The moon landing was a giant leap for movies, too

In 1964, Stanley Kubrick, on the recommendation of the science-fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, bought a telescope.

"He got this Questar and he attached one of his cameras to it," remembers Katharina Kubrick, the filmmaker's stepdaughter. "On a night where there was a lunar eclipse, he dragged us all out onto the balcony and we were able to see the moon like a big rubber ball. I don't think I've seen it as clearly since. He loved that thing. He looked at it all the time."

Space exploration was then an exciting possibility, but one far from realization. That July, the NASA's Ranger 7 sent back high-resolution photographs from the moon's surface. Kubrick and Clarke, convinced the moon was only the start, began to toil on a script together. It would be five years before astronauts landed on the moon, on July 20, 1969. Kubrick took flight sooner. "2001: A Space Odyssey" opened in theaters April 3, 1968.

This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Keir Dullea in a scene from the 1968 film, "2001: A Space Odyssey." Space exploration was then an exciting possibility, but one far from realization. Stanley Kubrick and science-fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, convinced the moon was only the start, began to toil on a script together. It would be five years before astronauts landed on the moon, on July 20, 1969. Kubrick took flight sooner. "2001: A Space Odyssey" opened in theaters April 3, 1968. (Warner Bros. via AP)

The space race was always going to be won by filmmakers and science-fiction writers. Jules Verne penned "From the Earth to the Moon" in 1865, prophesying three U.S. astronauts rocketing from Florida to the moon. George Melies' 1902 silent classic "A Trip to the Moon" had a rocket ship landing in the eye of the man in the moon. "Destination Moon," based on Robert Heinlein's tale, got there in 1950, and won an Oscar for special effects. Three years before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the lunar surface, "Star Trek" began airing.

It's no wonder that the moon landing seemed like the stuff of movies. Some conspiracy theorists claimed it was one: another Kubrick production. But the truth of the landing was intertwined with cinema.

Audio recordings from Mission Control during Apollo 11 capture flight controllers talking about "2001." The day of the landing, Heinlein and Clarke were on air with Walter Cronkite. Heinlein called it "New Year's Day of the Year One."

This July 17, 1969 photo made available by NASA shows the Earth as the Apollo 11 mission travels towards the moon. It’s estimated that about 600 million people around the world watched as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon in 1969. (NASA via AP)

The landing was a giant leap not just for mankind but for filmmaking. The astronauts on board Apollo 11 carried multiple film cameras with them, including two 16mm cameras and several 70mm Hasselblad 500s. Some cameras were affixed to the lunar module and the astronauts' suits, others they carried on the journey. Their training was rudimentary, but they were filmmakers. Armstrong, Aldrin and Michael Collins were all later made honorary members of the American Society of Cinematographers.

Those images, broadcast live on television, were crucial proof for the mission. Filmmaker Todd Douglas Miller, whose archival-based "Apollo 11" has been one of the year's most acclaimed and popular documentaries, believes they constitute some of the most important images in cinema history.

"How could you argue with Buzz Aldrin's landing shot with a 16mm camera using variable frame rate and shutter exposures out the lunar module window?" marvels Miller. "I mean, come up with a better shot in cinema history than the landing on the moon. And likewise, Michael Collins in the command module seeing the lunar module come off the surface of the moon. They're incredible shots on their own and they're also technically astute."

The possibility of traveling to the moon had long invigorated the dreams of storytellers. But the realization of that vision, and the images it produced, opened up entirely new horizons. The moon landing inspired films that greatly expanded the realm of science fiction and began an ongoing dance between the space program and the movies: two sunny industries driven by technological discovery and starry-eyed daydreams.

Many of the foremost filmmakers then coming of age turned to space. George Lucas debuted "Star Wars" in 1977, the same year Steven Spielberg released "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." Ridley Scott's "Alien," suggesting a less harmonious universe, came out two years later.

Science fiction runs on its own parallel timeline. It resides beyond contemporary reality while at the same time being informed by it. It's built on future dreams past. Lucas was inspired by the 1936 serial "Flash Gordon." Spielberg, who later made Kubrick's "A.I.," referred to "2001," not the moon landing, as the genre's "big bang."

