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As the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik passed, a documentary film about the Apollo program gained widespread circulation. With its pedigree of “Ron Howard Presents,” and a cast of 8 of the 12 astronauts who landed on, and two others who circled, the Moon, in the shadow of the moon illuminates the heady era of lunar landings from a point of view nearly 40 years on.
Of course, it is remarkable that we- and in 1969 humanity took credit for the moon landing- sent people off earth during this past century. Sputnik or Apollo may be what is remembered from our previous millennium by people in the 30th or 40th centuries. It is also remarkable that we stopped going to the moon 35 years ago.
The film, directed by David Sington (who has produced and directed science programs for television), is narrated by the astronauts, who are shown in extreme closeups. To at least some of us who remember them as young men with the Right Stuff (the Tom Wolfe title, to which some of them refer), it is a shock to see their white-haired heads on the screen, But after all, Buz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Michael Collins were all born in 1930, making them about 77. to today’s college students, the film remains one of derringdo. It tells the stry leading up to and including the Apollo 11 mission, the deals cursorily with the missions following that first lunar landing. There is little about the Russian role in the space race. The movie incorporates footage that its researchers found in NASA’s Houston vaults. The clear images reflect the restoration of the original films ( no simulations or recreations are used).
We hear Alan Bean of Apollo 12, one of the more loquacious astronauts featured, describe how disbelieving he was when told on the phone that the Apollo 1 crew was “lost”; he first advised his caller to look for them in the beach house, before realizing the deadly consequences of the fire. We learn that Gus Grissom had been worried about the condition of the wiring in the 100% oxygen atmosphere, but “I can’t say anything about it or they’ll fire me.” Perhaps it was the fire scene-and a glimpse of cigars lit in the Houston control room agter Apollo 11’s landing-that brought the film its PG rating, for “mild language, brief violent images, and incidental smoking.”
One intriguing black-and-white sequence records the appearance of Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong, Neil’s parents, on the game show “I’ve Got a Secret.” Nobody guesses theirs: that their “son was made an astronaut today.” The interviewer then asked Mrs. Armstrong how she would feel if her son were chosen to land on the moon.
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