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I remember my father, normally quiet and reserved, calling to me excitedly, “Judy, you’ve got to come see this!”
A teenager at the time, I replied with exasperation, “Da-ad! I’m on the phone!” It was July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong was walking on the moon, and I missed it. Fortunately, a quarter of a century later, there’s “For All Mankind” from Voyager. Those of us too young (or not yet born) in 1969 now have a second chance to experience the drama and excitement of that historic event.
“For All Mankind” is a 79-minute film culled from a warehouse of NASA footage and extensive interviews with many astronauts. The result is a seamlessly edited composite portrait of the Apollo missions, from blastoff to splashdown. The CD also features accounts of every manned mission from Apollo 1 to Apollo 17, and biographies of the astronauts. It includes numerous lunar maps, diagrams of spacecraft and equipment, and an animated illustration of a lunar voyage. There is also an interview with producer Al Reinert.
This 1989 film earned Reinert an Academy Award nomination for best documentary and the Grand Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. It features a haunting original soundtrack by Brian Eno.
At first I found the story confusing as I tried to figure out which Apollo mission was being documented and which astronauts were on the screen. Once I realized it was a composite portrait, I was easily drawn in to the adventure. Maybe the young or jaded would not be impressed (my 11-year-old was uninterested), but I’ve reached the age where Neil Armstrong’s “giant leap for mankind” brought shivers of excitement and pride.
The viewer has the choice of watching the film with accompanying text, or in a larger format without text. You can alternate between the two formats;
skip ahead or go back; pause; click on highlighted text for a short definition without interrupting the action; or temporarily exit the movie to learn more about a related topic, such as weightlessness. These features are useful and allow this title to qualify as “interactive multimedia.” However, my first choice would be to watch the documentary on a large television screen without interruption (Voyager does have laser disc versions). For the most part, I watched the film with accompanying text. It added to the experience to know, for example, which astronaut was speaking, and what Mission Control was saying.
The interview with filmmaker Reinert is interesting, but something you’d listen to only once. This audio interview is accompanied by over one hundred images from NASA archives. However, none of these photographs is identified.
It takes a little experimentation to move around in the program, but it is fairly intuitive. The cursor is in the shape of a rocket ship, but it is not always clear which areas of the screen are clickable. There is a useful menu bar at the top of the screen, but it is normally hidden, and only appears when you move the cursor to that region.
The graphics and sound are excellent. The video was sometimes a bit choppy on our 486, but ran smoothly on our Pentium. To get the most enjoyment from this title, you need a well-equipped machine (see System Requirements).
While this is a fine title, it will have a limited audience. Those seriously interested in the subject matter will want to have it in their CD library. “For All Mankind” would also be a good choice for schools and libraries, and should prove to be an excellent example of how multimedia software can be used to enhance and promote learning.
| Product: | For All Mankind |
| Company: | Voyager |
Windows:
486SX-25 or higher CPU; 640×480,
256-color display (accelerator recommended);
8 Mbytes RAM; MPC2-compatible CD-ROM drive
and 16-bit sound card with speakers or headphones;
Windows 3.1 or later; DOS 5.0 or later.
Macintosh:
Any color Macintosh
(25 MHz 68030 or faster processor recommended);
640×480+ display; System 7;
at least 8 Mbytes RAM installed (5500K free);
double-speed CD-ROM drive.
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Adult 
Gambling
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Deception
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