Fra Mauro

I only did four movie pitches on my last post so here is the fifth, Fra Mauro

I would otherwise called the movie Apollo 13 but that title's taken.

This movie is about if Apollo 13 had no problems and landed on the Moon and returned safely. Boring alternate history, huh?

Let me back up. The market for outer space has two sectors: space for Earth and space for space, in turn a  mix of public and private ventures, The space for Earth market is doing quite well, but space for space? Not so much. (excluding public space for space market: scientific exploration). No one is enthused about living in space for good. Can you blame them? Space is for robots, cyborgs and peasants (expendable deplorables). Enthusiasm for the space for space market has always been low, which is why we did not go to Mars in the 1970s and today complain about billionaires.

There seems to be no carrot or stick that would shift the earthbound to live in space. Except maybe aliens. Aliens as adversaries to unite us? Forget it. If they can travel quadrillions of miles or between realities, I'm pretty sure they can make us all disappear with a magic word. Aliens as promise? In the form of enhanced technology that makes it worth our while to venture into space, perhaps. It really boils down to creature comforts.

There are plenty of space fans today willing to die in space instead of plodding on earth. I'm one. But if it a slave job, and of course it will be, I will not go. I'd just assume we colonize the Solar System with fission-powered robots. So, there better be creature comforts beyond the canned ape subsistence level astronauts enjoy now. Pooping in a baggie in zero G for the rest of life is not an option,

Okay back to the Apollo 13 mission. Apollo 14  took up 13's mission and landed in the Far Mauro region Apollo 14 astronauts Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell were to sample ejecta from ther Cone crater, which they did. However due to confusing topography they never reached the rim of the crater. Had they done so, they would have discovered the alien base.

So, instead, in my movie, Apollo astronauts, Jim Lovell and Fred Haise make it to the rim of the Cone crater and discover the alien base. It's not like they bonk hit a hatch by accident with a shovel. Once Lovell mounts the rim, what looks like a tumble of rocks is suddenly an obvious artificial structure poking out of the regolith. 

He says "Houston, I think we might have a problem".

Earthside, the TVs all go to commercials, followed by no more live Moon feed for the day.

(Where should this movie go? Well, for sure, NASA would put its Big Giant Head to work on artificial alien moon base protocols. Evil aliens? Too obvious but benign evil or boring benign, ET... no this has to have a promise to get folks out into space and that is miracle products looted from alien moon bases. Once they identified the Fra Mauro alien moon base, all the other moon bases started radio peeping at them like babies in a nest. But that's in the sequel).

Lovell and Haise are ordered to document!  Lovell wants to go check it out. NO says everyone. They are ordered leave their cart and go back to the LEM. 

Houston tells them to get some sleep if they can while they make new plans. Geologists peering at the pictures, suggest the structure is a billion years old. Before multi-cellular life on Earth. Alien. 

Eight hours later Houston tells Lovell and Haise to go back and recon. They suit up and trudge their footstep path to the crater, and find the structure has morphed to create an entrance for them right at the end of their bootprints from hours ago.

There is an argument whether to go in or not, but you know Jim Lovell is going to accept the invitation.

(Again where to go? Pull a Men in the Moon story? I think not. 2001? The most logical, but no. We want dialog. My solution is Willy Wonka. Jim and Fred are shown the miracles of the moon base but then are told they have to test to get in).

Jim and Fred are greeted by an attractive and naked man and woman, who invite them to take off their helmets. They do, and don't die, and the naked alien lady says "Hi. I'm Fran and this is Carl"

Jim and Fred get a moon base adventure. At the end of the ride, Fran tells them there is a test to get a miracle moon base membership. The adventure was the test and they both failed. This meant they have to go home.

"But we welcome others to take the test". And that starts the mad dash to get to the Moon.