Tag Archives: mission

Becoming Deluded

“I was the 5th interstellar man
No ticker tape
Just space dust” – Becoming Deluded

The new video for ‘Becoming Deluded’ (the final song on the album Plain) features footage from the various Apollo space missions. The video is directly inspired by the documentary In the Shadow of the Moon (2007), particularly the comments of Jim Lovell, commander of the ill-fated Apollo 13. Lovell noted that during the early part of the mission – i.e. before the oxygen tank exploded – there was relatively little media interest. The American public had become used to successful lunar missions and it was difficult to get television networks to take the live feed from mission control.

A fall off in interest in the space program is best illustrated by the fact that everyone knows Armstrong and Aldrin – the first two men to walk on the moon 45 years ago – but few can name the ten other guys who did the same thing between 1969-72.

The lack of public interest gave the astronauts of Apollo 14-17 a curious anonymity, even during the actual missions. This sense of anonymity, combined with the rather prosaic nature of their tasks (lots and lots of rock collecting) gives the lunar footage a noticeably mundane quality. Despite their extraordinary location, the astronauts look like normal guys putting in a shift – albeit on the surface of the moon.