Sandbox:Apollo spacecraft
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The Apollo spacecraft was a series of single-use ships used by the American Apollo program to land NASA astronauts on the Moon from 1969 to 1972. Each ship was comprised of two parts: a command and service module to bring the crew to the Moon and back and an Apollo Lunar Module to perform the landing. Every launch of an Apollo spacecraft into space was performed by the Saturn rocket family, with the Saturn V used for every Moon landing mission. Apollo spacecrafts are referenced in several pieces of kaiju media, including the Godzilla and Gamera films released in 1969. In the 2023 series GAMERA -Rebirth-, the Apollo program continued into 1989, leading to the establishment of a Moon base which becomes a major plot point.
History
- Gamera vs. Guiron (1969) [photos and mentions]
- All Monsters Attack (1969) [mentioned]
- Kong: Skull Island (2017) [stock footage]
- GAMERA -Rebirth- (TV 2023) [episode 1]
Showa era
Gamera vs. Guiron
Astronomical observatories around the world recorded strange electric waves emanating from outer space. At a press conference, Dr. Shiga explained that despite the apparent closeness of the waves' source, no planet or moon in the solar system besides Earth could support life. If the waves came from Proxima Centauri, the closest sun to our own, however, it would take an Apollo spacecraft 500,000 years to reach it.
The waves' true origin was Terra, a planet constantly on the opposite side of the Sun from Earth, which soon dispatched a UFO to Japan. Akio and Tom, two boys obsessed with astronomy and the Apollo program, watched it land and set out to find it the next day. When they boarded it, the craft abruptly took off. After it left Earth's atmosphere, Gamera arrived to rescue it from an asteroid, then raced it. Akio observed that Gamera must be flying at speeds comparable to Apollo 8, which reached Mach 33.
Back on Earth, Tomoko tried to convince Tom's mother Elza of what she had seen. Elza replied, "But the Apollo astronauts said Earth is the only oasis in space. There are no living things elsewhere."
All Monsters Attack
Toymaker Shinpei Minami showed his young neighbor Ichiro Miki a Kiddy Computer. Once he pressed a button, it displayed an image of a Moon base while saying, "Apollo 11 has landed on the Moon. Don't you want to visit there too?" Ichiro replied that he would rather visit Monster Island.
Monsterverse
Kong: Skull Island
Archival footage from the Apollo missions, including at least one Moon landing with the Apollo Lunar Module, appeared in the film's opening credits. An excerpt from a famous 1962 speech by President John F. Kennedy, in which he advocated for putting a man on the Moon by the end of the decade, was also featured. In 1973, Hank Marlow was surprised to learn from Victor Nieves that the U.S. had landed on the Moon during his time marooned on Skull Island, then wondered if the man in question was still there and what he could be eating.
Reiwa era
GAMERA -Rebirth-
"Above Tokyo"
In the summer of 1989, friends Boco, Junichi, and Joe glimpsed footage of an Apollo craft docking with a massive space station on a television in an electronics store window. Boco professed his love for the Apollo program, but Junichi believed it was a military conspiracy. As they biked towards their secret base, she explained that it didn't make sense for the program to have pivoted to extracting resources from the Moon 20 years ago, since even greater resources would be expended returning anything to Earth. Boco sarcastically responded that she must think Halley's Comet and the Yoshinogari site are hoaxes too; missing his tone, she flatly replied that both were real. Despite Junichi's suspicions, a model of a Saturn V rocket hung from the ceiling of their secret base.
Capabilities
To be added.
Comics
- Monarch: The Lost Adventures (2026) ["Keiko and the Brambleboar", allusion]
"Keiko and the Brambleboar"
An image of an Apollo 11 astronaut next to an American flag on the Moon is shown during a montage of major historical events that took place while Keiko Randa was in Axis Mundi.
Gallery
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Akio's collage of space images in Gamera vs. Guiron, including an illustration of the Apollo Lunar Module separating from the command and service module and a photo of the Apollo 1 crew
Trivia
- A briefly-glimpsed newspaper article about Apollo 9 reaching orbit places the events of Gamera vs. Guiron (1969) in 1969 or later.
- Despite talking about Apollo 11, the Kiddy Computer in All Monsters Attack (1969) displays an image of the UNSC Moon Base from Destroy All Monsters (1968).
- The Apollo 8 command module was part of the space exhibit at Expo '70's U.S. pavilion, which also included a Moon rock brought back from Apollo 12 that became one of the expo's top attractions.[1] The pavilion's exterior appears in Gamera vs. Jiger (1970).
- In the 2012 comic book Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters #12, SpaceGodzilla lands near one of the American flags planted during the Apollo missions to gaze at Earth maliciously.
- Operation Hourglass, Monarch's 1962 crewed expedition into Axis Mundi in the Monarch: Legacy of Monsters episode "Axis Mundi," parallels the Apollo program. Monarch commanding officer General Puckett makes repeated comparisons to the Space Race, stating, "The Moon's a decade away. Two if we do it right. Operation Hourglass is the culmination of nearly two decades of Project Monarch's work," that if the U.S. doesn't reach Axis Mundi first "Comrade Khrushchev will," and "Kennedy can have outer space and all the big rocks floating in it. We're about to plant our flag in under space." Like Apollo 1 in 1967, three of Operation Hourglass's crew members were killed after a catastrophic failure, leading to its project's temporary suspension. Bill Randa later asks Puckett, "[The Department of Defense] really think[s] NASA's getting to space without losing some people?," foreshadowing the Apollo 1 disaster as well as numerous pilots killed during NASA test flights from 1964 to 1967.
- In a scene set in 1982 from the same episode, a TV plays footage of NASA's Space Shuttle Columbia launching on one of the missions of the Space Shuttle program, Apollo's successor.
References
This is a list of references for Apollo spacecraft. These citations are used to identify the reliable sources on which this article is based. These references appear inside articles in the form of superscript numbers, which look like this: [1]
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