Good morning, friends!
If you’re reading this, I’m probably still pregnant and sort of just . . . consumed? . . . by that. That’s all!
#54: For All Mankind
Director: Al Reinert
Country: United States
Year: 1989
Runtime: 80 minutes
Language: English
**As always, this post contains spoilers**
CW: None!
The day of my birth was not, like most births, an arbitrary day determined by biology and happenstance; it was chosen by my dad. I was a planned cesarean and the doctor performing the surgery gave my parents the option to choose the day in early May.
My dad (with the okay from my mom, of course) chose May 5th because on May 5th, 1961, Alan B. Shepard became the first American to travel into space.
I love thinking that this day, most often remembered by Americans as Cinco de Mayo, was actually part of my dad’s schema as the day a man most people could not name, traveled into space. And for the rest of my life, that’s how I’d think about my birthday, too.
For as long as I can remember, space has been, next to my two brothers, a sort of third sibling for me. My dad is unconditionally in love with it in a way that has made it so I can’t help but wonder about it, too. He’s seen half a dozen space shuttle launches in Florida, always had a telescope in the garage, and made sure we wouldn’t miss a meteor shower or ISS sighting, no matter where we were.
So, as soon as I learned For All Mankind, a documentary about the Apollo program, was part of the collection, I knew I had to watch it with my dad.
It’s helpful to know up front that For All Mankind is a documentary about NASA’s Apollo program in its entirety, but was edited to look like one single trip to the Moon. I’d seen it probably a decade ago, but forgot this fact and it took *a long time* to remember and was therefore sort of confusing for a while. It is made of entirely original footage and audio from archived interviews and interviews Reinert conducted with the Apollo astronauts, of which there are two dozen.
The movie starts with footage from JFK’s famous Moon speech. And folks, I really cannot get over JFK’s accent. Wowie! Could an accent like that get elected now?
About a dozen different astronauts are preparing for an Apollo mission by getting suited up and then just sitting in La-Z-Boys, waiting.
Some of these men include Alan Bean, John Young, Charlie Duke, Buzz Aldrin, James Irwin, Dave Scott, Pete Conrad, Dick Gordon, Jack Swigert, and Gene Cernan. I am proud to say I knew exactly 3 of these people, most especially Jack Swigert, who was played by Kevin Bacon in U KNOW WHAT. I cannot believe it took me over 400 words to mention Apollo 13.
One of the best parts of this movie is the audio interviews because they reveal that although these astronauts were doing something truly outrageous, a lot of them had very salt-of-the-Earth cowboy vibes to them? They’re just regular guys! Exhibit A:
“This is such a big thing. I can’t see how you could even do it. I couldn’t understand, as a crewman, how to make it work.” —Ken Mattingly, Apollo 16. I mean, same, Ken. You may also recognize the name Ken Mattingly from . . . that one movie . . . as the guy who can’t join the mission because he is exposed to the measles. (This is not an Apollo 13 newsletter so just STOP.)
Also, this, from Jack Schmitt (Apollo 17) talking about seeing the Moon right through the window of the spacecraft: “They’re just gonna launch us straight toward this thing.”
The astronauts are stuffed inside the shuttle, which we learn weighs 6.5 million pounds. To which my mom asks, “How did they have a scale that could weigh that much?” I’m also watching this with my mom, did I mention that? I love her.
In the audio, the astronauts talk a lot about how their part was the only part they could control and the rest of it, they couldn’t. Not only could they not control it, but they didn’t understand it, as Ken Mattingly alluded to. As the person in group projects who didn’t trust anyone to finish their PowerPoint slides on time and ended up doing everything myself, I just...cannot get over the amount of trust you have to put into dozens of other people to blast your ass off into SPACE.
We see shots of Mission Control in Houston, which drives this point home even more. So many people. They prepare for blast off and then it blasts off! It really is incredible. So much heat and fire.
Ken Mattingly says, “It feels just like it sounds.”
My dad says, “I literally have a tear in my left eye.” 😭
From here on out, most of the footage in the film is footage shot by the astronauts themselves, which is very cool. The coolest is of the guys spacewalking, or what is called EVA (Extra Vehicular Activity). This is the type of scene that, if I were seeing it in a movie theater, I would have to physically hold on to my chair because the perspective is so nuts.
Also, I remember my dad is full of space travel facts. Those tight-fitting black and white space hats you see the guys wearing inside the shuttle? They’re called “Snoopy hats” because they look like Snoopy.
