Blue Sky Metropolis | KCET
"Blue Sky Metropolis" is the untold story of how aerospace was central to the growth of California and its emergence as an economic power. The documentary mini-series focuses on the people behind the aerospace movement and will feature many of the current major players in the aerospace industry in California, which is the hub of modern day aerospace engineering. The aerospace century will unfold through the lives and words of the men and women who created it: John Northrop, Glenn Martin, Donald Douglas, Amelia Earhart, Howard Hughes, Walt Disney and Wernher Von Braun. "Blue Sky Metropolis" is a part of PBS "Summer of Space," a multiplatform experience that includes new science and history programs, all commemorating America’s journey into space.
Full Episodes
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Blue Sky Metropolis
Blue Sky Metropolis
E1: Wings - Aviation Takes Flight in Early Los Angeles
Episode 1
Aviation takes flight in early Los Angeles, becoming an industry of dreamers, risk takers and entrepreneurs. The region is America’s “arsenal of democracy” during World War II, as two million workers build 300,000 aircrafts.
Clips & Segments
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Blue Sky Metropolis
Walt Disney and Wernher Von Braun were major figures in the popularization of space.
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Blue Sky Metropolis
Once a month in California, air raid sirens would go off, marking the time when all residents would begin their duck and cover drills. Listen to the stories of an older generation who lived under constant threat of nuclear annihilation.
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Blue Sky Metropolis
Born in Lockheed’s Skunkworks division, the U-2 aircraft is a marvel of flight that enabled the United States to get a leg up in recon. It is still a plane that is in use today.
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![A woman assembles part of the cowling for one of the motors for a B-25 bomber is assembled at North American [Aviation, Inc.]'s Inglewood, Calif., plant | Courtesy of Library of Congress](https://www.kcet.org/sites/kl/files/styles/kl_image_small/public/thumbnails/image/bsm101_clip-3-women-on-the-assembly-line-cowling-woman.jpg?itok=mt-DY_QX "A woman assembles part of the cowling for one of the motors for a B-25 bomber is assembled at North American [Aviation, Inc.]'s Inglewood, Calif., plant | Courtesy of Library of Congress")
Blue Sky Metropolis
During World War II, women were called on to help win the war by taking part in the workforce (sometimes comprising up to 75% of it).
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Upcoming Airdates
Wings: Aviation Takes Flight in Early Los Angeles
Episode 1
In this episode, the documentary establishes Southern California as the undisputed aviation capital of the world and introduce the industry founders — Jack Northrop, Glenn Martin and Donald Douglas. Nice weather attracted them but so did a climate friendly to dreamers, risk takers and entrepreneurs. Amelia Earhart learned to fly here, becoming only the 16th woman in the world to earn a pilot’s license, succeeding in an industry dominated by men.
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2019-07-19T07:00:00-07:00KCET-HD
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2019-07-19T12:00:00-07:00KCETLINK
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2019-07-21T10:00:00-07:00KCETLINK
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2019-08-11T13:00:00-07:00KCET-HD
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2019-08-11T16:00:00-07:00KCET-HD
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2019-08-12T07:00:00-07:00KCETLINK
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2019-08-16T07:00:00-07:00KCET-HD
The Big Chill: The Cold War Fuels Business and Anxiety
Episode 2
This episode traces how The Cold War and Pentagon dollars fund the explosive growth of modern Los Angeles. The end of World War II meant massive unemployment for the millions of workers in Southern California who built the aircraft that helped win the war, but a series of world events changed all that, creating a permanent wartime economy. First, the Soviets successfully tested an atomic bomb. Next, Mao Tse-Tung created a second Communist empire with his People’s Republic of China. Finally, the Korean War marked the first communism/capitalism military showdown
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2019-07-21T13:00:00-07:00KCET-HD
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2019-07-21T16:00:00-07:00KCET-HD
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2019-07-22T07:00:00-07:00KCETLINK
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2019-07-26T07:00:00-07:00KCET-HD
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2019-07-26T12:00:00-07:00KCETLINK
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2019-07-28T10:00:00-07:00KCETLINK
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2019-08-18T13:00:00-07:00KCET-HD
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2019-08-18T16:00:00-07:00KCET-HD
A Space Odyssey: Southern California Spearheads Mankind’s Greatest Achievement
Episode 3
The triumphant and tragic Space Race unfolds in the first-hand accounts of those who pioneered the technology and built the hardware that made possible mankind’s greatest achievement. Meantime, the military-industrial-complex expands unchecked.
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2019-07-28T13:00:00-07:00KCET-HD
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2019-07-28T16:00:00-07:00KCET-HD
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2019-07-29T07:00:00-07:00KCETLINK
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2019-08-02T07:00:00-07:00KCET-HD
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2019-08-02T12:00:00-07:00KCETLINK
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2019-08-04T10:00:00-07:00KCETLINK
Back to the Future: A New Space Age Dawns in Southern California
Episode 4
“Back to the Future” explores the decline of the industry in Southern California and its resurgence in recent years. We hear first-person testimony from Southern California residents who came of age during the Cold War and Space Race.
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2019-08-04T13:00:00-07:00KCET-HD
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2019-08-04T16:00:00-07:00KCET-HD
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2019-08-05T07:00:00-07:00KCETLINK
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2019-08-09T07:00:00-07:00KCET-HD
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2019-08-09T12:00:00-07:00KCETLINK
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2019-08-11T10:00:00-07:00KCETLINK
Articles
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Blue Sky Metropolis
After the Second World War, the Soviet Union and the United States entered a period of heightened antagonism as jet propulsion made plane travel commonplace and a new American obsession took hold — space travel.
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Blue Sky Metropolis
In 1929, Santa Monica was overflowing with spectators as the host for the first Intercontinental Woman’s Air Derby, where twenty female aviators signed up to participate in the 2,759-mile course to the finish line in Cleveland, Ohio.
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Blue Sky Metropolis
Ever since his first flight, William J. Powell became infatuated with aviation. He saw it as a way for African American men and women to soar far above a racist world.
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Blue Sky Metropolis
Once a month, the Home Town Buffet in Santa Ana becomes a meeting spot for the engineers who built spacecraft that sent mankind to the moon and beyond.
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Blue Sky Metropolis
A short, but interesting history of pop culture's longstanding relationship with space exploration.
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Blue Sky Metropolis
Southern California has hosted some of the biggest events in aviation and has been a hotbed of innovation in space travel since the industry’s birth. Its abundant blue skies hold aloft the American dream. We look back at some milestones through WWII.
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