“Chasing the Moon” Screening and Discussion

Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library and Museum
Austin, TX

Friends members, join us for a sneak preview of a new PBS documentary, Chasing the Moon, which reimagines the race to the moon for a new generation. After the screening, filmmaker Robert Stone and Poppy Northcutt, the first woman engineer to work as part of NASA’s Mission Control, will join us for a discussion.

The film will premiere on PBS across three nights, beginning July 8. The timing is fitting as we mark the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11's launch and return in mid-July.

To RSVP

We are not currently accepting reservations. Friends members at the Individual and above level will receive an email invitation about four weeks in advance and may make a reservation at that time.

More about the film

Chasing the Moon, a film by Robert Stone, reimagines the race to the moon for a new generation, up-ending much of the conventional mythology surrounding the effort. The series recasts the Space Age as a fascinating stew of scientific innovation, political calculation, media spectacle, visionary impulses, and personal drama.

Chasing the Moon

Utilizing a visual feast of previously overlooked and lost archival material — much of which has never before been seen by the public — the film features a diverse cast of characters who played key roles in these historic events. Among those included are astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Frank Borman, and Bill Anders; Sergei Khrushchev, son of the former Soviet premier and a leading Soviet rocket engineer; Poppy Northcutt, a 25-year old “mathematics whiz” who gained worldwide attention as the first woman to serve in the all-male bastion of NASA’s Mission Control and who was instrumental in developing the computer program that allowed the Apollo missions to successfully navigate home from the moon; and Ed Dwight, the Air Force pilot selected by the Kennedy administration to train as America’s first black astronaut.