Even as NASA continues planning its much-advertised journey to Mars, the space agency faces a problem that it didn’t have to contend with in the 1960s: selling that vision to a public wondering why we should bother. The push to reach the moon can be credited, in no small part, to the call to action of a charismatic, fallen president. The scientific and technological benefits of Apollo were almost an afterthought; the real mission to the moon was one of projecting America’s technological power (and, by extension, putting the Soviet Union on notice that this technological might could be used against them if they lashed out).
These days, presidents mention that it’d be nice to go to Mars, but we also have so many other priorities, so the funding for the stuff that might get us to Mars in the next 20 years could be cut out from under NASA at any time. Ironically, NASA is now the space agency that has to make agitprop films to push its vision. Journey To Space is one of numerous space PR films in the past decade, using the audiovisual playbook of Hollywood sci-fi to pitch real space exploration to the American public. Cody Westheimer’s music from Journey certainly sounds like it belongs to a sci-fi epic; some tracks have that great nautical questing feel that typified some of James Horner’s best work. Westheimer’s collaborator, Max Braverman, turns in a 
uniquely 80s-synthpop-styled cue, “Building A Spacesuit”, that’s a lot of fun.
It’s sad that the human adventure, once said by a purely fictional film’s marketing tagline, is just beginning, if only movies like Journey To Space can convince a skeptical and often uninformed public of the benefits. Just the soundtrack alone makes me feel like it’s time to suit up, strap in, and blast off.
- The Endless Horizon (1:43)
- To Mars and Beyond (0:47)
- Endeavor’s Final Journey (1:45)
- Inside the Shuttle (0:45)
- An Eye on the Cosmos (1:12)
- Docking with Mir (0:29)
- Space Science – music by Max Braverman (0:53)
- A Home Above – music by Max Braverman (0:44)
- ISS Construction (0:48)
- Grace of the Brave (1:41)
- Orion Training (1:05)
- Mars (1:08)
- Extended Weightlessness (2:23)
- A Spacegirl’s Dream (0:44)
- How to Build a Spacesuit – music by Max Braverman (1:36)
- Mars in My Backyard (1:39)
- Underwater Training (2:48)
- The Exploring Kind (4:00)
- Red Planet Arrival (2:24)
- Meet Me on Mars (1:18)
- The Unimagined (0:51)
- End Credits (1:41)
- Blue Danube (0:40)
Released by: Lakeshore Records
Release date: May 5, 2015
Total running time: 35:04