Episode
American Experience: Space Men
Overview
In the 1950s and early '60s, a small band of high-altitude pioneers exposed themselves to the extreme forces of the space age long before NASA's acclaimed Mercury 7 would make headlines. Though largely forgotten today, balloonists were the first to venture into the frozen near-vacuum on the edge of our world, exploring the very limits of human physiology and human ingenuity in this lethal realm.
Details
- Series
- American Experience
- Season
- Season 28
- Episode
- Episode 5
- Air date
- 2016-03-01
- Runtime
- 55 min
Episode context
Space Men is Episode 5 in Season 28 of American Experience. It aired on 2016-03-01. The runtime is 55 min.
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Episode 4: The Perfect Crime
The shocking story of Richard Leopold and Nathan Loeb, two wealthy college students who murdered a 14-year-old boy in 1924 to prove they were smart enough to get away with it.
Episode 6: The Boys of '36
The story of nine working-class young men from the University of Washington who took the rowing world and America by storm when they captured the gold medal at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. Their unexpected victory, against not only the Ivy League teams of the East Coast but Adolf Hitler's elite German rowers, gave hope to a nation struggling to emerge from the depths of the Great Depression.
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