What I've Watched: When We Left Earth

I actually watched this miniseries from the Discovery Channel months ago, but since this is the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, I thought I would toss out this review now.

Watching a beautifully edited miniseries about NASA and its quest to reach the moon, it definitely left me in awe of the men and women who did this kind of work and the enormous amounts of physical and emotional stress those astronauts experienced. Seeing all this in Blu-Ray format is something I highly recommend. I can definitely see Kelly and Douglass getting into a DVD set like this. The three of us always talk about random programs we have watched on Discovery, National Geographic or History channels, so I think they would dig it. Plus, Douglass all but has stars and stripes tatooed on his chest so an all-American video like this is right in his wheelhouse.

Unfortunately my appreciation of space travel and exploration is marred by the Discovery and Challenger explosions. The Challenger explosion is perhaps the first real "Where were you when ...?" moments of my life and probably my generation. But even those terrible moments don't detract from the amazement I feel when listening to these guys talk about what they went through, and the beauty of seeing the videos of the first space walks and the famed Earthrise photo, still considered 40 years later as perhaps the most influential environmental photo ever taken. So make a point to watch this DVD series. You won't be disappointed.