By Douglass M. Stewart, Jr.
Producer/Writer/Director
Making and showing Chesley Bonestell: A Brush With The Future has taken me to many places across the country, and I’ve met a lot of really great people. December 11, 2018 was no exception. It was "Finals Night" for a Space Architecture class at the University of Southern California. Conducting the evening was professor and renowned space authority, Madhu Thangavelu.
I had been invited by Madhu to help critique nine student presentations of a project called “ADAM: Advanced Development of Architectures for the Moon.” It was great to be back at USC. I graduated from there (many moons ago) with a degree in Cinematography. Joining me was Rocco Lardiere, a veteran rocket engineer who appears in my film. Rocco’s long career in aerospace made him a far more qualified judge of what was about to come.
There’s no doubt that we’re going back to the Moon in a big way. Madhu’s students were given the assignment of designing solutions to the challenges that lie ahead. Issues like safely storing fuel in space, assembling landers at the Space Station, turning lunar lava tubes into protective habitats, and growing food on the Moon were among the many interesting topics being presented. We didn’t get too far into these fascinating presentations when suddenly, a surprise guest appeared. Who better to provide perspectives on the subject of traveling to the Moon than someone who had been there himself? The unannounced guest of honor was Dr. Buzz Aldrin. As he took a seat at a desk with the rest of us in the audience, I could only imagine what it must be like to be a student, having worked months on a presentation, and now facing the review of Dr. Aldrin!
All of Madhu’s students were on the right track. Innovation, practicality, and keeping costs down were the keynote themes in their proposals to get us back to the Moon, and this time, to stay there. A number of presentations focused on generating financial return, such as using robots to mine the Moon or taking space tourists on the most expensive ride of their lifetimes.
During a break, Buzz, as everyone was now calling him, gave a short speech which led to his active participation in the discussions of all the presentations. It didn’t take long for him to bring everybody’s ideas back down to earth: “Who pays for it? You guys do...so you have to have something attractive,” Buzz cautioned.
It was difficult not to ignore the historical significance of the evening. Buzz represents an era of extraordinary pioneering accomplishments in space, and here were students using those accomplishments to repurpose the future. After all, wasn’t it just a few decades ago that the notion of humans living and working on the Moon was considered “science fiction,” something that might happen one day? Madhu and his students were given some real encouragement that night by the man who actually walked on the Moon nearly fifty years ago...
At the end of the evening, Rocco commented. "The students tonight were in the right place at the right time, both in terms of the work they are doing and in getting the priceless chance to rub elbows with a man who left his footprints on the Moon!"
Rocco and I were very grateful to Professor Thangavelu for the opportunity to attend this special class. Afterwards, we were able to talk to Buzz about Chesley Bonestell: A Brush With The Future. He knew about the film through correspondence he gets from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Arrangements are now being made for him to see the film. For me, this was indeed a night to remember!