Episode Information

Steve Pyke has published books of portraits of World War I survivors, philosophers, and poets. This film follows his journey to create the art for a new book, ‘Astronauts’, which he envisages as an extensive series of photographs of the pioneers of manned space exploration, a subject which had inspired him as a boy growing up in 1960s Britain. Pyke planned a journey across America, to meet and photograph the Apollo space pioneers. These are the adventurers, risk takers and dreamers who were behind one of the most historic endeavours of our time. From living rooms and moonscape deserts, to Cape Canaveral, he captures the men in frank, revealing portraits, while unravelling their very personal and divergent memories. With rare archive footage and an original score by Matt Johnson, Moonbug is both a photographic road trip and an exploration of how photographs become signposts for history.