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BBC World Service

Epic space stories – told by the people who made them happen. Beginning with Nasa’s missions to the Moon.
Season 1: The first Moon landing, Apollo 11. The story of the final 13 minutes that took humans to the Moon. 
Season 2: The near disaster of Apollo 13, by the people who flew it and saved it. 
Produced by BBC Audio Science for the BBC World Service.
Presenter: Kevin Fong.
Theme music: Hans Zimmer and Christian Lundberg for Bleeding Fingers Music.

13 Minutes to the Moon

The countdown begins. The story of Apollo 11 – coming soon.

T-minus 4: Apollo 11

Introducing 13 Minutes to the Moon, with Apollo 7 astronaut Walt Cunningham and former Apollo engineer Poppy Northcutt - the first woman to work as an engineer in an operational support role in NASA's Mission Control.

T-minus 3

Hans Zimmer has composed the 13 Minutes to the Moon theme music. It is the first time the Grammy and Academy Award winner has created music for a podcast.

T-minus 2

With no idea how to get there, the race to the moon begins – "we intend to win". To understand how the story ends, we need to start at the very beginning. With Kevin Fong.
Starring:
Michael Collins
Steve Bales
Margaret Hamilton
Jim Lovell 
Charlie Duke
Theme music by Hans Zimmer for Bleeding Fingers Music
#13MinutestotheMoon 
www.bbcworldservice.com/13minutes
This episode was updated on 14 May 2019.

Ep.01 ‘We choose to go’

Ugly, angry, with four legs and wrapped in gold: it was a spacecraft like nothing on Earth. The story of Grumman’s lunar module, with Kevin Fong.
Starring:
Charlie Duke
Dick Dunne
John Devaney
Alan Contessa
Neil Armstrong courtesy of the Johnson Space Center Oral History Project
Tom Kelly courtesy of the MIT Museum Collections
Theme music by Hans Zimmer for Bleeding Fingers Music
#13MinutestotheMoon 
www.bbcworldservice.com/13minutes

Ep.03 Long Island Eagle

The final part of our audio countdown to the launch of 13 Minutes to the Moon, with Kevin Fong. Lift off is on 13 May 2019.

T-minus 1

The unsung heroes who saved the day. "Here’s some 26-year-old kid, who could stop the lunar mission." An alarm appears on the on-board computer, but what does it mean? With Kevin Fong.
Starring:
Steve Bales
Charlie Duke
John Aaron
Glynn Lunney
Gerry Griffin
Jerry Bostick
Gene Kranz courtesy of the Johnson Space Center History Office 
Theme music by Hans Zimmer for Bleeding Fingers Music
#13MinutestotheMoon 
www.bbcworldservice.com/13minutes

Ep.02 Kids in control

"You heard ‘fire’. Then you heard a scream." The Apollo 1 tragedy and what happened 21 months later – Apollo’s first successful manned mission into Earth’s orbit. With Kevin Fong.
Starring:
George Abbey
Walt Cunningham 
Glynn Lunney
Gerry Griffin
John Aaron
Jerry Bostick
Courtesy of the Johnson Space Center Oral History Project: 
Chris Kraft
Gene Kranz 
Wally Schirra
George Jeffs 
Courtesy of CBS News: 
Gus Grissom
Ed White
Roger Chaffee
Theme music by Hans Zimmer for Bleeding Fingers Music
#13MinutestotheMoon 
www.bbcworldservice.com/13minutes

Ep.04 Fire to the Phoenix

The computer that got us to the moon. The size of a briefcase, there had never been anything like it. Apollo 11 was “the first time software ran on the moon”. This is the story of the world’s first digital portable general purpose computer. The work of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, helped give rise to the digital age. With Kevin Fong.
Starring:
Ramon Alonso
Elaine Denniston
Charlie Duke
Don Eyles
Eldon Hall
Margaret Hamilton
Dan Lickly 
Theme music by Hans Zimmer for Bleeding Fingers Music
#13MinutestotheMoon 
www.bbcworldservice.com/13minutes

Ep.05 The fourth astronaut

War, riots, assassinations: “the year that shattered America”. And then NASA took the biggest risk in its history. There was the Vietnam War and the murders of Martin Luther King and Robert F Kennedy but with Apollo 8, astronauts went further from Earth than anyone had gone before and changed the way we look at our home forever. With Kevin Fong.
Starring:
John Aaron
Bill Anders 
Frank Borman
Jerry Bostick
Michael Collins
Jim Lovell
Poppy Northcutt
Katherine Johnson courtesy of WHRO 
Chris Kraft courtesy of the Johnson Space Center Oral History Project
Theme music by Hans Zimmer for Bleeding Fingers Music
#13MinutestotheMoon 
www.bbcworldservice.com/13minutes
This episode was updated on 19 June 2019.

Ep.06 Saving 1968

History as it happened, uninterrupted: every word, every crackle, the tension and triumph. Hear how Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to reach the Moon. This is NASA’s archive recording of Capcom Charlie Duke’s communications loop from 20 July 1969.
#13MinutestotheMoon

Ep.11 The 13 minutes

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