We aim for the stars and find out why unwanted battleship guns allow the United States to gain vital information about the borders of space. We ask how the shattered remains of a secret Nazi base became the first on the path to a new world, with the development of the ground-breaking V2 rocket. We explore a forgotten structure deep in the Arizona desert to ask if it is the true home of America's space programme. And we reveal the bizarre link between a discarded oil drum and a Cold War struggle to survive in zero gravity.
Overview
These are some of the most spectacular examples of abandoned engineering the world has ever known. The series explores how and why they were built, consider the financial and social costs of their failure and examine the environmental and ecological impacts. The series also explores how experts came up with plans to make something beautiful or useful from the ruins.
Empty buildings and infrastructures are full of the echoes of real people and vanished lives, leaving many questions unanswered and mysteries unsolved. We explore the worlds strangest engineering projects that created empty silent cities. We...
We aim for the stars and find out why unwanted battleship guns allow the United States to gain vital information about the borders of space. We ask how the shattered remains of a secret Nazi...
Soaring across some of the widest rivers and deepest valleys on the planet, bridges have always been at the cutting edge of engineering. We travel high into the mountains of the Colorado desert to find...
Exploring ship graveyards, including Scapa Flow in Orkney, where German warships were scuttled after the First World War, and Mallows Bay, home to 200 wrecks colonised by wildlife.
How Europe's most advanced power station became a film set. Plus, the structures made by scientific pioneer Nikola Tesla in his thwarted quest to prove the US with free electricity.
Hear how a crumbling hill in the Peak District and dunes in California caused the closure of two roads. Learn why a route used by the French Resistance shut in 2003.
