From the Earth to the Moon (miniseries)

Cast

The miniseries portrays 30 of the 32 astronauts who flew or were preparing to fly the 12 Apollo missions. The two Apollo astronauts not portrayed by credited actors are Apollo 13 Command Module pilot Jack Swigert, heard but not seen in Episode 8, and Apollo 17 Command Module pilot Ronald Evans, who appears briefly in the liftoff scene of Apollo 17. Several fictional characters appear, including television newscaster Emmett Seaborn, played by Lane Smith in nine episodes. Astronaut David Scott served as chief technological consultant.

Integration with existing films

The creators of this miniseries aimed to avoid rehashing earlier dramatic versions of space race history. The first episode quickly covered Project Mercury, which had already been featured in the 1983 film The Right Stuff. Because the 1995 film Apollo 13 had already told that story from the crew and mission control perspectives, producers Hanks, Howard, and Grazer shot the episode "We Interrupt This Program" from the viewpoint of the journalists covering the flight.

Production

Many actors formed friendships with the real astronauts they portrayed; Brett Cullen, who played David Scott, was invited to the Scott family home each time an episode he appeared in aired. Two short clips from the final scenes of Apollo 13 were used in "That's All There Is": a splashdown sequence and a view of the recovery ship USS Iwo Jima, portrayed by USS New Orleans. The series was shot in Super 35 for standard 1.33:1 aspect ratio televisions, and was remastered in 1.78:1 for a 2005 5-disc DVD box set.

The widescreen framing loses top and bottom parts of some frames but reveals left and right information; in the first episode, the thruster on the Gemini 8/Agena assembly is cut off in the widescreen version. Parts were filmed at Disney-MGM Studios in Orlando, Florida. Moonwalk scenes were shot inside blimp hangars on a former Marine base in Tustin, California, with about half the area converted to the Moon's surface. To simulate lunar gravity, helium-filled weather balloons were attached to actors' backs to reduce their weight to one-sixth.

The score of "Spider" features an imitation of the main title theme from the 1963 film The Great Escape, and Tom Kelly jokes about a tunnel dug out of the Grumman plant. The episode also used a real Apollo Lunar Module, LM-13, built for the canceled Apollo 18 mission.