Works · No. 01

A six-minute film for NASA leadership on building a south pole Moon base

Film · 2026 · 6:17

A six-minute film that starts with Apollo 11 and Artemis II, shows a Moon base at the lunar south pole built in three phases, and sets out the choices NASA would face.

The film opens with NASA footage of Apollo 11 and Artemis II and the JPL Mars Yard. It then shows a Moon base at the lunar south pole, built in Unreal Engine, in three phases. Each phase is labeled with the Moon to Mars objectives it supports.

The middle section uses scenes from the longer Across the Moon film: Shackleton Base Alpha, its nuclear reactor, science camps at Hadley, Aristarchus, Orientale, and Bhabha, relay satellites for the far side, and a Space Academy for crews.

The last section shows how high-performance computing could test many versions of the base design before NASA chooses one. It closes with John F. Kennedy's 1962 Rice University speech and Jared Isaacman's opening remarks at the 41st Space Symposium in 2026. Three-wall and six-wall IGLOO versions are being made from the same edit.

Year
2026
Medium
Film
Length
6:17
Audience
NASA leadership
Editions
4K film; three-wall and six-wall immersive room editions in production
Sources
NASA and JFK Library public-domain film and audio; Jared Isaacman audio from my recording of the Space Symposium 41 opening; recorded narration
Production
Unreal Engine renders and AI-generated stills and video, edited in DaVinci Resolve

Stills

6 images · select to enlarge
Shackleton Base Alpha under a low Sun at the lunar south pole The surface fission reactor deployed at its site A crew lander on the landing pad Crew transferring sample cases to the archive Solar arrays along the crater rim power line The reactor arriving on a cargo lander