The BEST episodes of Modern Marvels season 10

#1 - Failed Inventions

Season 10 - Episode 67 - Aired 12/10/2003

Dreamers and schemers try an odd assortment of flawed ideas for inventions. Start with the cars--cars that fly, cars that float, cars with jet engines. That's just the tip of the iceberg. Here are homes that look like nothing you've ever seen and clothes too strange for even the most radical fashion runway, including rocket belts and radium-infused garments. Some of these creations were too far ahead of their time, and others were just plain bad ideas, but there's a fascinating tale behind each one, and FAILED INVENTIONS celebrates those occasions when necessity mothers a notion that only its creator could love.

#2 - Shipyards

Season 10 - Episode 59 - Aired 11/5/2003

Shipyards are waterside construction sites where some of the largest tools ever built help create the biggest machines on earth.

#3 - Extreme Trucks

Season 10 - Episode 60 - Aired 11/12/2003

Hop into the cab for the ride of your life as we examine extreme trucks, including: a jet truck that can travel 300 mph; the Baltimore Technical Assistance Response Unit's mobile command truck; a garbage truck with an articulated arm; a concrete pumper truck with telescoping boom and pumping mechanism; and a 4-wheel-drive truck that can convert from mower to street sweeper to backhoe to snow blower in mere minutes. Learn how SWAT, bomb squad, HAZMAT, and crime scene specialty trucks are built.

#4 - Inviting Disaster: Space Shuttles

Season 10 - Episode 58 - Aired 11/4/2003

No program better symbolizes human mastery of machines than does the space shuttle. But the breakups of Challenger and Columbia revealed the program is tragically flawed. Based on the James Chiles's book Inviting Disaster, we look at the 1930 crash of the R-101, a dirigible which, much like Challenger, was rushed into flight and met with disaster, and the Hindenburg, whose 1937 explosion ended dreams of commercial flights for an entire industry. Will the shuttle program go the way of the dirigible?

#5 - Inviting Disaster: The Kursk

Season 10 - Episode 57 - Aired 10/28/2003

The amazing machines of human invention most often do our bidding with uncomplaining proficiency. But when they go wrong, they exact a terrible wage. In August 2000, the Russian submarine Kursk glided through the depths of the Arctic Sea. But the demands of the Cold War had planted the seeds of disaster in this great ship--118 men would pay with their lives. Their deaths would bring about an enormous step forward in Russia's evolving democracy. Based on James Chiles's book Inviting Disaster.

#6 - Panzers

Season 10 - Episode 56 - Aired 10/22/2003

German tanks revolutionized military doctrine. Their speed and tactical usage, backed up by the Luftwaffe, helped create the Blitzkrieg (lightning war) that stormed over Europe and dominated battlefields.

#7 - The Luftwaffe

Season 10 - Episode 55 - Aired 10/22/2003

Goering's well-trained fliers fill enemy pilots with dread.

#8 - Inviting Disaster: Three Mile Island

Season 10 - Episode 54 - Aired 10/21/2003

They make our lives more comfortable, more rewarding, and more secure. They are the magical machines that have brought us to the edge of the new frontier of limitless possibilities. But it is a hinterland filled with dangers and demons of our own creation. Based on the popular book Inviting Disaster by James Chiles, in this episode we explore the nuclear nightmares of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.

#9 - Lake Pontchartrain Causeway

Season 10 - Episode 53 - Aired 10/15/2003

In the land of Mardi Gras, jambalaya, and zydeco, exits an engineering marvel called the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway that seems to go on forever. Two ribbons of concrete span the largest inland body of water in Louisiana, and at nearly 23.87 and 23.88 miles long, these two spans form the world's longest automobile bridge. At midpoint--12 miles out--water surrounds travelers who are unable to see either shoreline. The bridge is so long, it actually transverses 1/1000th of the earth's circumference!

#10 - Smart Bombs

Season 10 - Episode 52 - Aired 9/30/2003

Precision-guided munitions, smart bombs were the media buzz of the first Gulf War and a major military and political driving force of the second. But their apparent sudden celebrity is deceptive. The history of smart bombs goes back to World War I and includes an ingenious, if eccentric, group of inventions and a cast of characters that boasts a Kennedy and a president of General Motors. Join us for the underground history of smart bombs, and a glimpse into the future of precision weapons.

