Just watched a fantastic documentary In the Shadow of the Moon from 2006. It’s a 1 hr 40 min documentary interview with ten of the Apollo astronauts. There’s no narrator, just the astronauts and historical footage. The focus is their view of the overall experience, not so much the details. (watch the miniseries From the Earth to the Moon for lots of the details)
Be sure to watch through the closing credits, where the astronauts give their views on the persistent hoax theories that we did not land actually land on the Moon. I liked Charlie Duke’s comment, “We’ve been to the Moon nine times. I mean, why did we fake it nine times if we faked it?”
All these men were interesting, but the real treat was Michael Collins‘ comments. He was the astronaut who stayed in orbit around the Moon while Neil and Buzz became the first men to walk on the Moon. Collins was simply spoken, animated, and funny in an understated way. Below are of some of the things Collins said in the movie:
On the day of the launch, as they got out of the van at the pad to walk to the elevator:
When you get out to the base of this gigantic gantry, it’s … it’s empty, there’s nobody there, it’s deserted. And you’re accustomed to scores of workers, swarming like ants all up and down and around it, and you’re in a crowd of people. And then suddenly, there’s nobody there and you think, “God, you know, maybe they know something I don’t know!”