from WIKIPEDIA: Destination Moon is a 1950 American science fiction feature film produced by George Pál, who later produced When Worlds Collide, The War of the Worlds, and The Time Machine. Pál commissioned the script by James O'Hanlon and Rip Van Ronkel. The film was directed by Irving Pichel, was shot in Technicolor and was distributed in the USA by Eagle-Lion Classics.
Four American astronauts blast off from the New Mexico desert and fly to the Moon. They land after difficulties that cause more fuel to be used than anticipated. Consequently, the crew must race against time to lighten the ship for a successful return to Earth.
The film features the premise that US private industry will finance and manufacture the first spacecraft to reach the moon, given the Soviet threat at the time, and then the US government will bring itself to buy or lease the technology. Visionary industrialists are shown cooperating to support the venture.
Destination Moon was the first major science-fiction film dealing seriously with the prospect, problems and technology of space travel produced in the United States, and won the Academy Award for Visual Effects in the name of the effects director, (Lee Zavitz). The film was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Art Direction (Ernst Fegte, George Sawley)[1]. The eminent science-fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein contributed significantly to the script and served as a technical advisor. Heinlein also published, about the same time as the release of the film, "Destination Moon." a novella of the same name that was based on the screenplay.
