© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2014, Office 415, The Workstation, 15 Paternoster Row, Sheffield, S1 2BX [IR 17.4 (2014) 459–479] Implicit Religion (print) ISSN 1463-9955 doi:10.1558/imre.v17i4.459 Implicit Religion (online) ISSN 1743-1697 he Greatest Adventure Awaiting Humankind: Destination Moon and Faith in the Future Catherine L. Newell University of Miami clnewell@miami.edu Abstract In 1946, Hollywood director and producer George Pal read an article in Life magazine titled “Trip to the Moon by Rocket,” and decided his next ilm would be what he called a science fact (as opposed to iction) “documentary of the near future.” he result was Destination Moon (1950), a science iction clas- sic, credited with introducing the concept of space travel to post-war America. he ilm makes reaching space an exercise in overcoming the unheimlich and unfamiliar, and negotiates the boundary between the known and the other. Pal hired Robert A. Heinlein to adapt his novel, Rocket Ship Galileo, for the ilm; the original story played into contemporary fears about Communism and a resurgence of Nazi power. But rather than make a ilm that resonated with social and political concerns, Pal—a Hungarian-born Jew, who led Germany in 1934—chose to make a ilm that was about faith in technology, faith in the future, and used science iction to illustrate his belief that the space age was go- ing to be “he Beginning” of a new future for humanity. Part of the success of Destination Moon is that it tapped into a larger religious feeling in America at the time of its premier: one divorced from institutional religions, and which sociologist Will Herberg called America’s “faith in faith.” he ilm’s themes of dis- covery, sacriice, triumph over circumstance, and the necessity of technology, are representative of Americans’ belief in a collective ability to overcome evil, and of a newfound faith in their destiny to conquer the “inal frontier.” Keywords science iction, faith, space, inal frontier, conquest, future In 1946, Hollywood director and producer George Pal read an article in Life magazine entitled “Trip to the Moon by Rocket” and knew exactly