Coming to PBS’ American Experience tomorrow, Tuesday, March 1: SPACE MEN
Amanda Pollak’s look back at the long-forgotten experiments that helped lead to space makes its debut on the acclaimed public television series.
While the names Sputnik, Yuri Gargarin, Apollo 8, and Mercury 7 will forever be linked to early space exploration in the minds of the general public, that likely can’t be said for John Paul Stapp, David Simons, Joseph Kittinger, Manhigh, or Excelsior. For a period in the late 1950s through 1960, however, these men and their high-altitude Air Force projects involving balloons would garner high-profile coverage in publications like Life and The New York Times, and their early designation as “Space Men.” Pollak uncovers their fascinating story, which was eventually overshadowed by the growth of NASA and its corresponding lion’s share of government funding and international press. In the process, the film demonstrates how their experiments proved pivotal in the development of the nascent space program, providing experiential data that pushed the boundaries of what humans were thought to be able to withstand, physically and mentally, in the unknown terrain of space.
what (not) to doc 