Historian had one chance to pull off 'the greatest shot in television,' and he nailed it

When non-fiction TV shows are filmed during live events, the host only has one shot to capture the moment. On August 20, 1977, as Voyager 2 prepared for lift-off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, the BBC was filming Season 1 of “Connections” on-site. Science historian and host James Burke had just one opportunity to sync his script with the precise moment of Voyager’s launch.

In 1978, when the episode “Eat, Drink, and Be Merry” aired, viewers saw Burke explaining rocket technology as Voyager 2 launched dramatically in the background. Recently, a clip of this iconic scene went viral, with fans calling it "The Greatest Shot In Television History." This once-in-a-lifetime moment resurfaced after BBC Archives shared it in 2022, and it was later reposted by @historyinmemes on X. Voyager 2 was the first of NASA’s twin space probes launched to explore the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn. Today, both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 have traveled billions of miles from Earth and continue to transmit invaluable data about the solar system’s planets. Likewise, the legendary vintage clip of Burke continues to circulate on social media, celebrated for its flawless timing.

“You see all three men had understood that certain gases ignite,” Burke says in the clip while walking beside a fence line of the launch station. He says that a thermos flask allows the storage of large quantities of these gases, safely, in the frozen liquid form, until one wants to ignite them. Demonstrating it with a silver thermos flask, he says that to ignite them, one needs to take off the top of the flask for the gases to evaporate.

“Now two gases do that better than any other,” Burke explains, “hydrogen and oxygen.” Burke is then seen standing in front of the cosmodrome from where a rocket carrying Voyager 2 was about to take off. “If you release those two gases into a confined space, with a hole at the other end of it, and mix them as you do so, and then set light to them, you get that,” Burke turned his head around and pointed at the spaceport. At that exact moment, Voyager 2 lifted off from the port, releasing clouds of smoke billowing in Burke’s background.

Ideally, journalists and actors practice their shots a few times before getting it right, but Burke had only one chance. If he had missed this chance, the epic moment would have been lost forever in time and the episode would never have featured this perfectly-timed shot. Burke stood there with his back towards the camera, watching the rocket zip through the air.

Over the years, this clip has received an astonishing number of reactions from people who just can’t stop playing on loop. “This is, in fact, the greatest shot in television. Dude had one shot at pulling this off, and he nailed it., nailed it,” commented @x-celsius5905 on YouTube. @1.4142 quipped, “At the end of each day, James Burke points at the sun and it sets for him.”