NASA at 65: A Short Film on the Agency's Journey Beyond the Stars

NASA marked its 65th anniversary with this short film, "A Journey Beyond the Stars."

Where NASA came from

Sixty-five years earlier, the narrator recalls, the president signed a law declaring that U.S. activities in space should be peaceful and carried out for the benefit of humanity — the law that created NASA. The agency is known worldwide by its logo, and the film casts it as the embodiment of an American restlessness to press into the unknown: a story of technologies transformed, barriers broken and the impossible made possible.

The missions it names

• Apollo, which landed the first humans on the Moon;
• the Space Shuttle, which built the International Space Station;
• Viking, Voyager, Galileo and Cassini, and Landsat for studying Earth;
• Hubble and the James Webb Space Telescope;
• Commercial Crew, the Space Station and Perseverance;
• Artemis.

Missions like Landsat and Cassini, the film says, have deepened our understanding of Earth and the solar system, and Webb promises still more discoveries.

What comes next

• Back to the Moon, with Artemis, and then on to Mars.
• Changing how we fly in the air.
• Game-changing technologies and lifesaving research.
• Using the view from space to protect the home planet.

Every member of the NASA family — including its commercial and international partners — is described as essential to what comes next. A new generation, the Artemis Generation, stands ready to build on this one: "star sailors" bound for far cosmic shores. The film closes on NASA's aim to chase the impossible and reach for the unreachable stars.

Credits

Produced and edited by Jori Kates, NASA; music from Universal Music Group.

Sources

Based on "NASA 65th Anniversary: A Journey Beyond the Stars," NASA Image and Video Library, with its narration; NASA material, not copyrighted and in the public domain; rewritten in hubnx's own words. The film's music is licensed from Universal Music Group.