火星一代 The Mars Generation Movie Script

[beeping] The entire country was in shock by Sputnik.

[beeping continues] [Nye] Sputnik orbited the Earth on what you would say in military terms was the ultimate high ground of space!

[sustained dramatic note] [newscaster] The reaction was one of astonishment and concern.

For it was now known that a potential enemy was at least temporarily ahead in developing means for space travel.

We were scared to death when Sputnik went up.

And then we were scared to death when the Russians beat us to orbit with a human.

[Nye] It seemed at once that this competitive style of government was producing technology faster, outstripping the United States.

And so, a civilian space agency was formed, and that's the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA.

[dramatic music plays] Welcome to the Marshall Space Flight Center.

Our special task here in Huntsville is to develop the rocket powered systems necessary to orbit man in an Earth satellite.

You might say we are the long distance movers.

[Jacobsen] All effort was given toward making sure that America got into space pronto.

And that is where von Braun began his ascent as kind of the American space savior.

And from there, he became the prophet of space exploration.

[cheering and applause] For we meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance.

The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds.

[Jacobsen] When you think of the Apollo program, when you think of man on the Moon, no doubt von Braun is a huge piece of JFK's legacy.

[JFK] The vast stretches of the unknown, and the unanswered, and the unfinished, still far outstrip our collective comprehension.

To be the first person on Mars, it would definitely put you up there with those big names that most people know about space.

Alan Shepard, Yuri Gagarin, Neil Armstrong, and von Braun.

It would definitely come with a bit of infamy.

[JFK] Surely the opening vistas of space promise high costs and hardships, as well as high reward.

So, it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are a little longer, to rest, to wait.

To be sure, we are behind, and will be behind for some time, in manned flight.

But we do not intend to stay behind, and in this decade we shall make up and move ahead.