Documentary
PIONEERS & INNOVATORS OF OUR TIME
Principality of Monaco - November 21-23, 2018
ABOVE AND BEYOND
NASA'S JOURNEY TO TOMORROW
Directed, Procuced, and Narrated by Rory Kennedy
PREMIERES ON DISCOVERY IN OCTOBER
MONACO PREMIERE - Thursday, November 22, 2018
Under the High Patronage of H.S.H. Prince Albert II of Monaco
5:00pm - 6:30pm, Auditorium Rainier III
followed by "Pioneers and Innovators of our Time" panel discussion
Free and open to the public
Reservations Essential - [email protected], +377 93 10 40 61 or online
Call or email between October 29 and November 19
ACADEMY AWARD® NOMINEE AND EMMY® WINNER RORY KENNEDY’S ABOVE AND BEYOND: NASA’S JOURNEY TO TOMORROW TAKES A SWEEPING LOOK AT THE GOVERNMENT AGENCY AND ITS GOALS FOR THE FUTURE DURING ITS 60TH ANNIVERSARY
As NASA celebrates its 60th anniversary, Discovery once again shines a spotlight on the historic institution taking us to the moon, to the surface of Mars, to the outer edge of our solar system and beyond. But more than a moving portrait of NASA’s many accomplishments in space, ABOVE AND BEYOND also sheds light on the agency’s lesser-known area of focus— the vital role NASA has played in measuring the health of our home planet. However far NASA may travel, its gaze has always returned to Earth—monitoring our seas and skies, our ice and sands—in an ongoing struggle to meet today’s great challenge—protecting our planet.
Directed, produced, and narrated by Academy Award®-nominated and Emmy®-winning Rory Kennedy (“Last Days of Vietnam,”) ABOVE AND BEYOND: NASA’S JOURNEY TO TOMORROW examines the extraordinary ways NASA has changed not only our vision of the universe, but also our planet, and ourselves. The documentary special will air on Discovery in 2018.
In 1961, announcing the moon shot, President Kennedy issued a great challenge, a challenge that in many ways set NASA on its course: “We have given this program a high national priority,” President Kennedy said. “Even though I realize that this is in some measure an act of faith and vision, for we do not now know what benefits await us.” With ABOVE AND BEYOND, filmmaker Rory Kennedy asks: what has become of President Kennedy’s faith in human ingenuity, his grand vision and aspirations?
Though it may surprise some, NASA has always explored both space and Earth. As far back as the 1960s, Apollo 8 showcased NASA’s ability to inform human perspective. In its mission, that crew traveled 240,000 miles over three days before the dark side of the moon came into view, something humankind had only dreamed about. In ABOVE AND BEYOND, Apollo 8 astronaut Jim Lovell describes how, when the spacecraft moved around the moon, revealing for the first time the whole Earth in the distance, he could suddenly see, “the earth as it truly is: a grand oasis in the vastness of space.”
Indeed, they had come to explore the moon and instead discovered the earth. From Apollo’s Jim Lovell to the Space Shuttle’s more contemporary Scott Kelly, astronauts have returned home with a new appreciation for our planet’s uniqueness, as well as its incredible fragility. After having spent a year on the ISS (the largest human-made object in space, a scientific laboratory that weighs over 1 million pounds, travels at 17,000 mph and orbits the earth 16 times a day), Kelly states, “If we can do this, we can do anything. We just have to dream it, and dream big, and go do it.”
ABOVE AND BEYOND goes on to highlight, beyond human space exploration, the remarkable role played by telescopes and rovers, including Curiosity which landed on Mars to explore whether that planet could have once supported life. While researchers knew from earlier missions that water had previously existed on the surface of Mars, Curiosity was sent to dig deeper, answering if the water had been sweet or salty, acidic or basic—the kind of water humans could have drunk. “Curiosity has answered our question, and that answer is yes,” explains Steltzner. “The ancient wet environment, three-and-a-half-billion years ago, when life was first starting here on Earth, Mars was an environment that was habitable for life.”
As Ellen Stofan, NASA’s Chief Scientist, 2013-2016, explains, “When we look outward, when we understand the planets, when we go out into the universe, we’re really still trying to look back at ourselves and say, ‘How does our planet work?’ That Mars was once habitable, just like earth, and is no longer makes clear how planetary bodies transform.
Now, more than ever, NASA is using its extraordinary tools to look back at Earth from space. If President Kennedy once set NASA’s challenge at the moon, Rory Kennedy argues that today the agency’s most urgent mission is equally clear—to report back on the health of our own planet. With over 19 different satellites studying the earth, with aircraft and ground teams, NASA can see almost every aspect of the earth’s systems from direct measurement, all that data streaming over years and decades. It is a comprehensive global view of an incredibly complicated planet.
From the rapidly melting Antarctica ice caps, to the bleaching and dying of coral reefs, the data collected by NASA is essential to humankind’s understanding. Informing our challenge today, NASA offers us a record of how the planet is changing and makes undeniably clear the threat of what is to come.
ABOVE AND BEYOND is directed and produced by Rory Kennedy; produced by Mark Bailey, Clare Tucker and Pat Bischetti, written by Mark Bailey and Don Kleszy. For Discovery: supervising producers, Jon Bardin and Alexandra Moss; executive producer John Hoffman.
WATCH THE PREVIEW
Take a look back...
