Using mission footage, broadcast audio, interviews, and views of museum artifacts and quiet launch facilities, the film looks back on the Apollo program and how quickly its major events became history. It opens with the Apollo 8 crew’s message from space and reading from Genesis. Much of the account centers on Apollo 11, following preparations for launch, the Saturn rocket’s ascent, the lunar module’s landing, Neil Armstrong’s first step, and the celebrations that followed. Apollo 11 is also placed within the unrest and violence of the 1960s and remembered as an event that briefly united many people.
Success is set against the 1967 command-module fire that killed astronauts Grissom, White, and Chaffee, as well as the explosion aboard Apollo 13 and the work in Mission Control to bring that crew home. Interviews with Apollo program figures describe the discipline required during emergencies and the mixture of humility, excitement, and close attention that Harrison Schmitt experienced while descending to and walking on the Moon. Footage of astronauts moving across the lunar surface also captures moments of humor, discovery, and pride.
Lunar exploration produced rock samples, photographs, telemetry, and continuing scientific work, while thousands of government, university, and contractor employees supplied the knowledge and effort behind the missions. Views of Earth from the Moon lead to reflections on the planet as a beautiful, fragile home without the boundaries seen on maps. The closing message says that Apollo’s missions have ended, but their discoveries, memories, and full meaning will continue into the future.
