Desert Moon: A documentary about LPL's founding and early years

Desert Moon: A documentary about LPL's founding and early years

On June 27, LPL hosted the first viewing of the film "Desert Moon," a documentary about some of the ways that southern Arizona was involved with the early days of the lunar exploration program in the 1960s.  Naturally, a lot of it is about people who were at LPL at the time (e.g., Gerard P. Kuiper, Ewen A. Whitaker, Alan Binder, Charles Wood, Dale Cruikshank, William Hartmann). The film was produced by recent UA Journalism graduate Jason Davis as part of a NASA Arizona Space Grant graduate fellowship. Captain Mark Kelly, a former astronaut who was commander of the last Space Shuttle mission, is the film's narrator.

"Desert Moon" shows regularly at the Flandrau Planetarium on the UA campus. Visit the "Desert Moon" site to see the film trailer, read the "short stories," and access bonus scenes. Some of the story behind "Desert Moon" is also available from UA News.