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The Moonwalkers: Gallery Guide

The Moonwalkers: Cast List

Tom Hanks

Actor, writer and show narrator Hanks has a lifelong passion for space. He served on the Board of Governors of the National Space Society and has been honoured by the Space Foundation. Hanks produced the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon and co-wrote the IMAX film Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D. He won acclaim for his performance as astronaut Captain Jim Lovell in Apollo 13.

Artemis II

 

Reid Wiseman - Commander. Astronaut, engineer, and naval aviator. Reid Wiseman was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2009 and is currently assigned as commander of NASA’s Artemis II mission to the moon. Credit: NASA
Christina Hammock Koch - Mission Specialist. American engineer and NASA astronaut of the class of 2013. In 2019, Koch broke the record for longest continuous time of 328 days in space by a woman. She is currently assigned as Mission Specialist on NASA's Artemis II mission in 2024. Credit: NASA
Victor Glover - Pilot. Victor J. Glover was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2013 and is currently assigned as the pilot of NASA’s Artemis II mission to the moon. He has previously served as the pilot of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission. Credit: NASA
Jeremy Hansen - Mission Specialist. Canadian astronaut, fighter pilot, physicist and former aquanaut. Hansen was selected as a mission specialist on the Artemis 2 flight. He will be the first non-US astronaut to fly to the Moon. Credit: NASA

Apollo 9

Russell Louis
Russell Louis "Rusty" Schweickart - Lunar Module Pilot. Performed the first extravehicular activity (EVA) of the Apollo program. Credit: NASA

Apollo 11

 

Neil Armstrong - Commander. A US astronaut and aeronautical engineer who in 1969 became the first person to walk on the Moon. Credit: NASA
Edwin (Buzz) Aldrin - Lunar Module Pilot. A US astronaut who became the second person to walk on the Moon. Credit: NASA
Michael (Mike) Collins - Command Module Pilot. A US astronaut who flew the Apollo 11 command module around the Moon in 1969. Credit: NASA

Apollo 12

Charles (Pete) Conrad Jr. - Commander. Commanded the Apollo 12 space mission and became the third person to walk on the Moon. Credit: NASA
Alan (Al) L. Bean - Lunar Module Pilot. Naval officer, aviator, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, NASA astronaut. The 4th person to walk on the Moon. Credit: NASA
Richard (Dick) F. Gordon Jr. - Command Module Pilot. One of 24 people to have flown to the Moon, as command module pilot of the 1969 Apollo 12 mission. Credit: NASA

Apollo 13

James (Jim) A. Lovell Jr. - Commander. US Astronaut, naval aviator, test pilot and mechanical engineer. Commander of Apollo 13. Credit: NASA
Fred W. Haise Jr. - Lunar Module Pilot. US NASA astronaut, engineer, fighter pilot with the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Air Force, and a test pilot. Credit: NASA
John (Jack) L. Swigert Jr. - Command Module Pilot. US NASA astronaut, test pilot, mechanical engineer, aerospace engineer, United States Air Force pilot, and politician. Credit: NASA

Apollo 14

Alan B. Shepard Jr. - Commander. US astronaut who in 1971, became the 5th person to walk on the Moon. Credit: NASA
Edgar D. Mitchell - Lunar Module Pilot. As Apollo 14’s Lunar Module Pilot, he spent 9 hours working on the lunar surface in the Fra Mauro Highlands region. Credit: NASA
Stuart A. Roosa - Command Module Pilot. US Aeronautical engineer, US Air Force pilot, and NASA astronaut, and Command Module Pilot for Apollo 14. Credit: NASA

Apollo 15

David (Dave) R. Scott - Commander. US test pilot and NASA astronaut who was the 7th person to walk on the Moon. Credit: NASA
James (Jim) B. Irwin - Lunar Module Pilot US astronaut, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, and Air Force pilot. He served as Lunar Module pilot for Apollo 15. Credit: NASA
Alfred (Al) M. Worden - Command Module Pilot. American test pilot, engineer and NASA astronaut who orbited the moon 74 times in the command module. Credit: NASA

