The Space Movie is a documentary film produced in 1979 by Tony Palmer

Tony Palmer

Tony Palmer is an American football guard in the National Football League who is currently a free agent. The former University of Missouri guard who was selected by the St. Louis Rams. He was signed by the Green Bay Packers after being cut in the 2006 preseason by St. Louis...

 at the request of NASA

NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

, to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Apollo 11

Apollo 11

In early 1969, Bill Anders accepted a job with the National Space Council effective in August 1969 and announced his retirement as an astronaut. At that point Ken Mattingly was moved from the support crew into parallel training with Anders as backup Command Module Pilot in case Apollo 11 was...

moon landing

Moon landing

A moon landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. This includes both manned and unmanned missions. The first human-made object to reach the surface of the Moon was the Soviet Union's Luna 2 mission on 13 September 1959. The United States's Apollo 11 was the first manned...

.

The 78 minute film was released theatrically in 1980, on VHS

VHS

The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....

 in 1983 and on DVD

DVD

A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 in 2007. Richard Branson

Richard Branson

Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson is an English business magnate, best known for his Virgin Group of more than 400 companies....

 and Simon Draper's Virgin Films

Virgin Group

Virgin Group Limited is a British branded venture capital conglomerate organisation founded by business tycoon Richard Branson. The core business areas are travel, entertainment and lifestyle. Virgin Group's date of incorporation is listed as 1989 by Companies House, who class it as a holding...

 produced the film.

Soundtrack

The music for The Space Movie was produced by the English multi-instrumentalist Mike Oldfield

Mike Oldfield

Michael Gordon Oldfield is an English multi-instrumentalist musician and composer, working a style that blends progressive rock, folk, ethnic or world music, classical music, electronic music, New Age, and more recently, dance. His music is often elaborate and complex in nature...

. The film included pieces from Oldfield's released works, including Tubular Bells

Tubular Bells

Tubular Bells is the debut record album of English musician Mike Oldfield, released in 1973. It was the first album released by Virgin Records and an early cornerstone of the company's success...

and Hergest Ridge

Hergest Ridge (album)

Hergest Ridge is the second record album by Mike Oldfield, released in 1974 on Virgin Records.Oldfield was not comfortable with the public attention that had come from the success of Tubular Bells, and retreated to the English countryside to work on the follow-up...

, Ommadawn

Ommadawn

Ommadawn is the third record album by Mike Oldfield, released in 1975 on Virgin Records. The cover photograph was by David Bailey. It peaked at #4 on the UK Albums Chart. The album was reissued in June 2010 with additional content.- Album history :...

and "Portsmouth".

It also featured excerpts from what was Oldfield's then-new album, Incantations

Incantations (album)

Incantations is the fourth record album by Mike Oldfield, released in late 1978 on Virgin Records.The first Oldfield to be divided into more than two movements, it is the second longest work Oldfield has ever released...

. The film also made use of the orchestral arrangements of Oldfield's first two albums, The Orchestral Tubular Bells

The Orchestral Tubular Bells

The Orchestral Tubular Bells is an orchestral version of Mike Oldfield's album Tubular Bells, arranged by David Bedford and recorded in 1974 by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, featuring Oldfield himself playing the guitar. In 2000 it was reissued by Virgin as a HDCD.Excerpts from the album were...

and notably The Orchestral Hergest Ridge, which has never been released. The Space Movie soundtrack was also intended to be released as an album.

A short version of The Space Movie is available on the Elements - The Best of Mike Oldfield video.