Sputnik

Dr Chris Lintott finds out how British technology is leading the way in satellite science, while Sir Patrick Moore investigates the threat from space debris that astronauts face in space.

If anything defined the 20th century as the age of anxiety, it's the Cold War with its ultimate no-win nuclear endgame. While conflicts in Korea and Vietnam dragged on, providing the traditional images of modern warfare, some of the conflict's most dangerous battles were invisible–tactical, intellectual, and fought primarily in the minds and war rooms of U.S. and Soviet leaders: Kennedy, Krushchev, Castro, Kissinger, Gorbachev, and Reagan.

Space Race is a BBC docu-drama series first shown in Britain on BBC2 between September/October 2005, chronicling the major events and characters in the American/Soviet space race. It focusses on Sergei Korolev, the Soviets' chief rocket designer, and Wernher von Braun, his American counterpart. The series was a joint effort between British, German, American and Russian production teams.

"Images tell stories, we tell the stories of images." Mysteries in the archives, ten investigations into ten events of the twentieth century that have marked our memory and our imagination. In the French series, we learn about the historical events of the 20th century by closely investigating archive films. Who is in the picture, who is missing? Why was the camera pointed right here? Who is sitting next to whom?

Fifty years ago Sputnik was launched by the Russians, and the space age dawned. Starting with the jubilation, fear and panic that accompanied the launch of "The Red Moon", this documentary explores how satellites have now affected almost every aspect of our lives. Spy satellites and GPS (global positioning system) have transformed the military. Communications have been revolutionised, with Telstar, the first commercially-launch satellite, even becoming an international celebrity. Satellites have revolutionised our understanding of our climate, saving countless lives. Hubble, so nearly a disaster, went on to change the way we understand our universe.

The twentieth century was an extraordinary 100 years that saw change on an unprecedented scale, brought about by events ranging from wars and natural disasters to moments of industrial and artistic genius. Packed with archive material and interviews with a range of experts and familiar faces, each of the episodes in this new series looks at key events around a specific theme, for example law and order, and the impact they had.

The right tools for the job… The U.S. Moon missions would never have gotten 10 feet off the ground without the pioneering engineers and manufacturers and the amazing machines they created to turn science fiction into history-making headlines. From nuts and bolts to rockets and life support systems, every piece of gear was custom made from scratch to perform cutting-edge scientific tasks while withstanding the violent rigors of space travel. Now here's your chance to climb aboard the capsule, put on a spacesuit and learn the real stories behind the right stuff.