Apollo 16

John W. Young - Commander. American astronaut, naval officer, aviator, test pilot, and aeronautical engineer. The 9th person to walk on the Moon. Credit: NASA
Charles (Charlie) M. Duke Jr. - Lunar Module Pilot. As Lunar Module pilot of Apollo 16 in 1972, he became the 10th and youngest person to walk on the Moon at age 36. Credit: NASA
Thomas (Ken) K. Mattingly II - Command Module Pilot. American aviator, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, rear admiral in the United States Navy, who flew on Apollo 16. Credit: NASA

Apollo 17

Eugene (Gene) A. Cernan - Commander. US astronaut, naval aviator, electrical engineer and aeronautical engineer. He remains the most recent person to walk on the Moon. Credit: NASA
Harrison H. Schmitt - Lunar Module Pilot. Schmitt is a US geologist and NASA astronaut. He became the first member of NASA's scientist-astronaut group to fly in space. Credit: NASA
Ronald E. Evans - Command Module Pilot. A US electrical engineer, aeronautical engineer, aviator in the US Navy, and NASA astronaut. One of the 24 to fly to the Moon. Credit: NASA

We Choose To Go To The Moon

The Moon Through Time

This is about the Moon belonging to everyone. It’s so familiar to us all, and has been through history. And yet in the 50,000 years of human cultural history, just 12 of us have travelled to Earth to walk on its surface.  Now an international team of astronauts and engineers are taking humankind back to the Moon on the Artemis program.  We hear from the first four Artemis astronauts who will fly to the Moon. They point out how far ahead of its time the Apollo programme was.

Kennedy and the 400,000

It’s 1962 and a large crowd has assembled in Rice Football stadium, near Houston Texas.  It’s a hot and sticky morning, as President John F. Kennedy takes to the stage to address the crowd. He speaks of the accelerated pace of human progress in the last few decades, and how America’s new space program is now taking shape – as almost half a million people rise to the challenge of designing and building the hardware that will deliver his promise of going to the Moon. 

Image: President John F. Kennedy speaks at Rice University. 12 September 1962.

Credit: JFK Library

Launch

We’re with another crowd of spectators at Cape Kennedy to watch the launch of Apollo 11 – the mission that will carry the first humans to attempt to land on the Moon.  The tannoy announcements count us down to launch as the astronauts make their way up to the pad and ride the elevator to the top level to enter the spacecraft.  As the countdown reaches zero, the room fills with fire and the 3000-ton rocket lumbers off the launch pad.  It’s the heaviest vehicle ever to fly, and we feel its power as the room shakes. We watch as it soars into the heavens – the first stage falls off at 42 miles altitude.

Image: Liftoff of Apollo 11 at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. 16 July 1969.

Credit: NASA

New Perspectives

The Overview Effect

Thirteen year old Tom wants to be an astronaut. He tries simulating being in space in his backyard pool with a brick down his swimming trunks and breathes air through a hose pipe. He feels like Ed White on NASA’s first space walk. But he wonders what it really feels like. Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweikart tells us – as we ride around the world with him, and he reflects on the view he had of the Earth as a whole. Eventually his neighbours head out to the Moon and can block out the Earth with their thumbs. Home suddenly feels very small, as it’s lost in the star field around us.

Image: Ed White performed the first spacewalk (23 mins) by a US Astronaut on June 3rd 1965, 77 days after Russian astronaut Alexi Leonov became the first man to walk in space on March 15th 1965.

Credit: NASA/Andy Saunders.

Navigating By The Stars and Two-Faced Moon

Like sailors of old we navigated to the Moon by the stars – using a sextant to take sightings on the brightest ones.  They pointed us to the Moon. It looms very large and crystal clear in the room as Tom reflects on its changing face, and its familiarity and mystery as we gazed upon it from up close for the very first time.

Image: 21 July 1969, during mission Apollo 11. The crew found themselves observing a near-full Moon through the spacecraft window on their way back to Earth.

