon by the end of the 1960s. The movie presents a summary of NASA’s progress and traces the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs. The film opens with shots of the Moon’s cratered surface (:25) and the title screen (1:25). Unmanned space crafts were tested and developed in NASA’s research centers (1:58). The footage shown was collected from unmanned space crafts (2:12). A new family of satellites had been developed. They were to initially carry instruments, and later carry life, into space in order to understand how it would react to the space environment (3:20). NASA also sought to explore for other signs of life (3:49) and therefore sent an unmanned craft to view Venus’s surface (3:58) as well as deep space probes to visit Mars (4:34). New instruments were developed to investigate the lunar surface (5:19). Footage from some of these follow (5:26) including an unmanned craft collecting information from the surface (5:48) and shots retrieved of lunar surfaces from a craft that had mapped 95% of the moon (6:12). All of this helped to confirm that the moon’s surface was safe for the future lunar landing mission (6:24). For on Earth advancements, satellites were now able to track weather, to be used as beacons for navigation (6:53), and for photographing storm clusters (7:25). For communication, the large balloon, that was Project Echo (8:09); the first passive communications experiment was developed. It acted as reflector of microwave signals bouncing these signals from one location to Earth. These advancements were also made available to television programs (8:30). Sveriges Radio is seen on a camera (8:35) which is Sweden’s nationally publicly funded radio broadcaster showing advancements were shared globally. As space flight programs progressed, so did the aeronautics division of NASA (9:50) and a hypersonic jet is shown (9:57). Manned space flight programs began testing and trainings and the MASTIF is shown in action (10:53). The launch of the first manned space flight follows with Alan Shepard (11:05) heading to Freedom 7, its launch (11:00) and the astronaut inside the craft (11:39). A marquee with John Glenn’s last name on it (11:42) leads into the first orbit of the Earth (11:52). Mercury VI is seen launched (12:08) and with Glen inside (12:34). The rendezvous mission between Gemini VI and Gemini VII follows (13:44). Lovell, Borman, Schirra and Stafford are heard over radio communicating during the mission (13:51). Gemini VIII is seen is space (14:16). Astronauts Neil Armstrong and David Scott conducted the first docking in space on this flight (14:26). Footage follows of the astronauts conducting experiments in space for the first time (15:03). The film turns to preparations for the Apollo missions including the construction and various tests on equipment (16:35). Inside the Kennedy Space Center, the Saturn V is pictured ready (18:37) and then transported (19:19). Apollo VII follows in space (21:16) as well as it’s crew members (22:02) Borman, Lovell and Anders who were the first to orbit the moon. As it was launched December 21st, 1968, the astronauts are heard addressing the world on Christmas from space (23:08). Three months later, the second manned mission in the Saturn V rocket went on an orbital flight of Apollo IX (23:39). Crew members, James McDivitt, David Scott and Russell Schweickart were to further test the lunar module (23:39) and despite illness (McDivitt and Schweickart suffered from space adaptation sickness) the mission was a success (24:02). Footage from Apollo X follows (24:33) including the moon’s surface, and of the crew Thomas Stafford, John Young and Euegen Cernan (24:14). The film begins to wrap up as John F Kennedy is heard speaking on the future lunar landing and stating the need to achieve this goal before the end of the decade (26:52). It was narrated by Norman Rose (28:05) and produced by Lynn Moore of NASA (28:19).

We encourage viewers to add comments and, especially, to provide additional information about our videos by adding a comment! See something interesting? Tell people what it is and what they can see by writing something for example: “01:00:12:00 — President Roosevelt is seen meeting with Winston Churchill at the Quebec Conference.”

This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com