Rory Kennedy's NASA film revisits his uncle's challenge

NEW YORK (AP) – Director Rory Kennedy could not resist the obvious place to open his new documentary on NASA. It is a clip of his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, defying the space agency to reach a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s.

Kennedy said that she wanted to give people who were not alive in the 1960s a sense of excitement and energy that surrounded Apollo missions and spaceflights in Canada. general.

NASA's 60th Anniversary film, titled "Beyond: NASA's Road to Tomorrow," premieres on Saturday at 9 pm Eastern on the Discovery Channel, after a short theatrical session.

"I really wanted the film to appeal to a large audience excited by NASA and its achievements and eager to learn more about them," she said.

Discovery approached Kennedy to make a film about the 60th anniversary of the space agency. Although she had a special place in NASA in her heart because of her family's history, Kennedy said that it had not been a particular passion and that she had learned a lot by making the film.

A line in the middle of the film succinctly summarizes the main lesson: "The further we travel, the better we understand our country."

As powerful telescopes point beyond the Earth, NASA is also looking at the past. The agency has 19 different satellites that study different aspects of the original installation. From a space perspective, NASA scientists can track changes in the Earth's environment, such as melting polar ice and damage to coral reefs.

The Martian rovers expedition is studying this planet in part to answer the question of whether this planet could have supported life at a given moment, and what has happened in the meantime.

"The more NASA is interested in space, starting with our solar system and our galaxy up to the universe, the greater is the recognition of the value of our planet and our planet. its unique character, "she said. "With all his explorations and extraordinary breakthroughs in the universe, we have not yet found another planet like the Earth."

Discoveries about Earth's changes due to climate change are described in a non-combative way in Kennedy's film. She did not want to risk alienating the public by plunging too much into a political fight on the issue. She believes that these policies play a role in NASA, with only a fraction of the federal funding available at its peak in the 1960s.

"My intention was not to make this movie a film about climate change, and I think it's finally a film about NASA," she said. "But the same scientists who are hanging at the space station and taking walks in space and building (the) Hubble telescope are the same scientists who say that's an urgent matter."

The film evokes NASA's failures, such as the Challenger and Columbia explosions and the sending of a space telescope that had originally provided blurry images, but it's mostly an admiring look at the # 39; agency.

"Beyond" shows prototypes of vehicles that could be used for a possible Mars mission. Kennedy said that she did not know when or if NASA would be able to do it. One of the difficulties is that political administrations are not very numerous and it is difficult to generate the political will needed for such projects – as was done in the 1960s.

"I think it's extremely urgent to do what NASA does," she said. "I think we're about to make some very exciting breakthroughs in our understanding … of the universe."