Credit: NASA/Andy Saunders

First Steps

First Steps

It’s July 20th 1969 and Tom is sitting on his living room floor waiting for the TV coverage of the Apollo 11 landing as his family go about their day around him. A room about the same size as the one we are in, holds Mission control in Houston Texas.  As he watches from home, Tom doesn’t know how close they will come to failure. Landing alarms reverberate around the room as Neil and Buzz pilot the Eagle lander down to the surface. It’s tense but ultimately successful.  News anchor Walter Kronkite carries the story from landing to the first step, as Tom reflects on watching the TV coverage of humanity’s first step onto the surface.  It’s a moment that briefly unites the world watching with him. The astronauts make their first footprints and try to describe their first impressions of being on the Moon. Tom feels lucky to be alive.

Image: Buzz Aldrin next to the Flag of the United States, taken by Neil Armstrong. Apollo 11, 20 July 1969

Credit: NASA/Andy Saunders

Sistine Chapel

Tom reflects on Moonshots being like painting the frescos on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel – magnificent human undertakings, taking faith to see them through.

Image: Creation of the sun, moon and plants, one of the frescoes from Michelangelo’s nine Books of Genesis scenes on the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

Credit: Vatican Museums

Returning To The Moon

Returning To The Moon

After Apollo 11 there would be 5 more successful landings on the Moon, and Tom paid close attention to them all. They carried us on more complex trajectories into the lunar highlands, tall mountains and deep canyons unlike anything we have on Earth.   Each Moonshot was high risk, but we went anyway – because we are curious human beings.  The Moon is a world frozen in time – brimming with clues to a time lost from Earth’s geological record. Each mission discovered new things about the Earth-Moon system that had given birth to all life on Earth – including you.  We were carried to the Moon on the shoulders of the giants of science.  Time was precious on the Lunar surface.  But the astronauts couldn’t resist having fun in the 1/6th gravity – jumping and throwing things.  We returned with memories, rocks and over 10,000 photos. We are still studying the rocks today.

Image: Apollo 16’s Charlie Duke examines a large boulder at North Ray Crater. His checklist can be seen on his left wrist. 21 April 1972

Credit: NASA/ Andy Saunders

 

Exploring The Moon

Exploring The Moon

The Moon is larger than Europe, China, US and Brazil combined – and if we were ever going to find its secrets we needed to travel further and faster than we could on foot. We reveal the story of the development of the Lunar Rover – an ingenious fold out electric car.  Across three missions into the Moon’s highlands we would drive almost 100km over its rugged surface far from our spacecraft – in search of three and a half billion year old rocks, from a time soon after the Earth and Moon formed.

Although Moon rocks look grey – they are composed of crystals that appear multi-coloured under the right light.  The atoms in your body and those in these rocks were forged by the same stars. We just borrow them from the Cosmos for our brief lives.  We reflect on fallen astronauts whose lives were lost in our attempts to reach the Moon.

Image: Fallen astronaut memorial. Apollo 15.

Credit: NASA/Andy Saunders

Home

Home

Apollo 17 was the last mission to the Moon. Tom watches it at home after school, seeing the Earth in the sky from their live broadcast from the Moon.  He wants to run outside and jump about and be in the picture. It’s time for the Apollo astronauts to come home. Before they left, Charlie Duke placed a picture of his family on the surface. He wrote their names on the back – and added their thumb prints.  We went to the Moon as a human family. Going further demands we go together. Our collective efforts are our greatest strength.  We launch off the Moon, letting the astronauts reflect on what their mission symbolised – America’s challenge of today forging Man’s destiny of tomorrow. We leave as we came, and God willing as we shall return, with Peace and Hope for all Mankind. 

For Tom, Apollo is a voyage of inspiration: if we can land 12 humans on the Moon and return them safely to Earth, then surely, we can solve anything.

Image: Commander Gene Cernan pilots the upper stage of Apollo 17’s Lunar Module – Challenger to meet the Command Module. 

Credit: NASA/Andy Saunders