Tom Hanks said he knows for certain there are two things that are going to happen in the future of space exploration. One, the day will come at some point when astronauts land on the moon and are greeted by other humans just like them, signaling that we have moved from the moon being a place we just visit to it being a home.
The other — well, it is probably best to hear it straight from him.
“Forgive my language, but someone’s going to get knocked up,” said Hanks, to a roar of laughter.
The “Apollo 13” actor and in this case, co-writer and narrator, was at Space Center Houston on Monday (March 10) for an invite-only screening of his new immersive film, “The Moonwalkers: A Journey with Tom Hanks.” Among the 500 people who attended were three of the four members of NASA’s Artemis 2 crew, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, who are slated to be the next people to fly to the moon and who have a part in the film, and Apollo 16 astronaut Charlie Duke, who walked on its surface in 1972.
“As I was watching that [film], there were a couple things I thought of, and it was not about procreation on the moon,” said Wiseman, still laughing. Hanks’ suggestion seemed to catch all three Artemis astronauts off guard.
Related: NASA’s Artemis program: Everything you need to know
“I’m not saying it should be in the flight plan!” rebutted Hanks. He then lowered his tone to take on the voice of Mission Control. “Okay, we notice what is on the flight plan scheduled for now for the next 45 minutes is going to be. If you could just lower the shades on the lunar module, and do you have some Mantovani records or can we put on some Adele?”
Hanks continued, “We are now going to enter the LOS [loss of signal] phase. We’ll be right back in about 45 minutes because, according to the scientists — we have an experiment that we’ve done here at the Johnson Space Center — that’s about how long it should take you.”
“Crew selection for that mission is going to be very, very, very important,” Hanks said, wrapping up the bit. “A lot of compatibility tests — if you want to join the astronaut corps. just keep swiping left.”
“I’m done,” replied Wiseman, dropping his mic with a wide smile.
“The Moonwalkers” envelops viewers in the story of the past and present missions to explore our nearest celestial neighbor. At Space Center Houston, the film extends beyond the edges of the theater’s five-story-tall screen to spill out onto the walls and floor. In London, at 59 Studio’s Lightroom, it is a complete 360-degree experience.
It was at Lightroom for an earlier 59 Studio production that Hanks got the idea you could use the same format to take people to the lunar surface.
“I said, ‘This is about as close as a human being could get to to walking on the moon, if you guys thought that way,'” said Hanks, recounting how he first became involved. “And they said, ‘Well, we are. Would you like to start working on it right now with us?'”
From there, the conversation expanded, eventually pairing Hanks with space documentary maker Chris Riley as they decided on the direction they wanted to take with the film.
“I think we all know that the vast majority of humanity thinks that Neil [Armstrong] and Buzz [Aldrin] walked on the moon and that was it,” said Hanks. “The TV audience for Charlie [Duke] walking on the moon was a fraction of what the audience was for [Apollo 11]. Not for me — for me, any time a human being was out there walking around [I was watching].”
“So the mission statement that we had was, find the stuff that will still blow your mind, that you didn’t know, the images that you did not see,” he said.
Related: Tom Hanks bringing ‘The Moonwalkers’ to Houston for US premiere in 2025
For example, Hanks asked Duke, “Did you ever fall down? Did you ever trip?”
“At the end of our stay, we were going to do the ‘Moon Olympics,’ and we decided to do the high jump and the far jump,” recalled Duke. “So we started out, and John [Young] started to bounce, and I was bouncing, and when I jumped, I straightened up and when I did my CG [center of gravity] went backwards and over I went.”
“If I had fear anytime during the mission, it was then, but fear is not a bad emotion if you don’t panic,” he said.
Quickly assessing his situation while still in mid-fall, Duke rolled right and landed on his side. He then bounced onto his back.
“First off, what hit me — ‘I’m still alive.’ And so John came over and looked down at me and said, ‘That wasn’t very smart.’ He helped me up, but the TV camera had been pointed right at me. They [Mission Control] were really, really upset, so that ended the Moon Olympics,” Duke said.
Hanks said that if there was any emotion he wanted audiences to take away from watching “The Moonwalkers,” it would be a sense of curiosity — especially those who see the film who are only visiting Houston.
“Particularly in this town, you preach to the choir,” said Hanks, again being met with laughter by the mostly Houstonian audience present to see the film. “It is to get those other folks to say, ‘Well, what ain’t up there?'”
Related: The Apollo Program: How NASA sent astronauts to the moon
“Every time I hear that [“We choose to go to the moon”] speech of [President John F.] Kennedy, he said every time we become knowledgeable, we become aware of how much we don’t know. So we got to go up there and and find out what else is there,” he said.
Glover felt similarly after watching “The Moonwalkers.”
“I leaned over to Christina while President Kennedy was giving the speech and I said, ‘We don’t talk like that anymore.’ So I hope that we’re reminded — but not just to go back [to the moon] to put info into the encyclopedias — but reminded of what we can do, right?” he said.
“We may see some things [at the moon] lit up in a day that a human has never laid eyes on. That’s amazing,” said Glover. “But what’s more amazing is to come back and just talk to people about that. That can change the way. That’s what was really resonating with me, watching it here today.”
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