From the Earth to the Moon (1998)

[screamllc]

Here are some pics from DHK's appearance in "From the Earth to the Moon." He plays Gene Cernan, Commander of Apollo 17. Apollo 17 left the Earth on December 7, 1972. It was the final mission to the moon.
DHK's segment is Part 12 of the series.








Gene performs "one last very personal task" before leaving the moon. As promised, he carves his daughter's initials "TDC" in the sand on the surface of the moon.



Gene answers the question of who was the last man to walk on the moon...



"That's why I'm the last man to walk on the moon. Jack was already inside Challenger, so it was just me out there. That last footprint on the moon...Check it out!...It just happens to be MY boot size!"




Gene says, "For the people who live on that green and blue ball, there is no difficulty they cannot overcome, no solution they cannot grasp, no distance that they cannot travel. Me standing in the valley of Taurus-Littrow is proof of that."

There's such a satisfying melancholy in this segment of "From the Earth to the Moon," partly because it deals with the final days of the Apollo program and partly because of the words of Gene Cernan. You could tell that every moment on the moon was precious to him. DHK does a wonderful job...forever the dreamer!

[lmlewis]

Very nice screen caps. Much is made of the idea that Americans were jaded about moon missions by the time of Apollo 17, but I remember being sad to see it end . . . but ah, we would have a space station in a few years--L5 and all that (such an optimistic little science geek I was, and there had been so much forward momentum for as long as I could remember).

[Liz]

Thanks for the wonderful screen caps. I asked for that set of DVDs for Christmas and I'm slowly working my way through them. You can actually spot Danny in some earlier episodes, but nothing big. That chapter is his main one.

I'm a space program child. My dad worked for the program from pre-Mercury days until he saw the writing on the wall and opted to get a real job shortly after Apollo 13. We lived just south of Cape Canaveral Air Station and Kennedy Space Center during those years, would see the Original 7 and some of the later astronauts messing around Cocoa Beach.

Got a lot of memories from those days.

I thought the casting was excellent, although Danny is WAY better looking the Gene, in my opinion. And how can you not like a mini-series that has Danny AND Mark Harmon??

[screamllc]

liz said:

I'm a space program child. My dad worked for the program from pre-Mercury days until he saw the writing on the wall and opted to get a real job shortly after Apollo 13. We lived just south of Cape Canaveral Air Station and Kennedy Space Center during those years, would see the Original 7 and some of the later astronauts messing around Cocoa Beach.

Got a lot of memories from those days.

Wow! I'll bet you could write some great fic just based on your childhood experiences! ;D
I'm not a child of the program - just a fan. I grew up 20 minutes away from NASA Langley Research Center (Located in Hampton, Virginia). Several of my friends' fathers worked there. Every year, our elementary school classes would visit the center. I ate it up! My parents would also take us - practically every weekend -on the three-hour drive to Washington D.C. to visit the National Air & Space Museum at the Smithsonian.
Unfortunately, I was a little late for the 1969 moonshot...I was a year old when Apollo 17 made the last voyage to the moon.

Anyway, to bring this back on topic...I agree with you...This series is well cast (and well done), and DHK IS way better looking than Gene. (Sorry, Gene!) And, oh so many cute boys within!

[Liz]

You'll see just a hint of it every once in a while in my H&McC fanfiction, since Mark considers himself a Floridian in a couple of stories and was living and working in that state. Since we're about the same age and he was on his own at 16, I've considered that he was down in my part of the country then. I even had Mark mention seeing a space shot once from a girlfriend's front yard (okay, okay, it was my yard, but since we were both pretty young then, it doesn't really count).

Oh, I've got a million stories, some of which probably wouldn't be believed and others might get some people in trouble with their spouses. Just let me say that the original astronauts and the second and third groups of newcomers were originally hot shot military pilots and they were a little wild (alcohol and women always played a large part, as did speed -- not the drug kind).

[mchmcfan]

Did DHK do any filming at the Disney Studios? When we were there, they were filming a beach scene.