1st Edition of Pioneers & Innovators of Our Time
Monaco, November 2016
Documentary
PIONEERS & INNOVATORS OF OUR TIME
Principality of Monaco - November 21-23, 2018
ABOVE AND BEYOND
NASA'S JOURNEY TO TOMORROW
Directed, Procuced, and Narrated by Rory Kennedy
PREMIERES ON DISCOVERY IN OCTOBER
MONACO PREMIERE - Thursday, November 22, 2018
Under the High Patronage of H.S.H. Prince Albert II of Monaco
5:00pm - 6:30pm, Auditorium Rainier III
followed by "Pioneers and Innovators of our Time" panel discussion
Free and open to the public
Reservations Essential - [email protected], +377 93 10 40 61 or online
Call or email between October 29 and November 19
ACADEMY AWARD® NOMINEE AND EMMY® WINNER RORY KENNEDY’S ABOVE AND BEYOND: NASA’S JOURNEY TO TOMORROW TAKES A SWEEPING LOOK AT THE GOVERNMENT AGENCY AND ITS GOALS FOR THE FUTURE DURING ITS 60TH ANNIVERSARY
As NASA celebrates its 60th anniversary, Discovery once again shines a spotlight on the historic institution taking us to the moon, to the surface of Mars, to the outer edge of our solar system and beyond. But more than a moving portrait of NASA’s many accomplishments in space, ABOVE AND BEYOND also sheds light on the agency’s lesser-known area of focus— the vital role NASA has played in measuring the health of our home planet. However far NASA may travel, its gaze has always returned to Earth—monitoring our seas and skies, our ice and sands—in an ongoing struggle to meet today’s great challenge—protecting our planet.
Directed, produced, and narrated by Academy Award®-nominated and Emmy®-winning Rory Kennedy (“Last Days of Vietnam,”) ABOVE AND BEYOND: NASA’S JOURNEY TO TOMORROW examines the extraordinary ways NASA has changed not only our vision of the universe, but also our planet, and ourselves. The documentary special will air on Discovery in 2018.
In 1961, announcing the moon shot, President Kennedy issued a great challenge, a challenge that in many ways set NASA on its course: “We have given this program a high national priority,” President Kennedy said. “Even though I realize that this is in some measure an act of faith and vision, for we do not now know what benefits await us.” With ABOVE AND BEYOND, filmmaker Rory Kennedy asks: what has become of President Kennedy’s faith in human ingenuity, his grand vision and aspirations?
Though it may surprise some, NASA has always explored both space and Earth. As far back as the 1960s, Apollo 8 showcased NASA’s ability to inform human perspective. In its mission, that crew traveled 240,000 miles over three days before the dark side of the moon came into view, something humankind had only dreamed about. In ABOVE AND BEYOND, Apollo 8 astronaut Jim Lovell describes how, when the spacecraft moved around the moon, revealing for the first time the whole Earth in the distance, he could suddenly see, “the earth as it truly is: a grand oasis in the vastness of space.”
Indeed, they had come to explore the moon and instead discovered the earth. From Apollo’s Jim Lovell to the Space Shuttle’s more contemporary Scott Kelly, astronauts have returned home with a new appreciation for our planet’s uniqueness, as well as its incredible fragility. After having spent a year on the ISS (the largest human-made object in space, a scientific laboratory that weighs over 1 million pounds, travels at 17,000 mph and orbits the earth 16 times a day), Kelly states, “If we can do this, we can do anything. We just have to dream it, and dream big, and go do it.”
ABOVE AND BEYOND goes on to highlight, beyond human space exploration, the remarkable role played by telescopes and rovers, including Curiosity which landed on Mars to explore whether that planet could have once supported life. While researchers knew from earlier missions that water had previously existed on the surface of Mars, Curiosity was sent to dig deeper, answering if the water had been sweet or salty, acidic or basic—the kind of water humans could have drunk. “Curiosity has answered our question, and that answer is yes,” explains Steltzner. “The ancient wet environment, three-and-a-half-billion years ago, when life was first starting here on Earth, Mars was an environment that was habitable for life.”
As Ellen Stofan, NASA’s Chief Scientist, 2013-2016, explains, “When we look outward, when we understand the planets, when we go out into the universe, we’re really still trying to look back at ourselves and say, ‘How does our planet work?’ That Mars was once habitable, just like earth, and is no longer makes clear how planetary bodies transform.
Now, more than ever, NASA is using its extraordinary tools to look back at Earth from space. If President Kennedy once set NASA’s challenge at the moon, Rory Kennedy argues that today the agency’s most urgent mission is equally clear—to report back on the health of our own planet. With over 19 different satellites studying the earth, with aircraft and ground teams, NASA can see almost every aspect of the earth’s systems from direct measurement, all that data streaming over years and decades. It is a comprehensive global view of an incredibly complicated planet.
From the rapidly melting Antarctica ice caps, to the bleaching and dying of coral reefs, the data collected by NASA is essential to humankind’s understanding. Informing our challenge today, NASA offers us a record of how the planet is changing and makes undeniably clear the threat of what is to come.
ABOVE AND BEYOND is directed and produced by Rory Kennedy; produced by Mark Bailey, Clare Tucker and Pat Bischetti, written by Mark Bailey and Don Kleszy. For Discovery: supervising producers, Jon Bardin and Alexandra Moss; executive producer John Hoffman.
WATCH THE PREVIEW
Take a look back...
1st Edition of Pioneers & Innovators of Our Time
Monaco, November 2016