Mission X

Connecting two continents underwater by cable marked the beginning of a new age. It was a story of near superhuman effort, daring and innovation. It was the vision of one man, who overcame adversity as he experienced the adventure of his life. The laying of the first transatlantic telegraph cable was a project full of fame and ambition, of defeat and ruin. The year was 1857. A young New Yorker by the name of Cyrus Field had retreated from business life at the age of 30. He had already earned a fortune with his paper company. Now, he wanted to travel and enjoy the good things in life. Instead, his future took a different turn. An English engineer talked him into joining a very ambitious project: a telegraph line between Newfoundland and New York to speed up the exchange of news from Europe to Americas business capital. Field agreed and came up with an even bolder plan: why not run the cable all the way across the Atlantic! A new age was dawning: steam ships, the railroad and the telegraph were all making the world smaller, but Europe and America were still more than a weeks journey apart. To manufacture a cable of such immense length and then to stretch it along the seabed of the stormy North Atlantic was a challenge of shear awesome dimensions. Cyrus Field would end up spending 12 years of his life obsessed with this dream. Again and again, he drummed up enormous infusions of capital to finance his plan, he lobbied the English and American governments to support the project and convinced renowned scientists of his day - such as Morse, Faraday and Kelvin - to join the endeavor. Western Union, however, a major American telegraph company, was developing its own plan to connect Europe and America and thus became a rival of the ambitious Cyrus Field and his New York-London Telegraph Company. Field was confronted with repeated setbacks. On one occasion, ferocious seas tore the cable from a ship; another time, engineers ruined the line; and then the American Civil War stopped the project altogether. But on a spring day in 1866, the worlds largest ship, Great Eastern, could be found anchored off the coast of Ireland. In its hold, some 8,000 tons of cable. It is Fields last chance. He had mortgaged his entire fortune. The laying of the first transatlantic cable is one of the most exciting and dramatic stories in science. Ever since, the world has been wired. The story unfolds before your eyes and Axel Engstfelds camera. Today, a network of ocean cable connects the continents. Optic fiber cable allows 100 million telephone conversations simultaneously. But it would all have been unthinkable had it not been for the enterprising zeal, determination and innovative energy of Cyrus Field and his Victorian Internet.

Daring Portuguese seafarers journeyed into the unknown in the early 15th century. They sailed to regions that had previously been considered unreachable, even nonexistent. And they sailed on ships that were specially developed for this purpose. For the Portuguese, the world in those days was flat. They knew Europe, North Africa and Asia Minor. The Atlantic, on the other hand, was an ocean of darkness. Cape Bojador on the West African coast, across from the Canary Islands, marked the end of the known world. Beyond was a realm of terrifying sea creatures. No seafarer had ever returned from there alive. Don Enrique, a Portuguese prince who found his way into the annals of history as Henry the Navigator, was obsessed with the idea to explore the unknown parts of Africa. He dreamt of fabulous wealth and sought allies in the fight against the despicable Moors. He dispatched expeditions to overcome Cape Fear. He founded a center of science in Sagres and brought the best cartographers, mathematicians, astronomers and navigators to his court. It was the beginning of a new age - the dawning of the modern era. In 1434, one of his captains actually succeeded in sailing past the dreaded promontory, returning home alive to tell about it. The mission was probably more accidental than anything because the prevailing winds required pointing into the wind - something Portuguese ships of that day were incapable of doing. In order to sail further south it was necessary to design a completely new type of ship. In the years that followed, just such a ship was systematically developed under the aegis of Henry the Navigator. The lightweight ship, known as a caravel, became the workhorse of Portuguese and Spanish explorers. Much like the space shuttles half a millennium later, the caravel carried a small crew squeezed into a tiny space, was packed full of food and water with no stove for warm meals and had no special sleeping quarters for those on board. But the caravel flung the door open to a new world. The first precise maps of the African coast ensued, but were kept secret when the first traces of gold were found. When the Portuguese explorers finally met up with the indigenous populations, history took a dramatic turn. During shooting for the documentary, Portuguese archeologists made a sensational discovery. Off the coast of Porto they found the exceptionally well-preserved remnants of a ship from the time of Henry the Navigator. Is this the first discovery of a caravel? With this documentary, the German National Film Award holder, Axel Engstfeld, undertakes a journey through time. The film catapults us back to 15th century Europe with extravagant scenes. The impact of this pioneering era unfolds before our eyes, juxtaposed between historical fact and modern scientific methodology. In the course of just one generation humanitys view of the world was turned upside down with breathtaking speed, preparing the way for journeys to America by Columbus and to India by Vasco di Gama. But before them, stood the caravel and the Breakthrough at Cape Fear.