Mission Control: The Unsung Heroes of Apollo

The movie makes great use of historical footage and insightful interviews to paint a picture of the human side of the Apollo missions. A side that is easy to go overlooked and as far as I know have not been revealed before.

Tough and compitent. Respect.

This documentary, directed by David Fairhead, offers the viewer a most candid behind the scenes look at Houston's Mission Control Center during the early U.S. space program. If focuses primarily on the Apollo Program, of the 1960's and 70's, with plenty of archival footage of the times and interviews with those that manned the control room, as well as the astronauts that flew the early missions.

The film includes the tragedy of Apollo 1 when 3 astronauts died in a capsule fire as they awaited liftoff at Cape Kennedy, the first manned orbit around the moon on Apollo 8, and, of course, the remarkable team effort to return Apollo 13 safely back to earth after a life threatening malfunction (you may have seen the movie).

Naturally, I'm not forgetting Apollo 11, where Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the moon, setting off shock waves and awe around the world. It was fascinating for me, even though I have seen other movies on this subject over the years, to hear the intricate details of what went into each flight from the engineers, flight controllers, and astronauts that lived through every minute of it.

What a beautiful film. The interviews and archival footage and VFX come together and you are able to step back in time and relive the space program's evolution through the eyes of the heroes of the program. I was immediately swept back to my childhood and sitting in front of the large black and white Motorola television with my dad, former US Army Air Corps pilot, watching the moon landing. The pride our nation felt and the amazement of it all - I'll never forget it. Through the interviews in the film, the director really captures the essence of who these men were and what drove them to lead and become a team. I hope all young people will see this film to see the true spirit of our nation, the incredible contribution of these heroes to our country and the advancement of science, and the emotional attachment to the program we as civilian observers all shared through the Apollo years.

I am so glad I was able to view a special presentation of this incredible film!! Growing up in the Apollo era, I was always intrigued by the men on the ground wearing headsets and staring into small TV screens, who broke into applause and hugged each other at the moment they knew the mission was successful. This film tells the story of these "Unsung Heros", mostly in their own words, and with lots of photos of them at work in that special room we know as Mission Control. It shows how they reacted to failure as well as success, and how failure served to strengthen the inherent integrity each brought to this crucial part of manned space flight. It shows how they figured out how to do their jobs in this new era of space exploration, and how important teamwork was to their endeavor. It illustrates how individual dedication works to to make the sum greater than its parts. Mission Control was, and is, a crucial part of all space flight! I am grateful to have this documentary of the special individuals that gave so much of themselves to assure the success of the Apollo Special Program!!

This is an actual good documentary which in my opinion is underated. Interviews with numerous engineers that worked on the apollo program as wel as archival footage mixed with VFX really give a good representation of what the missions were like and how special of an achievement the apollo missions were.