Those “bell-looking things” on the outside of the spacecraft? Those control propulsions and are full of very toxic chemicals. Also, inside their spacesuits is underwear full of cooling water to help regulate their body temperature. Why is that one guy wearing an eye patch? Because it helps him focus his other eye when he looks out the stargazer. Also, that guy’s name is Stu Roosa. Ask Jeeves over here!
Gene Kranz, NASA Flight Director (played by Ed Harris in ya know), tells the crew, “You are go for the Moon.” And that’s it! Off they go.
There’s lots of footage shot by the astronauts here and they honestly look like they’re having a great time floating around.
They listen to a lot of music, some of it recorded specifically for them (Merle Haggard, I think?). They eat space food and talk about how undignified pooping is up there. There’s a shot of my boy, Alan Shepard, eating a hot dog. Buzz Aldrin spreads ham spread on a piece of bread. Bless.
In the voiceovers, the astronauts talk a lot about the perspective of seeing the whole Earth from up there. A voiceover from an astronaut whose name I did not catch says, “If I were a lonely traveler from another planet, would I land on the blue or the brown part?” Another says, “The Earth from here is a grand oasis in the big vastness of space.” Gene Cernan, Apollo 17, says “Looking at space, which has no end, and time, which has no meaning. It’s not a hostile darkness because of the beauty of the Earth. It sort of gives it life.” So simple, so gorgeous.
The spacecraft approaches the Moon. The way it works is, one person stays in the command module orbiting the Moon while the other astronauts land on it in the lunar excursion module (LEM). Dick Gordon, the command module pilot, who I love for being just unapologetically jealous that he didn’t get to walk on the Moon, says of the LEM: “I wish the damn thing would hold three people.”
There’s incredible footage of the Moon’s surface as they approach it for landing. My dad’s face looks like he’s never seen this before, but I know he’s seen it a dozen times. He says, “Oh wow.” He also says, “Those craters are where meteorites boinked off the Moon.”
The landing is INTENSE. A huge thud. We hear the famous audio, of course: “The eagle has landed.” And then Neil Armstrong’s “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind” line. Anyone else obsessed with these sorts of quotes? I’m so enamored by these strings of words that people say, maybe purposefully, maybe on accident, that become profound almost-metonymic devices for a time in history. How do they do it!
Well, Pete Conrad, an astronaut on Apollo 12 (the one after Armstrong) took a self-deprecating approach: “That may have been a small one for Neil, but it was a long one for me.” ...alluding to his 5’6” stature. Which I find to be not as initially iconic, but very charming.
The astronauts have a blaaassstt up there. I know they were collecting rocks and doing science but they were also just sort of fucking around? They drove around these little go-kart looking cars that look super fun.
And skipping and hopping around. I asked my dad if they were doing that just because it was fun and he said, “Yes, and they took dexedrine before landing.” lollll
They also put an American flag on the Moon which is so tacky SORRY.
Also! Did you know the Moon is like 150 degrees? Why did I think it was cold?
They leave the Moon and make their return to Earth. Pete Conrad says all you can do up there is “try and take in everything there is to take in at that moment.” I think some things are maybe too profound to truly experience in the moment, to capture, maybe even to remember? All you can do is try.
The movie ends with the astronauts landing in the ocean with a voiceover of JFK’s speech and a dedication to all the astronauts who died in Apollo missions.
As the credits rolled, my mom said, “Wow. I’d never seen that movie.”
I said, “I’d never seen that footage anywhere else.”
My dad said, “I’ve seen it all.”
THE END.
If you have even a fleeting interest in space travel, I can’t recommend this movie enough. You will see stunning footage you haven’t seen in other documentaries and just as moving, for me, was hearing the perspectives of the astronauts. And the way Reinert was able to mush all the missions together to feel like one helps the breadth of the program feel digestible without making you feel like you’re missing something.
Also, if you’re able to watch it with someone who loves space travel so much they inextricably tied it to your birthday: even better.
Up next is The Unbearable Lightness of Being from 1988, a film that I know absolutely nothing about EXCEPT that it stars Daniel Day-Lewis and Juliette Binoche and honestly what more do we need to know? See you there!
XOXO,
Steph
P.S. Earlier this year, I finished a draft of an essay collection about my “firsts.” One of them, “First American in Space,” is about this birth connection to Alan B. Shepard and the beauty and weight of of the lineages we carry. It’s not available online anywhere, but two other essays from the collection are! You can read “First 9/11” here and listen to me read “First Lie” here (my excerpt is first). ❤️
So this connection to Alan B. Shepard is new to me; I didn't know your birthdate was chosen bc of his trip into space--which is amazing--and I think it's sooo endearing. Also, wtf, I didn't get to choose my effing birthdate, it has me wondering...i'll text you!