Kate Chisholm

Listening space

Two podcasts and a Radio Four drama series about the Apollo landings make them seem even more amazing than they did at the time

issue 20 July 2019

Television has the pictures but the most spine-tingling moments in the recordings from the Apollo space missions are the bursts of crackling conversation between the spacecraft and mission control. Never a word wasted, absolute precision and the most surprising clarity even when there are only seconds to spare before total disaster is averted. The wonderful documentary on BBC2 last week gave us those awe-inspiring shots of the Earth emerging from the dark side of the moon, taken by Buzz Aldrin from the Eagle, but it was the World Service’s podcast, 13 Minutes to the Moon, that made real just how incredible those 13 minutes were, when the Apollo 11 lunar module was blasted off from the command module and made its way down to the surface of the moon.

The big selling point of this no-expense-spared podcast (produced by Andrew Luck- Baker) was Hans Zimmer’s special score (if you don’t know Zimmer’s work, he’s been composing music for blockbuster films and TV since the 1980s, including Thelma and Louise, Gladiator and Blue Planet).

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