Between 1966 and 1972, NASA collected around twenty-two hours of 16-mm film footage shot in space and on the surface of the moon during the Apollo missions. For the last forty years this unique collection has been kept in cold storage at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Recently transferred to digital format, the majority of the footage has never been publically screened and includes earthrises over the moon, views from the lunar rover from the driver’s perspective, Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk, and re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere at 40,000 kilometres per hour. Christopher Riley and Duncan Copp of Footagevault have selected and edited this raw and uncut footage of the Apollo missions to tell the story of humankind’s greatest adventure in a new way.

About the Curators

Christopher Riley is a broadcaster and filmmaker specializing in history and science documentaries. He worked with Spacelab 1 data (from an early space shuttle mission) for his Ph.D. before joining the BBC science department in the mid 1990s. There he worked initially as a radio reporter and producer before moving to television as a researcher and later as a producer. Riley directed and co-produced the acclaimed documentary In the Shadow of the Moon and, with Duncan Copp, Discovery Channel’s award-winning Moon Machines. Riley has worked with the NASA film archive for the past twelve years including the co-production and restoration of the documentary Moonwalk One with Duncan Copp.

Duncan Copp started working for the BBC in the mid-1990s after finishing his doctoral work on some of the first detailed geological maps of Venus for NASA. His first television work was as a researcher for the BBC’s landmark geology series Earth Story. He has since worked as a freelance producer, director, and writer for fifteen years. His first film as director was Rocket Men of Mission 105, which followed the training and flight of space shuttle crew STS-105 during their mission to the International Space Station. Other credits include directing Magnetic Storm and Global Dimming. Copp produced the acclaimed documentary In the Shadow of the Moon and he was the 2009 recipient of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Public Service Medal.

NASA is one of four featured archives in the CCA exhibition Intermission: Films From a Heroic Future (2009).