# THE RACE TO SPACE 1960s DOCUMENTARY ALAN SHEPARD JOHN GLENN 50444a

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…

- Kind: Documentary
- Genres: Documentary, Space, Industrial and advertising
- Archive: [Internet Archive](https://archive.org/details/50444aTheRaceToSpace)
- Licence or status: none stated by the archive
- Who can watch: Tweens profiles and older (the archive gives no rating; placed by Invisible Network from its collection and subjects)

[Watch now](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/watch/archive/ia/50444aTheRaceToSpace?play=1)