Apollo 15

Flight Journal, Feb 2005 by Farmer, Jim

Apollo 15 Spacecraft Films www.spacecraftfilms.com; $79.99.

"Apollo 15," the second DVD package in this series from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, offers six discs and 21 hours of unedited audio and visual NASA footage. The material is organized more or less chronologically from prelaunch preparations through the three days of expeditions across the lunar surface in the famed Rover vehicle to its recovery from the ocean (on disc six). One of the chapters on disc one includes approximately 22 minutes showing the Apollo rocket being moved from its assembly building to the launch pad on its crawler/transporter. This gives a sense of the actual size of this truly colossal national enterprise. Viewed from the ground, we see that transporter is enormous by any standard. The red fire truck that drives alongside it does not even reach the top of its tracks. And incredibly, the crawler's driver handles this multi-ton vehicle loaded with the Saturn rocket and Apollo 15 capsule with a simple, airplane-style joystick!

At times, there is audio without video and video without audio, but have patience. If you're fond of this period of aerospace history, these 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment packages are musthaves for your DVD collection!

-Jim Farmer