Little Major Tom: Into the Unknown

Some stories are made for the dome. Der kleine Major Tom, the German children’s book series co-created by musician Peter Schilling — of “Major Tom (Coming Home)” fame — was one of them. Schilling brought the idea to Softmachine’s Dr. Peter Popp, and together we built Little Major Tom: Into the Unknown, a 27-minute space adventure designed exclusively for fulldome theaters.

Set in the near future, the film follows teen astronauts Tom and Stella as they train at Space Base 1. Stella’s fearless. Tom isn’t — especially about his first spacewalk. When a massive hurricane threatens Earth, that fear has to take a back seat to a mission only they can complete.

Adapting 2D book illustrations into a fully dimensional fulldome world meant close collaboration with the series’ original illustrator, Stefan Lohr, to keep Tom and Stella true to the characters readers already loved — just built for 360°. The film premiered on 27 April 2023 at Experimenta in Heilbronn, with a live performance from Peter Schilling and his band, and screened simultaneously at planetariums and dome theaters around the world that same day.

It’s since picked up Best Children’s Film 2024 at Dome Fest West and a nomination for Best of Earth 2025.

Why it matters for you: This is what it looks like when we take an existing property — a book, a brand, a piece of IP — and translate it faithfully into immersive format without losing what made people love it in the first place.