The fact of the matter is, the moon is just a large dusty rock that looms over us. Yet, for almost the entirety of recorded human history, we’ve been enamoured by our four-and-a-half-billion-year-old orbital neighbour. Manned lunar missions may have been on the world’s back burner for decades – the last one being in 1972 – nevertheless, clips, photos, audio recordings, and conspiracy theories about mankind’s first and most exalted expedition, Apollo 11, never went out of vogue in the pop-culture realm. 50 years on.
Now there’s a sudden surge of global interest over the last few years. Case in point: ISRO’s Chandrayaan 2 and NASA’s Artemis program. Why has the human race remained fascinated with this celestial body for aeons? “It’s the largest and brightest object in the night sky. That alone is reason enough,” begins James Van Der Pool, a filmmaker who has been creating popular documentaries like Wonders of The Moon with the BBC Natural History unit since the 1990s. The director adds, “It’s also an immediately attractive thing as it unites the globe – we all see the same moon.”
Destination space
His production, Wonders of the Moon, lauded for its accessibility, follows the monthly cycle of our celestial satellite. Pool captures this brilliantly by showcasing how deeply interconnected the moon is with both our planet’s wildlife and various cultures from around the world. Now, he has just wrapped up with the BBC 8 Days: To the Moon and Back – a 90-minute retelling of the three-man Apollo 11 mission.
It manages to catapult viewers right into the mission, using previously classified sound recordings from inside the cockpit. “What was it like for the astronauts? Their experience of actually being in that small capsule, travelling a vast distance across space, and making that courageous descent world. We’ve tried to do for the viewer—create an immersive sense of being on that journey. Being the fourth member of that team.”