In the Shadow of the Moon

Not a lot of people know this about me, but I have a major fascination with space travel. Particularly, the United States quest for the moon during the 1960's and early 70's.

I guess my first memory was a simple t-shirt I received from my dad. You see, he worked for Rockwell International, and they were a major designer of the Space Shuttle. He gave me a t-shirt with a picture of the shuttle emblazened on the front. When I received it, I remember him telling me that it would be several years until the shuttle blasted off.

Of course, growing up in the 1980's, I was very familiar with the shuttle program. We'd watch the takeoffs and landings at school. And, like most people, I remember the day when we lost the Challenger.

When Apollo 13 came out in 1995, I was amazed at the technology (or lackthereof) used during the Apollo years to launch men into space. Since then, I've watched as many "space" movies as I could to get a better understanding of the science of space travel.

Which brings me to my latest movie: In the Shadow of the Moon.

It's a documentary that shows what it took for NASA to reach into the heavens back when going to the moon seemed more "fantasy" than reality. When President Kennedy said that by the end of the decade (1960), we would land a man on the moon and return him safely to earth, it was an incredibly ambitious goal. We were trying to beat the Russians. Period. And to do that, we had to figure out how to do it.

The "how" is amazing to me. Thousands of technological advances had to be invented. How would we leave the earth's atmosphere? Can we orbit the earth? Could we send a crew to the moon (which takes 3 days of flight) and return them safely? What about actually "landing" a craft on the moon? Not only that, but the amount of people it took to accomplish this mission was staggering.

This dvd takes the viewer on the journey from the earth to the moon through the voices of the people who were there: The Astronauts. They tell their stories from the early events of the space program all the way to the moon to the ultimate demise of the lunar missions.

When you look at the moon, do you know how many men have actually walked on it? Twelve. That's it. These twelve men were launched into space through the ingenuity of thousands of people brilliantly working together to achieve an impossible goal.

And get this... through it all, the world was united. People in every country said, "We did it!" upon the successful landing on the moon. The world looked up... even through the turbulent 60s. It gave people hope! Maybe that's something that I like about it - the inspirational messages contained in this one goal.

So if you're a person who likes intellect, science, technology, or achievement, this is definitely a movie for you. If anything, you'll come away with some knowledge of our space program and the men and women who made it happen.

It definitely focuses on the time when the whole world looked up, and how amazing it was when people worked together to accomplish a dream. I think that's something we could all use today.