The BEST episodes directed by Mike Slee
#1 - Space Shuttle
Richard Hammond's Engineering Connections - Season 3 - Episode 5
Richard Hammond reveals the engineering connections in NASA's Space Shuttle - the world's first re-usable space craft. He goes backstage at Kennedy Space Centre, in Florida, to discover how an organ pump, tram tracks, a WWII anti-sonar device, a camera iris and a cannonball all helped create the most technologically advanced machine ever engineered by man. Conceived in the early 1970's as the successor to the Apollo Moon missions, the Shuttle is a delivery system, designed to transport payloads such as the Hubble Telescope, and most of the International Space Station, into orbit, and return for its next cargo. The delivery van is the Orbiter - what most people call the Shuttle - which is mated with a huge external fuel tank and rocket boosters which are all jettisoned. Surviving the huge destructive forces of travelling to space and returning in usable form called for ingenious engineering compromises. The Shuttle is a rocket for the first part of its life, then morphs into a plane for the return journey.
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#2 - North Sea Wall
Megastructures - Season 2005 - Episode 10
A historic and present look at Holland's efforts to hold on to their precious land from floods as a result of rising sea levels and climate changes. After a storm in 1916, the Dutch began a labor intensive construction of a Barrier Dam in 1923, stretching 30 km in length. It resulted in the reclamation of 165,000 ha of new land, and creation of a fresh water lake. However, in 1953, a combination of a hurricane and high spring tides caused the North Sea waters to force through the barrier and flood the Dutch coastline, resulting in the loss of over 1,800 lives and 47,000 livestock. The disaster resulted in Holland's creation of the 'Delta Project'. Costing billions of dollars, the project began in 1958. The project consisted of the construction of concrete dams, steel sea walls and retractable floodgates. Environmental considerations also led to the construction of the storm surge barrier in the Eastern Scheldt, one of the biggest in the world. It consists of 2 floating gates built on special docks. The vast gates are controlled by a computer system that allows the gates to be kept open but closes when a flood is imminent. Also presented are current emergency plans that include allocation of certain areas of land to be flooded during worse case flooding..
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#3 - The Centre of the Planet
Richard Hammond's Journey To... - Season 1 - Episode 1
How does the Earth work? Richard Hammond goes to go to the centre of the planet to find out. Using a giant 3D virtual Earth, Richard peels back the layers and shows where volcanoes come from, why earthquakes happen and even where to find diamonds. Using stunning CGI, the latest satellite imagery and beautiful locations around the world, the story of how the Earth works has never been seen like this before. And in Richard Hammond's hands it is a story that has never told like this either!
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#4 - Golden Gate Bridge
Megastructures - Season 2005 - Episode 1
In 1906, an earthquake of magnitude 7.9 rocked San Francisco. An earthquake of similar or greater proportions is expected to occur in San Francisco again, and soon. The episode takes a look at the efforts that are being made to retrofit and strengthen America’s most recognized bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge, before the next big earthquake happens. It also gives a brief history about the construction of the suspension bridge, and the people who were involved in its construction.
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#5 - The Bottom of the Ocean
Richard Hammond's Journey To... - Season 1 - Episode 2
What lies at the bottom of the oceans? What would happen if the planet lost its oceans? Richard Hammond is going to drain the oceans to find out. Hidden beneath all that water are some of the biggest natural formations on earth: The longest mountain ranges, the tallest volcanoes and the deepest canyons. Richard can reveal all this and more in a way never seen before, because he has the ultimate toy - a vast working 3D virtual Earth in a hangar.
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#6 - Hammond Meets Moss
BBC Documentaries - Season 2010 - Episode 59
Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond and motor racing legend Sir Stirling Moss share the same life-altering experience - they had their lives changed forever by terrible car accidents. The pair recovered quickly from their respective physical injuries, but the acquired brain injuries of those major impacts meant their minds took much longer to heal. But why should brain tissue take so much longer to repair itself than skin and bone and what kind of trauma does the organ go through when trying to 're-boot' itself? In an engaging and intimate conversation punctuated by some extraordinary medical insights and archive footage of both of their accidents, the two men exchange their experiences.
#7 - Shackleton's Whisky
National Geographic Documentaries - Season 2011 - Episode 68
Ernest Shackleton is one of the iconic figures of the 'Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration'. His expeditions and personality have left an indelible mark on the icy plains of Antarctica and in our conscience. Recently archaeologists unearthed an unusual legacy - his secret stash of whisky! His booze was found under the hut he built over 100 years ago, during his greatest expedition, Nimrod. Shackleton's Whisky is the story of the discovery, analysis and replication of Shackleton's precious liquor and his forgotten expedition, Nimrod.
#8 - Drain the Ocean: WWII
National Geographic Documentaries - Season 2016 - Episode 15
World War II left the greatest-ever number of ships and submarines hidden beneath the waves. Now, as the oceans drain, each vessel reveals its secrets through new data-based 3D reconstructions. From the Arizona in Pearl Harbor's shallows, whose destruction brought America into the war, to Nazi supership, the Bismarck, and its mysterious end three miles down; from the flaming merchant ships secretly torpedoed by U-boats off tourist beaches of the USA, to the covert inventions of the Allies' costly D-Day beachhead, and lastly to the troopship Leopoldville sunk with the needless deaths of 400 soldiers hushed up - Drain exposes the truth.