The BBC will mark 50 years since man first landed on the Moon, with a series of special programmes on TV, on Radio and Online.
Programming will commemorate the historic event, from those involved in the cockpit all the way to our own correspondents covering the first human moon walk, half a century ago.
Part of the celebration will see Michael Palin take viewers on an adventurous journey in CBeebies Bedtime stories with By The Light Of The Moon by Tom Percival. While in a first, the Sci-Fi Prom features scores from cult space and sci-fi films, including Steve Price’s Gravity and Hans Zimmer’s Interstellar.
BBC Two Highlights
BBC Two will host special programmes which take viewers directly into the heart of the mission itself.
8 Days: To the Moon & Back, a feature-length drama documentary which brings the real story of the mission as it really happened. With access to declassified cockpit audio, cutting-edge digital effects will be used to create a visual journey bringing the original audio to life.
Stargazing: Moonlanding Special: Professor Brian Cox and Dara O Briain travel to where the historic Apollo 11 mission began. They meet astronaut General Charlie Duke who shares what it was like to guide Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the surface of the moon, and how he followed in their footsteps three years later.
BBC Four Highlights
BBC Four will celebrate the moon landing with a mixture of new and archive programmes.
Chasing The Moon is the definitive history of the international space race. It will provide more of the facts confronting myths surrounding the Apollo Mission, detailing the breathtaking failures and successes of the race between the US and the Soviet Union to reach the moon.
The Sky At Night Special: The Moon, The Mission And The BBC will search through the archives to recount how the BBC reported the moonshot. Presented by Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock with very special guests including Britain’s first astronaut Helen Sharman, NASA’s love for the BBC will be explained through accurate predictions and coverage at the time.
At the Royal Albert Hall this summer, the BBC Proms ponders how composers across the centuries have imagined and created the sound of space. On the exact anniversary of the moon landing, Holst’s world-renowned The Planets is complemented by John Adams’s ever-popular Short Ride In A Fast Machine (21 July).
Public Service Broadcasting recreate their ground-breaking 2015 concept album The Race For Space (25 July).
In a Proms first, the Sci-Fi Prom features scores from cult space and sci-fi films, including Steve Price’s Gravity (25 July).
Radio 4 EXtra
Radio 4 Extra will air The First Men In The Moon, H G Wells’ story about the invention which could take man to the moon… and perhaps the huge amounts of money for its inventor. But what the two adventurers discover is a world of freezing nights, boiling days and sinister alien life…