The film begins with President Kennedy's September 12, 1962 speech at Rice announcing the goal of going to the moon. The rest of the film, using NASA footage and the voices of Apollo astronauts, takes us on a voyage to the moon, from the donning of space suits to splashdown. Footage of the scientists and engineers in Houston is inter-cut with footage of blastoff, orbiting the earth, looking back at a receding earth from inside the space capsule, circling the moon, seeing its surface up close, landing, and scenes of the astronauts on the moon's surface. They bring music with them, announce football scores, test a theory of Galileo's, and reflect on the wonder of the experience.

There is a shot of the moon appearing in the window of the capsule. Director Al Reinert says there was no shot available of the moon showing in the window of the command module, so a film crew went down to the Johnson Space Center, pasted a photo of the moon on a hatch cover at the museum, and filmed it to illustrate astronaut Ken Mattingly's description of what he saw in his flight.

John F.Kennedy:
We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy but because they are hard.

Courtesy of Opal Records (Music For Films III)
Written and Performed by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno
Licensed by Upala Music/Hamstein (BMI)