ANS - The First Dutch Adventure in Space

**Paper Kosmonaut** · #1 10-01-2023, 06:15 AM

Hi friends.
Some time ago I promised you all a little something. April last year, the documentary I made together with my SO premiered in The Netherlands.
It is a film about ANS, the first satellite the Netherlands ever built. It was launched in 1974 and de-orbited in 1977. Since then, The Dutch collaborated with the US in building another satellite (IRAS), made lots of parts for European space projects and produced two astronauts, one of which made two flights. And ANS nearly was forgotten.
I met one of the engineers back in 2014, when I brought a couple of my paper models to the National Spaceflight Museum in Lelystad. He inspired me to make this movie and helped me to find other people involved with the making of this satellite. Then I discovered a couple of fantastic 16mm films in regional archives, films made by Dutch people and NASA, to perfectly illustrate the story.
In 2015, we started looking for funding and even found a place to broadcast the film, a popular Dutch history TV-programme. But when almost everything was ready to start, the TV station had its doubts whether the film would be "exciting enough" and they opted out. And we were back to square one. In the meantime we had filmed a couple of interviews, because of the age of the people involved. They all were close to 80 years old, one of them even close to 100.
We got a second chance in 2019 and just when we got the big subsidy we were hoping for, COVID broke loose. In between lockdowns we managed to do the rest of the filming and started to put the film together. Unfortunately, two of the people we interviewed passed away in that period and were missed at the premiere in April 2022.
The film was received enthusiastically and has been shown at several film festivals around the world. You can say that ANS has made another orbit around the globe, 43 years after the satellite returned into the atmosphere.

Now it's your turn to be able to see the film. In some way, this hobby has brought me to the engineers that built the satellite. So this is what I can do in return.

The film (with English subtitles; 52 minutes)

PW: Suitcase satellite

PS. I am aware there are a couple of small typos in the subtitles. I'm sorry. But I think you will be able to follow the story nevertheless. I hope you enjoy it.

**Ponytail** · #2 10-02-2023, 03:09 AM

And now "we" are also contracted in Artemis... We're going to the Moon!
Time for the next step ;-)

**Paper Kosmonaut** · #3 10-02-2023, 09:38 AM

Oh yeah: let me know what you think of the film. I'd appreciate it.

**ReynoldsSlumber** · #4 10-02-2023, 10:15 PM

Congratulations, Paper Kosmonaut! What a journey. I'm excited to watch the documentary.

**ReynoldsSlumber** · #5 10-09-2023, 01:56 AM

Congratulations Paper Kosmonaut on a lovely film. I definitely appreciate the "European" style, without the kind of excessive flashiness, distracting music over the interviewees speaking, and so forth that one often finds in American documentaries. The digestible pacing brought the dramatic moments home. Meanwhile the animations were a total delight, and seeing the actual satellite assembly footage and hearing the launch countdown audio (I assume those were the actual audio recordings?) was a treat. I think my favorite bit was watching the assembly of the flight computer, so intricate for something that was handmade, a thing obviously designed and assembled with thorough care and attention. Bravo!

**Paper Kosmonaut** · #6 10-11-2023, 09:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ReynoldsSlumber

Congratulations Paper Kosmonaut on a lovely film. I definitely appreciate the "European" style, without the kind of excessive flashiness, distracting music over the interviewees speaking, and so forth that one often finds in American documentaries. The digestible pacing brought the dramatic moments home. Meanwhile the animations were a total delight, and seeing the actual satellite assembly footage and hearing the launch countdown audio (I assume those were the actual audio recordings?) was a treat. I think my favorite bit was watching the assembly of the flight computer, so intricate for something that was handmade, a thing obviously designed and assembled with thorough care and attention. Bravo!

Thank you so much for your review!
Our aim was to make a genuine classic style documentary, that is able to stand the test of time. The music was very important to us, but in a way that it enhanced the experience of the whole film, not to clog up every carefully planned silence with noise.
Also, I really like you said the pacing brought the drama home. Thanks.
The audio you heat at the countdown indeed is the actual audio of the ANS-launch. We got it from the flight director you see in the film. He recorded it from launch all the way to the third orbit - and even wrote it all down so looking for the right radio messages was a little easier. Also the audio in the animation about the 'suitcase satellite' is genuine.
And yes, that OBC is a gem. Amazing they could design it - and build it! NASA was absolutely baffled. Those men lived in a time everything seemed possible. And if it wasn't they made it possible anyway.

(Engineer Jan de Koomen also told me a lot more stuff about his work at Fokker in the time. Apparently Fokker and Republic Aviation were working on a supersonic swing-wing VTOL fighter. In the end it turned out to be too expensive and there were other EU VTOL projects happening at the same time that had a higher chance of success. But the Fokker-Republic D24 really was something to behold.)

**ReynoldsSlumber** · #7 10-11-2023, 01:59 PM

A swing-wing jump jet, haha they really were "feeling their oats" back then!