Two denizens of this rough-and-tumble lunar society are the notorious millionaire J.J. Hubbard and former-astronaut-turned-satellite-salvager Bill Kemp, the first man to set foot on Mars.

A young woman named Clementine arrives looking for her brother, a miner/prospector, working a distant patch of moonscape at Spectacle Crater on the lunar farside.

He also strands Hubbard and his remaining man on the large sapphire, just before the attached retro-rockets fire, sending it hurtling toward the lunar surface.

With Clementine being her brother's next of kin, she now has legal ownership of the nickel vein and the nearby "crashed" sapphire asteroid, making her a very wealthy woman.

[4] Katharine Whitehorn wrote: "It was about — or supposed to be about — space travel when it had got to the beat-up-old-Dakota stage of grubby reality.… The people who made it were dazzled by Kubrick’s 2001 and couldn’t resist trying to make it glossy and improbably perfect, the exact opposite of what the authors intended: all the gritty realism was gone.

[12] Ori Levy described wearing the moonsuits as "sheer hell", receiving blisters from chafing and back problems from the air conditioner installed to keep him cool.

[13] Catherine Schell lost 13 pounds from wearing the suit, causing her to be put on a diet of malted milk and chocolate to maintain her weight.

A dialogue reference to Neil Armstrong becoming the first man on the Moon was inserted, and a lunar monument erected on the landing site was added to the production.

In a 1992 interview with Starlog, Roy Ward Baker was negative towards the film, lamenting its budget for hindering plot possibilities and what he saw as the miscasting of James Olson in the lead role.

It may provide some mild amusement for easygoing audiences but overall it's a fairly dull experience, despite some capable artwork, special effects and lensing by Paul Bessen".

... Catherina von Schell looks winsome enough, Warren Mitchell leers prettily and Bernard Bresslaw is conventionally moronic as the Moon magnate's gunslinger-in-chief.

It's all just about bad enough to fill older audiences with nostalgia for the inspired innocence of Flash Gordon, or even the good old days of Abbott and Costello in outer space.

"[21] Moon Zero Two became a Warner Bros. shared DVD disc release in 2008, along with Hammer Films' 1970 prehistoric adventure When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth.