The circa 1962 black-and-white film “The Race to Space” recounts exploration of the world and beyond, opening with a reference to the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union and the Tiros-1 satellite (the first successful low-Earth orbital weather satellite). The film quickly moves on to the exploration of the Marianas Trench in January 1960 (mark 00:50) with Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard on board the United States Navy-owned bathyscaphe Trieste reached, as well as US naval superiority with the launch of the USS George Washington (SSBN-598) was the world’s first operational ballistic missile submarine (mark 01:01). Yet the main focus of the film proves to be space, as we meet the chimpanzees NASA would use (in 1963) to test a manned capsule as part of Project Mercury. Following scenes of a chimp’s medical example, one is shown at mark 01:56 testing controls on the ground. At mark 02:57 we see a Redstone rocket on a launch pad at Cape Canaveral as Ham the chimpanzee is prepared for launch as part of Project Mercury in January 1961. During the 16-minute flight, Ham’s lever-pushing performance in space was only a fraction of a second slower than on Earth, demonstrating that tasks could be performed in space, and when Ham’s capsule is opened at mark 05:55 he shows no ill effects of the journey.
As the film continues, an Atlas rocket is shown on its launch pad at mark 06:32 during a test to carry an unmanned Mercury capsule into space before being retrieved from the ocean, adding proof that the spacecraft — and the Mercury astronauts — could survive plummeting into the ocean. The Mercury Seven — Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard, and Deke Slayton — are shown onstage at mark 07:26, while at mark 07:42 a Soviet rocket with cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin aboard. (In April 1961, Gagarin became the first human to journey into outer space when his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth.) America matched the effort in May 1961 (shown at mark 08:39) when Alan Shepard made the first manned Mercury flight aboard Freedom 7. Shepard’s craft entered space, but did not achieve orbit. He became the second person, and the first American, to travel into space, and the first person to manually control the orientation of his spacecraft, and is shown being lifted from the capsule at mark 11:52. Mark 12:55 introduces the viewer to John Glenn as he prepares for the Friendship 7 mission, becoming the first American to orbit Earth in February 1962. There is glimpse of Glenn as filmed inside the capsule (mark 15:17) as well as an animation of the flight before Friendship 7 successfully splashes down.
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
