From the Earth to the Moon: Season 1, Episode 12Le voyage dans la lune (10 May 1998)The last manned Apollo mission to the moon is juxtaposed with Georges Méliès' filming of A Trip to the Moon. Director:Jonathan Mostow |
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From the Earth to the Moon: Season 1, Episode 12Le voyage dans la lune (10 May 1998)The last manned Apollo mission to the moon is juxtaposed with Georges Méliès' filming of A Trip to the Moon. Director:Jonathan Mostow |
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| Episode cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Tom Amandes | ... | ||
| Bart Braverman | ... |
Older Sahjid
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David Clyde Carr | ... |
Gerry Griffin
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| David Clennon | ... | ||
| Blythe Danner | ... |
Narrator
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| Chris Ellis | ... |
Bob Parker
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Keith Flippen | ... |
Jason
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| Tom Hanks | ... |
Jean-Luc Despont
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George Kapetan | ... |
Ed Fendell
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| Tchéky Karyo | ... |
George Melies
(as Tcheky Karyo)
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| Daniel Hugh Kelly | ... | ||
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Jason Khoury | ... |
Young Sahjid
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Elizabeth Morehead | ... |
Tracy Cernan
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| Tim Parati | ... | ||
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J.C. Quinn | ... |
Special Effects Worker
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The last manned Apollo mission to the moon is juxtaposed with Georges Méliès' filming of A Trip to the Moon.
I was intrigued that they used a play written by Georges Méliès from 1902 to be a somewhat inspiration to the entire NASA program. This episode captured the imagination of the entire program, and it's message saying that "mankind can do anything".
Interest in the program went down from the American people, and I don't know whether to find it troubling or good. The question I have continued to ask in this miniseries is, "So, we went to the moon with billions of tax paying dollars, why?" We explore, and that is a great thing to do. We learn about life and science, and those missions have paved the way for so much more understanding about some subjects and technologies that we never thought possible.
But I'm brought back to a question brought up in the second episode, "Apollo One". A congressman was against the program saying that it wasted money where it could be spending it on education, stopping social injustices, etc. He asked a good question, and I would still give much worth to the adventures of these 24 men who went to the moon. It's an epic tale that we can look back in history, learn lessons, and see how we can do anything. Méliès's adventure became an epic reality, but we sure spent a lot of money, resources, and lives to get there.
I wonder what our lives would have been like if we had taken the course that congressman urged us to go in so long ago. Would we have understood less? Would we have used our finances for more pressing needs that could have caused less problems today? 'What if's aren't really that healthy of questions to ask most of the time. But maybe the greatest worth of these missions was the pictures that show the entire course of our physical lives in one shot, planet earth. It strikes awe, humility, and amazement in God who created such amazing things so much larger than me. Was the billions of dollars worth it to understand those things? I'm not sure; I'll leave you to be the judge of that.