2007
Indican
Pictures
USA
Director Jeff
Roth
Writer Stephen
Roth
Reviewer: Bob Estreich
On the 40th Anniversary of man
stepping onto the moon, this DVD gives a summary of the leadup and success of
the twelve men who actually walked on the moon. The story is told by the
astronauts themselves, Buzz Aldrin, Alan Bean, Gene Cernan, Charlie Duke, Edgar
Mitchell, Harrison Schmitt, and John Young. Their words give the history a
uniquely personal viewpoint.
The early astronauts were selected from
the best pilots available - military and test pilots. Alan Shepherd’s first
flight into space (he didn’t even get to orbit the earth) was an inspiration to
many of them. They set out to gain qualifications that would help them get a
place on the program. Despite President Kennedy’s assertion that they would now
go to the moon, at this point they knew surprisingly little about actually
getting into space.
“I
believe that this nation should commit itself, to achieving the goal, before
this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to
the Earth.”
Missions such as the Apollo series and
Skylab were planned many years in advance, but the selection process for
mission crews was a bit of a mystery. Gradually the crews fell into place and
the technology improved. They were not
“brave” men – one says they were really rather naďve, but well aware of the
risks. This tended to make them cautious, but their pilot training had made
then aware of how quickly a problem could arise and how quickly you had to
respond. Charlie Duke points out that eight men were killed during training,
but these were mostly due to ordinary accidents like a plane or car crash. The
loss of the three astronauts(Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee) in the Apollo
1 fire in January 1967 was a tragedy to the crews, but work continued. With
every accident, every flaw discovered, the program became just that little bit
safer.
As the succession of missions reached
their goals, it was announced that Apollo 11 would have the task of landing on
the moon.
The “waveoff” of the first landing attempt
was a huge blow, but the second attempt, the one that had the whole world
watching, succeeded. For the astronauts, the moment that the engines were
turned off seemed to be the moment they realized what they had done. Now they
had to get home. With a car, it is when you try to restart an engine that the
troubles begin. In spite of this, the reactions of the men to their historic
landing seems to have been muted. There was a lot of work to be done and a
timetable to be followed. There was a certain amount of lightheartedness, but
basically they tried to get back onto their crowded timeline to achieve as much
as possible in the time available.
“….this was something that was real, but
it lacked a good bit of reality”
“it had a serenity to it…”
“how could something so desolate be so
magnificent?”
They were concerned about the rock samples
they had to gather. They were fighter pilots, not geologists, and there was
concern that they may pick up the wrong rocks. The very fine moon dust got
everywhere, including inside the module, and they were covered with a thin coat
of dust for the rest of the trip.
The human touches were important to the
astronauts – the first golf shot, Charlie Duke’s family photo that he left on
the moon. Eugene Cernan recalls that he would have liked to stop time for a
while as he climbed the ladder back into the module before takeoff. The
realization of what they had done only hit them when they were in quarantine
after their safe return to Earth.
“…it’s all over – now what are you going
to do for the rest of your life?”
They became a senator, an artist, a
teacher, an engineer … in many cases their Apollo Mission history helped get
then started, but they were mostly strong personalities and succeeded in their
fields by their own efforts. The
spiritual side affected each man in different ways, some quite deeply.
“I think we were modern day explorers.
It’s in the nature of man to explore..”
This review will appear in Volume 2 No.3
(2009) of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.
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