I still don't think we're there. The original statement was something to the effect that 'most all' astronauts that walked on the Moon 'turned to religion.' All the evidence I see is that one did and one was already religious to begin with. Citing those two or three astronauts does not prove the original claim. It's not even close. Then we're told well, they had 'profound experiences' including the Russians, who never went to the Moon. Well, I can see that. I imagine floating up there would be a profound experience, but that does not equate to 'turning to religion.'
If you've read and/or seen 'The Right Stuff' by Tom Wolfe you'll know the astronauts--all of them--were placed in a pretty nasty position with regards to PR and the program. There's a scene at the first press conference for the 7 original astronauts where they are asked if they attend church. Gordo lies his ass off and claims he attends church regularly. They all were more or less forced to express religious faith because that's what the public wanted to hear. Not that some of them weren't religious, but these guys were mostly engineering graduates in the military and worked as test pilots--not your average emotionally religious person. But as the New American Heroes they were expected to express the core values of Americana.
Now, when these guys got back to earth, what did the press say? "Was your experience profound?" Really, listen to them and you see that they are being fed the answers. Given that the taxpayers just spent several billlion dollars to get you to the Moon and back for the experience of a lifetime, how could you NOT say your experience was profound? NASA is listening to every word you say and you'd better get it right. If you said, 'Yeah, it was cool, but the toilets in space are the pits so I'm gald to be home' you would never fly again. When Buzz Aldrin got back to earth all he wanted was to dump the regulation military underwear (which is truly terrible. I've worn it.) and get a pair of briefs from his wife. When James Lovell returned to earth he had been heard to say 'God damn it!' when everything on Apollo 13 was going to hell in a handbasket, and some minister made a big issue of it and NASA forced Lovell to publicly apologize for using foul language and taking God's name in vain. The movie kind of hints at this when he says, 'Are we on Vox?' but it doesn't go into detail of what the issue was about. This is the kind of pressure astronauts are under to express themselves properly and to pretend to be good Christians.
Now, in my opinion Mitchell's 'epiphany' is kind of lame. He says he suddenly realized that he was made of star stuff. Indeed, the molecules that make up our bodies were 'manufactured' inside stars. But this has been well known for decades. Carl Sagan spewed this stuff in 'Cosmos' and was equally 'amazed.' I don't think it is particularly amazing myself. You can get the same feeling of 'oneness with the universe' by dropping acid. Don't worry; it wears off. Mitchell had to have known this before he went up. he didn't 'suddenly realize,' he just remembered.
You know what the first astronaut prayer was? "Dear Lord, please don't let me fuck up." -- Alan Shepard on board the capsule on the launch pad.