But, unmistakably, a new frontier opened when Apollo 11 landed. Philip Kaufman purposefully began his 1983 Oscar-winning epic "The Right Stuff," based on Tom Wolfe's book about the daring test pilots of the space program's early days, with Chuck Yeager (Sam Shepherd) on a horseback.

"'The Right Stuff' is right from the beginning a continuation of the Western," Kaufman says. "The hero of 'The Right Stuff' is a spirit. It's called the Right Stuff and it's something that's ineffable. It's the ultimate modesty in a way. It's in the great laconic characters of the Western. You don't brag. You do your task in the best way possible. And maybe, as in 'The Searchers' or 'Shane,' you walk away at the end."

The extraordinary height of achievement of the moon landing has ever since been a measuring stick for America. The partisan reception to last year's "First Man," with Ryan Gosling as Armstrong, was its own reflection of the country's present. Kaufman, 82, imagines an ongoing search for "the right stuff."

"How do we refresh that sense of adventure?" he wonders, citing the touristy lines on Mount Everest. "How do we memorialize the landing on the moon not just with parades and self-congratulation but a sense of reverence for the greatness of the people who did it?"

Ever since the moon landing made fantasy real, a strain of science-fiction has ridden scientific accuracy for big-screen spectacle. Ridley Scott's "The Martian" (2015) and Christopher Nolan's "Interstellar" (2014) took physics-based approaches to tell reasonably plausible tales of space travel, with scientists as consultants. NASA helped extensively on Ron Howard's Oscar-winning "Apollo 13" (1995). Weightless scenes were filmed 25 seconds at a time on NASA's KC-135 plane, in momentary zero gravity.

Margaret Weitekamp, curator of space and science-fiction history at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, sees a reciprocal relationship between filmmakers and scientists, with ideas flowing between the two — often to the benefit of NASA.

"When you see films in the post-Apollo era that really capture the spirit and triumph and the glory of human space flight, like 'The Right Stuff' and 'Apollo 13,' you see a direct increase in approval ratings for NASA and human space flight," Weitekamp said. "After 'The Martian,' NASA had one of the largest recruiting application pools that they've ever had for the astronaut program."

Other filmmakers saw something different, and lonelier on the moon and the potentially lifeless reaches of space. Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky, who found "2001" too sterile, sought to make a more human space drama in "Solaris" (1972). The space station was shabbier, the emotions more earthbound. The French filmmaker Claire Denis, in this year's "High Life" with Robert Pattinson, similarly went to space only to wrestle with many of things she always has: sex, violence, parenthood.

"A lot of science fiction films are about conquest," Denis says. "In that void, that huge universe, there's not many things to fight, unless you do 'Star Wars' and there's an alien living there."

As has been often said, we went to the moon and ended up seeing the Earth more clearly. For Kubrick, glued to the Apollo 11 broadcast 50 years ago, that was literally true.

"I remember very clearly when we first saw a picture of our Earth, Stanley was immediately disappointed and depressed that he hadn't gotten the model of the Earth in '2001' the right color," Katharina recalls. "In the film, it's very pale blue and misty and cloudy. But we hadn't really seen it yet. We didn't know how clearly we'd be able to see it. He just said, 'Oh gee, I should have made it bluer.'"

Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

Follow AP's full coverage of the Apollo 11 anniversary at: https://apnews.com/Apollo11moonlanding

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Russia on Wednesday vetoed a U.N. resolution sponsored by the United States and Japan calling on all nations to prevent a dangerous nuclear arms race in outer space, calling it “a dirty spectacle” that cherry picks weapons of mass destruction from all other weapons that should also be banned.

The vote in the 15-member Security Council was 13 in favor, Russia opposed and China abstaining.

The resolution would have called on all countries not to develop or deploy nuclear arms or other weapons of mass destruction in space, as banned under a 1967 international treaty that included the U.S. and Russia, and to agree to the need to verify compliance.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said after the vote that Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Moscow has no intention of deploying nuclear weapons in space.

“Today’s veto begs the question: Why? Why, if you are following the rules, would you not support a resolution that reaffirms them? What could you possibly be hiding,” she asked. “It’s baffling. And it’s a shame.”

Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia dismissed the resolution as “absolutely absurd and politicized,” and said it didn’t go far enough in banning all types of weapons in space.

Russia and China proposed an amendment to the U.S.-Japan draft that would call on all countries, especially those with major space capabilities, “to prevent for all time the placement of weapons in outer space, and the threat of use of force in outer spaces.”

The vote was 7 countries in favor, 7 against, and one abstention and the amendment was defeated because it failed to get the minimum 9 “yes” votes required for adoption.

The U.S. opposed the amendment, and after the vote Nebenzia addressed the U.S. ambassador saying: “We want a ban on the placement of weapons of any kind in outer space, not just WMDs (weapons of mass destruction). But you don’t want that. And let me ask you that very same question. Why?”

He said much of the U.S. and Japan’s actions become clear “if we recall that the U.S. and their allies announced some time ago plans to place weapons … in outer space.”

Nebenzia accused the U.S. of blocking a Russian-Chinese proposal since 2008 for a treaty against putting weapons in outer space.

Thomas-Greenfield accused Russia of undermining global treaties to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, irresponsibly invoking “dangerous nuclear rhetoric,” walking away from several of its arms control obligations, and refusing to engage “in substantive discussions around arms control or risk reduction.”

She called Wednesday’s vote “a real missed opportunity to rebuild much-needed trust in existing arms control obligations.”

Thomas-Greenfield’s announcement of the resolution on March 18 followed White House confirmation in February that Russia has obtained a “troubling” anti-satellite weapon capability, although such a weapon is not operational yet.

Putin declared later that Moscow has no intention of deploying nuclear weapons in space, claiming that the country has only developed space capabilities similar to those of the U.S.

Thomas-Greenfield said before the vote that the world is just beginning to understand “the catastrophic ramifications of a nuclear explosion in space.”

It could destroy “thousands of satellites operated by countries and companies around the world — and wipe out the vital communications, scientific, meteorological, agricultural, commercial, and national security services we all depend on,” she said.

The defeated draft resolution said “the prevention of an arms race in outer space would avert a grave danger for international peace and security.” It would have urged all countries carrying out activities in exploring and using outer space to comply with international law and the U.N. Charter.

The draft would have affirmed that countries that ratified the 1967 Outer Space Treaty must comply with their obligations not to put in orbit around the Earth “any objects” with weapons of mass destruction, or install them “on celestial bodies, or station such weapons in outer space.”

The treaty, ratified by some 114 countries, including the U.S. and Russia, prohibits the deployment of “nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction” in orbit or the stationing of “weapons in outer space in any other manner.”

The draft resolution emphasized “the necessity of further measures, including political commitments and legally binding instruments, with appropriate and effective provisions for verification, to prevent an arms race in outer space in all its aspects.”

It reiterated that the U.N. Conference on Disarmament, based in Geneva, has the primary responsibility to negotiate agreements on preventing an arms race in outer space.

The 65-nation body has achieved few results and has largely devolved into a venue for countries to voice criticism of others’ weapons programs or defend their own. The draft resolution would have urged the conference “to adopt and implement a balanced and comprehensive program of work.”

At the March council meeting where the U.S.-Japan initiative was launched, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned that “geopolitical tensions and mistrust have escalated the risk of nuclear warfare to its highest point in decades.”

He said the movie “Oppenheimer” about Robert Oppenheimer, who directed the U.S. project during World War II that developed the atomic bomb, “brought the harsh reality of nuclear doomsday to vivid life for millions around the world.”

“Humanity cannot survive a sequel to Oppenheimer,” the U.N. chief said.

United States Ambassador and Representative to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield addresses members of the U.N. Security Council before voting during a meeting on Non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, Wednesday, April 24, 2024 at United Nations headquarters. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)

FILE - U.S. Ambassador to United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield speaks on Thursday, April 18, 2024, in Tokyo. The U.N. Security Council is set to vote Wednesday, April 24, 2024, on a resolution announced by Thomas-Greenfield, calling on all nations to prevent a dangerous nuclear arms race in outer space. It is likely to be vetoed by Russia. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, Pool, File)