Watch free · Short documentary
Building the Engine That Will Take Us to Mars
2019 · 8 min · English
Franklin Chang Diaz, the first Latin American-born U.S. citizen to fly in space, spent 40 years after leaving NASA developing a plasma-powered rocket engine designed to cut the trip to Mars from nine months to about six weeks. At his Texas company Ad Astra, engineers walk through how a chemical rocket's brute force gives way to something closer to a continuous, gentle shove.
DocumentaryAdventure EpicMind-Bender
Why it's free: Free on Great Big Story's own channel; Great Big Story produced it in-house.