#11 - Machu Picchu

Season 10 - Episode 51 - Aired 9/24/2003

The engineering marvel Machu Picchu sits perched on a ridge in the Peruvian Andes. Originally built by the Incas, this magnificent structure remains a mystery. Was it an observatory? Pleasure retreat? Fortress? This program presents the most current theories.

#12 - Terror Tech: Civilian

Season 10 - Episode 37 - Aired 7/29/2003

Inventors create cutting-edge technology to keep civilians safe.

#13 - Overseas Highway

Season 10 - Episode 50 - Aired 9/3/2003

A spectacular roadway nearly 120 miles long, the Overseas Highway links mainland Florida with the Florida Keys, and contains 51 bridges, including the Seven-Mile Bridge. A boat was the only mode of travel from Miami to Key West until oil tycoon Henry Flagler completed his railroad line in 1912. After a 1935 hurricane destroyed 40 miles of track, the scenic highway was built using Flagler's bridges. A $175-million refurbishment that ended in 1982 resulted in today's remarkable Overseas Highway.

#14 - Space Shuttle Columbia

Season 10 - Episode 49 - Aired 8/26/2003

Combination rocket, spacecraft, and airplane, the space shuttle is the most complex vehicle ever built. Long before it ever flew, the shuttle was nearly scuttled due to political pressures, technological challenges, and cost overruns. The program not only overcame these challenges, but opened space to an international community of scientists, explorers, and dreamers. This is the story of the Columbia, the first shuttle to fly outer space, from inception to tragic demise in January 2003.

#15 - Landmines

Season 10 - Episode 48 - Aired 8/21/2003

A major battlefield weapon since the American Civil War and the stuff of nightmares ever since, the civilian toll from landmines remains immense. Inflicted by an enemy that can't be seen, landmines are littered throughout 64 countries, making life a game of Russian roulette for two-thirds of the world's poorest nations. Featuring an interview with Jerry White, co-founder of Landmine Survivor's Network, who lost a leg due to a landmine in Israel.

#16 - Metal

Season 10 - Episode 47 - Aired 8/19/2003

They constitute the very essence of the modern world; the cadence of our progress sounds in the measured ring of the blacksmith's hammer. From soaring skyscrapers and sturdy bridges to jet planes and rockets, metals play a key role. Our journey begins before the Bronze Age and takes us into the shiny future when new metal structures--engineered at a molecular level to be stronger, lighter, and cheaper--shape human progress, as they have since man first thrust copper into a fire and forged a tool.

#17 - Aircraft Carrier

Season 10 - Episode 45 - Aired 8/15/2003

U.S. aircraft carriers did not sink under the barrage of kamikaze assaults.

#18 - Bullets

Season 10 - Episode 44 - Aired 8/13/2003

From "safe" bullets that stop hijackers but leave aircraft unscathed to bullets that chain-saw through steel and "smart" bullets computer-programmed to hit a target, this explosive hour examines the evolution of bullets from origin in the 1300s--stones and round lead balls shot from iron and bamboo tubes. Lead balls ruled until 1841 when a conical-shaped bullet changed ammo forever. We learn how to construct a modern cartridge, and at pistol and rifle ranges view demonstrations of modern firepower.

#19 - Terror Tech: Defending the Highrise

Season 10 - Episode 43 - Aired 8/12/2003

New technology counters the threat of terrorism.

#20 - Million Dollar Guns

Season 10 - Episode 7 - Aired 2/19/2003

Topic: valuable firearms. Included: Hitler's gold pocket pistol; Catherine the Great's pistols.

#21 - Engineering Disasters 5

Season 10 - Episode 72 - Aired 12/30/2003

#22 - Guns of Infamy

Season 10 - Episode 61 - Aired 11/17/2003

Guns used in assassinations; guns of the American Revolution; guns of Wild West outlaws.

#23 - Sandhogs

Season 10 - Episode 36 - Aired 7/23/2003

Reviewing the impressive achievements and history of sandhogs, who challenge nature's awesome forces by driving tunnels through solid rock and sinking mud.

#24 - The Gunboats of Vietnam

Season 10 - Episode 46 - Aired 8/18/2003

Armored gunboats prowl rivers of Vietnam and Southeast Asia.

#25 - Sports Cars

Season 10 - Episode 65 - Aired 12/4/2003