The Magic Of The Moon

A new film is trying to recapture America's greatest space triumph. CBS News correspondent Jim Axelrod reports that for NASA, it couldn't come at a better time.

It's been awhile since astronauts were the most glamorous guys going.

"We were at one point," says Rusty Schweickart, who flew on Apollo 9.

"What happened?" asks Axelrod.

"We got to the moon," says Schweickart.

But a new IMAX movie from Tom Hanks — "Magnificent Desolation" — is seeking to reacquaint us all with the wonder.

"Once humankind has been some place and found it entrancing, they always go back," says Hanks, the film's producer. "I think in the history of the human race, the moon has been the first place we've gone to and said, 'OK, we don't need to go back there again.'"

Hanks has taken original Apollo pictures and married them to new 3-D footage to give to millions what only 12 actually had: the feel of walking on the moon.

Walter Cunningham flew an Apollo mission, but never stepped foot on the moon.

"It really made me feel bad that I didn't get there. That's how good it is," says Cunningham who flew on Apollo 7. "And I haven't had those pangs of envy now for a long time."

The movie's timing couldn't be any better with NASA now spelling out plans to go back to the moon by 2018. But it's not rocket science to know the quickest way to derail a dream is to put a price tag on it.

"Returning to the moon is an important step for our space program," President Bush said in January 2004.

No matter how widely the dreams are shared — the parades of yesteryear when Tang ran through an entire culture's veins and Walter Cronkite spoke for everyone — they will run smack into big-budget items like rebuilding an entire region of the country.

Which one wins the day is more than just a matter of reigniting passion on an IMAX screen.

"And it is meant to make people think, 'How in the world did we do that? And isn't it a marvelous thing that we did,'" says Hanks.

"And maybe we should do it again?" Axelrod asks.

"Well," Hanks says, "the question would be why?"

For more than 40 years now, it's been answered the same way by space lovers.

"It's our destiny to explore," says Eugene Cernan, who flew on Apollo 10 and 17. "It's our destiny to be a space-faring nation."

An idea -- presented again now -- by one more dreamer hoping to keep the last frontier from becoming the lost frontier.