With the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission to the moon just days away, PBS’ “American Experience” does a magnificent job capturing what led up to that momentous event in its three-part documentary “Chasing the Moon.” It also captures the era in which Americans raced to achieve their goal of “landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth,” as President John F. Kennedy put it.
In the midst of the six-hour documentary (Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, 8 p.m., KUED-Ch. 7) about the astonishing achievement, there’s a jaw-dropping segment that sums up the appalling sexism that pervaded both America and NASA.