I've seen a press screening of the new David Sington film, “In the Shadow of the Moon.” I couldn’t help feeling the title should be, “Still in the Shadow of the Moon.”

It’s good that, more than 38 years after the first moon landing, many of the men who walked on the moon or flew around it are still with us to tell their stories. (I touched on this topic a decade ago in my picture book, Grandpa Takes Me to the Moon.)

It’s sad that after all these years, the moon is the still the farthest humans have gone.

And it’s troubling that, with a new fleet of spaceships being designed for a return to the moon, nobody is talking about it. This film doesn't even touch the topic.

About the film: It’s another documentary about Project Apollo. Its strongest feature is that tells its story in the astronauts’ own words, often with their faces filling the screen as they talk or reflect. While it boasts some dramatic documentary footage found in NASA’s archives, to me the most arresting scenes are those of the astronauts’ eyes as they tell of things that only their eyes have seen.

The participating astronauts include Jim Lovell (Apollo 8 and 13), Dave Scott (Apollo 9 and 15), John Young (Apollo 10 and 16), Gene Cernan (Apollo 10 and 17), Mike Collins (Apollo 11), Buzz Aldrin (Apollo 11), Alan Bean (Apollo 12), Edgar Mitchell (Apollo 14), Charlie Duke (Apollo 16), and Harrison Schmitt (Apollo 17). As you might expect, the publicity-shy Neil Armstrong didn't join them, but the others discussed his role as Apollo 11 commander and his dramatic job of guiding the lunar lander to a safe touchdown with seconds of fuel remaining.

I was disappointed the film didn’t at least mention the new moon program, if only to explore the vast difference in public sentiment between then and now. Then, as the astronauts recall, the whole world watched as they landed and walked on the moon. But after just two moon landings, President Nixon cancelled the final three missions. Apollo 17 reaped a tremendous scientific harvest, but it marked the end of the moon program. With the space shuttle and the International Space Station, NASA's manned spaceflight program has been stuck in a low-orbit rut ever since.

In 2004, President Bush announced his "Vision for Space Exploration" — a plan to finish the space station, retire the space shuttle, and build a new fleet of spaceships to get us back into deep space, with a lunar outpost and eventual flights to Mars. But, when was the last time you heard anybody talk about the Constellation Program? Outside of space interest groups, I never hear anyone mention it. I doubt if many people here in Ohio realize NASA's Glenn Research Center has a piece of it.

If the goal is to go to Mars, why don’t we go to Mars? Moon-first supporters say the moon will be a technological and logistical stepping-stone to the Red Planet — and politically more achievable because it can be done sooner and for less money. Another camp views the moon as a detour from what should be the next step in exploration — Mars.

I'm not sure either program will light a fire under the public. After the second moon landing, people quickly grew bored with Apollo. Mars is expensive, and it will be hard to sustain support for such a long-term program through several presidential and congressional terms. An alternative might be human missions to asteroids, to learn more about the hurtling rocks that wiped out the dinosaurs and pose a potential threat to civiliazation. An asteroid rendezvous mission could be done without the massive additional hardware that would be needed for a Mars surface expedition.

But it would, at last, get us out of the shadow of the moon.