ONE GIANT STEP FOR HANKS; OSCAR-WINNING ACTOR'S HBO PROJECT GOES FAR BEYOND WISHING ON A STAR.

Byline: Keith Marder Daily News Television Writer

Since Tom Hanks was a kid, the names Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were as familiar to him as Chip and Ernie on ``My Three Sons.''

``I was inspired not by the fact that they were Americans or that they were throttle-jockey test pilots or that they even had cool cars,'' Hanks said. ``I was always dazzled by the idea that frail human beings of flesh and bone and sinew could go off in these vacuum-packed little spacecrafts and travel half a million miles.''

If you haven't heard, Hanks grew up to choose acting instead of space exploration.

But, like most powerful people, he found a way to make his childhood dream come true. Hanks wanted to go to the moon, so he built one.

Three years ago, he signed on with HBO to executive produce a 12-part nonfiction miniseries that combines his fascination with his vocation: ``From the Earth to the Moon.''

The project, which will be shown during six consecutive Sundays from April 5 to May 10, ended up costing a whopping $65 million, television's most expensive project yet.

The premium movie channel, which doesn't sell commercials to offset the costs, hopes this will draw additional subscribers.

One look at the 38,000-square-foot replica of the moon's surface in the cavernous blimp hangar at the Tustin Marine Corps Air Station and you see why this is fast becoming the biggest deal to hit cable.

It took six weeks, 3,500 tons of earth and 1,925 tons of crushed granite to make the fictional moon - just one of the series' more than 100 filming locations - look like the real McCoy.

The finished product brought Hanks as close as he's ever been to walking on the moon.

``I get from this (talking about the moon) the same feeling you'd get from visiting the pyramids in Egypt or seeing the big heads on Easter Island or viewing the Sistine Chapel,'' said Hanks, who played astronaut Jim Lovell in Ron Howard's ``Apollo 13.'' ``How do they do this? But more importantly, why did they do it? You can learn the nuts and bolts by studying science, but why they did it and what they got out of it are the great mysteries.''

Acting may be his career, but there's no question the moon is Hanks' passion.

Since the days he watched with awe the Apollo missions to the moon, he has considered those journeys the best stories of all time. It's that same sense of wonder and amazement that he's hoping to convey in ``From the Earth to the Moon.''

The miniseries takes viewers on an up-close ride with the people involved with the 12 manned Apollo missions launched beginning in 1961 - from the astronauts' home lives to zero gravity and beyond.

Hanks didn't want to have stereotypes such as the heroic nurse or the alcoholic mission control worker who messes up a mission. He wanted to tell real stories about real people.

To help maintain realism, Col. Dave Scott, who flew on Gemini 8 and commanded the Apollo 9 and the Apollo 15 missions, was a consultant on the miniseries, and Andy Chaikin's book, ``A Man to the Moon,'' was used.

Not that Hanks likely needed that much help. At the Television Critics' Winter Press Tour in Pasadena on Monday evening, Hanks fired off his encyclopedic knowledge about the U.S. space program to make his point: He wants viewers of his project to come away saying, ``I didn't know that.''

Did you know, for instance, that Apollo 12 was hit by lightning 30 seconds after it took off? Or, that when astronauts returned from the moon, they were so dirty that they had to come back from the lunar module naked?

Hanks knew.

``He knows the difference from a lunar module to a command module to a lunar rover,'' Brian Welch, NASA news chief, said in a telephone interview from his Washington office. ``He knows the terminology. He knows which mission came before which.''

Even astronaut Scott's memory was challenged by Hanks' probing questions during research for the movie project.

``He has more knowledge now than when he was flying,'' Hugh Harris, NASA director of public affairs said of Scott. ``We learned a lot from going back into the archives.''

Accuracy was paramount to Hanks, who wasn't looking to produce a science-fiction thriller.

Surplus NASA desks were bought to authenticate Mission Control. Hanks also found ``The White Room,'' where astronauts wait before entering a craft, rusting away outside of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It was cleaned, used in Hanks' movies and is now destined for the Smithsonian.

The people at NASA are delighted that Hanks' curiosity is translating into a promotional blitz they could not have begun themselves. Public awareness heightened after the movie ``Apollo 13'' came out, and Harris expects another bump from the HBO event.

Hanks' portrayal of the human drama of space exploration is helping to justify the $13 billion NASA budget to the American public.

Respect between Hanks and NASA is mutual. They also have shared purposes.

``NASA has to promote itself, and it has to explain to the media and the public what it's doing,'' Scott said. ``And I think, unfortunately, NASA has not done a very good job of that over the years. You really need the entertainment industry to help you explain to the public what's going on. So I think, maybe, NASA can get some pointers from this and help promote the program by explaining what's going on and maybe dramatize it more.''

Scott, who applauds Sen. John Glenn's (R-Ohio) desire to return to space, welcomes the idea of opening the missions to nonastronauts.

``I think the next person in line ought to be Mr. Tom Hanks,'' Scott said.

Hanks, who had first joked that his wife, actress Rita Wilson, wouldn't let him go, later admitted that he'd strap on the gear and take the trip.

``I'd do it in a minute,'' he said, ``but they don't need to spend $200 million to send a wisenheimer to space so he can tell better stories on Letterman.''

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2 Photos

Photo: (1--Cover--Color - Photo Illustration) TO THE MOON

Tom Hanks accomplishes childhood mission with his latest movie project

Cover design by Cesar Quebral

(2) Tom Hanks: ``I was always dazzled by the idea that frail human beings of flesh and bone and sinew could go off in these vacuum-packed little spacecrafts and travel half a million miles.''