Rocketmen

July 20, 1969. Apollo 11 lands on the surface of the Moon. Such a feat was apparently performed to the greater glory of all mankind, but actually it marked the end of the space race disputed by the two great superpowers of the time in their eagerness to arrive before and the beginning of the spread of the Cold War into space. Nowadays, the struggle continues, but the main competitors and their purposes are others.

A few years before the first manned flight to the moon, Pan Am began selling tickets there. 100,000 people joined the club of the first space travelers. Why did they want to leave Earth and what did they hope to find on the moon?

Apollo astronauts and engineers tell the inside story of Apollo 8, the first manned mission to the moon. The U.S. space program suffered a bitter setback when Apollo 1 ended in a deadly fire during a pre-launch run-through. In disarray, and threatened by the prospect of a Soviet Union victory in the space race, NASA decided upon a radical and risky change of plan: turn Apollo 8 from an earth-orbit mission into a daring sprint to the moon while relying on untried new technologies. Fifty years after the historic mission, the Apollo 8 astronauts and engineers recount the feats of engineering that paved the way to the moon.

Musicians inspired by the Moon. Since the Apollo landings, the Moon has entered popular consciousness like never before. A journey through pop music's lunar obsession.

A French documentary or, one might say more accurately, a mockumentary, by director William Karel which originally aired on Arte in 2002 with the title Opération Lune. The basic premise for the film is the theory that the television footage from the Apollo 11 Moon landing was faked and actually recorded in a studio by the CIA with help from director Stanley Kubrick.

When the world was in turmoil, three men went faster and farther than anyone thought possible. This is the story of the first people to leave the Earth and travel to the Moon — this is Apollo 8. Through restored archival films and audio, Apollo 8 astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders tell you in their own words how their three different stories got them into the same tiny capsule pointed at the Moon — and what happened next.

The 1960s was an extraordinary time for the United States. Unburdened by post-war reparations, Americans were preoccupied with other developments like NASA, the game-changing space programme that put Neil Armstrong on the moon. Yet it was astronauts like Eugene Cernan who paved the uneven, perilous path to lunar exploration. A test pilot who lived to court danger, he was recruited along with 14 other men in a secretive process that saw them become the closest of friends and adversaries. In this intensely competitive environment, Cernan was one of only three men who was sent twice to the moon, with his second trip also being NASA’s final lunar mission. As he looks back at what he loved and lost during the eight years in Houston, an incomparably eventful life emerges into view. Director Mark Craig crafts a quietly epic biography that combines the rare insight of the surviving former astronauts with archival footage and otherworldly moonscapes.

Is a spectacular journey across 4 billion years of evolution exploring how the Moon has been essential in setting up the pace to create life on Earth and how it has been a source of inspiration and fascination for men ever since

The Wonder of it All focuses on the human side of the men behind the Apollo missions through candid interviews with seven of the Apollo astronauts: Buzz Aldrin, Alan Bean, Edgar Mitchell, John Young, Charles Duke, Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt. They all reflect on the training, the tragedies, the camaraderie, and the effect that their space travel has had on their families.

Martinique Island, 1974. Inspired by the writings of the Martiniquais poet and politician Aimé Césaire (1913-2008), the dreamer Robert Saint-Rose, known as Zétwall (Star in Creole), aspires to be the first Frenchman to step on the lunar surface.