William Shatner Narrates Space Shuttle Documentary

After 30 years and 134 flights, Amer­i­ca’s space shut­tle pro­gram draws to a close. And it feels pitch per­fect to wind things down with a doc­u­men­tary nar­rat­ed by William Shat­ner. Of course, you know him as Cap­tain Kirk from Star Trek, the icon­ic sci-fi TV show that ran from 1966 to 1969, smack in the mid­dle of NASA’s hey­day. (Note: Star Trek has just been added to Net­flix’s stream­ing cat­a­logue.)

The 80 minute doc­u­men­tary takes you through the his­to­ry of the Space Shut­tle pro­gram, which first got under­way dur­ing the Nixon admin­is­tra­tion. The film spends ample time look­ing at the design chal­lenges NASA engi­neers faced in try­ing to cre­ate a reusable shut­tle, while also show­ing ear­ly pro­to­types. Once the design phase was com­plete, con­struc­tion began on the first orbiter in June, 1974 and wrapped up two years lat­er. NASA called its first craft Space Shut­tle Enter­prise, pay­ing homage to the fic­tion­al Star­ship Enter­prise. Next, it was time to bold­ly go where no one had gone before.

The doc is now added to our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Best of NASA Space Shut­tle Videos (1981–2010)

Endeavour’s Launch Viewed from Boost­er Cam­eras