Fox Mason, the character represented by Russ 'Mitch' Mitchell, never got to see the moonwalk pictures live. He was too busy keeping the windswept dish pointed at the moon.
Although the Dish interiors were shot on a set, all scenes showing the actual Parkes Dish were shot on location. The facility was closed for 3 weeks to accommodate filming.
The set for the dish control room was extremely accurate. It even included some genuine NASA equipment that had been left behind because it was too bulky to ship back to the U.S. When the real dish staff visited the set, they said it was like stepping back in time.
This movie is actually based on a true story, the name of the real director of the Parkes antenna was Dr. John Bolton.
The film is set in the town of Parkes, in New South Wales, Australia, but was actually filmed in Forbes, which is a neighboring town a few miles down the road. The reason for the shift in location is because Parkes has changed over the last 30 years, but Forbes not as much. Forbes still looked like a 1960s town, as Parkes did 30 years before.