I just learned a very insightful piece of historical information – the Soviets beat the USA into space due to their lack of technology. What? Yes.

They were building massively huge Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) in order to launch their awkwardly large and unsophisticated nuclear arsenal. The US was streamlining the tech. Going for quality and accuracy over quantity and brute force. This gave the Soviets the foundation and advantage in sending heavy launch capsules that carried satellites, animals, and eventually people into orbit.

I found this great information completely on accident.

I’m working on several video compilation projects for an upcoming contest. (Update: Here’s the contest entry – http://videoremix.freemusicarchive.org/video/160/make-space-not-war) I haven’t really made much in that arena and I need a good motivator, enforceable deadline, and would love to find out what latent talents the competition can bring out of me.

I was browsing Space.com and stumbled upon an article on Jon Glenn’s historic space flight back on February 20, 1962.

I tried finding the full video so I could download it and possibly use some clips for my current and future video remixing. First stop wasn’t a stretch: archive.org. Since my video compilation research was in that domain I figured might be a good shot to find the video and maybe some related to it. Didn’t hit pay dirt, but I did find some similar videos. A broader interweb search led me to c-span. Yes, that C-SPAN. But there was no easy way to download what I found: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/303736-1.

I then scoured Nasa.gov. Their footage – pictures, audio, and video – is public domain. It’s our well spent tax dollars that pay for all the greatness. But the closest thing I was able to find were pictures available to download from the History of Mercury Control. Great stuff and highly interesting, but not the video I was seeking.

Then I found it in one of the last places I would’ve thought it to reside: vimeo.

Friendship – 7 50th Anniversary from Guy Noffsinger on Vimeo.

Available in all it’s glory and even more than expected. A truly great documentary. Sit back and enjoy.