Two Sides of the Moon

Growing up on either side of the Iron Curtain, Alexei Leonov and David Scott shared the same dream -- to become a pilot. Excelling at flying, they became elite fighter pilots, and were chosen by their countries' burgeoning space programmes to be part of the greatest technological race ever -- to land a man on the moon. Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov became the first man to walk in space. It was a feat that won him a place in history, but almost cost him his life. A year later, in 1966, astronauts David Scott and Neil Armstrong were seconds away from dying as their spacecraft, Gemini 8, spun violently out of control across space. Both men survived against dramatic odds and went on to fly their own lunar missions: Armstrong to command Apollo 11 and Scott to command the most complex expedition in the history of exploration, Apollo 15. Spending three days on the moon, Scott became the seventh man to walk on its breathtaking surface. Marking a new age of US/USSR co-operation, the Apollo Soyuz Test Project brought Scott and Leonov together, finally ending the Cold War silence and building a friendship that would last for decades.