Tom Hanks

LONDON >> You won’t see Tom Hanks on one of those space tourism flights that whisk celebrities and millionaires on a suborbital jaunt for a few hours. He says it wouldn’t be enough time out of this world.

Going to the moon is another matter — and the subject of “The Moonwalkers,” an immersive documentary co-written and narrated by Hanks.

The two-time Academy Award-winning actor is a lifelong space buff, and he has channeled his passion into “The Moonwalkers,” which opens Wednesday at the Lightroom, a London venue specializing in interactive art and film experiences.

“The Moonwalkers,” which runs to April 21, 2024, is subtitled “a journey with Tom Hanks.” The actor narrates in his warm, avuncular style and co-wrote the script with British documentary filmmaker Christopher Riley.

The space race is presented as a deeply humanist endeavor that represents humanity’s unquenchable curiosity and desire to do things — as President John F. Kennedy said of the moonshot — “not because they are easy but because they are hard.”

Hanks, 67, has been enthralled by lunar exploration since he was a kid trying to simulate zero gravity by sitting at the bottom of a backyard swimming pool. His performance as Jim Lovell, commander of a space mission in jeopardy, in “Apollo 13” helped revive popular interest in the Apollo program in the 1990s.

Hanks said the first time he was entranced by space was as a 12-year-old in 1968, seeing an image on his TV of the Earth beamed live from the Apollo 8 spacecraft orbiting the moon.

“The Moonwalkers” includes interviews with the four astronauts due to join the Artemis II mission, humanity’s first foray moonward in half a century.

Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen are due to fly NASA’s Orion capsule on the first crewed Artemis mission, launching from Kennedy Space Center no earlier than late 2024. They will not land, but will fly around the moon and head back to Earth, a prelude to a lunar landing by two others a year later.

— The Associated Press