GBH Openvault
NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Theodore Sorensen, speechwriter and adviser to President John F. Kennedy
Part of To the Moon Interviews.
1998
Theodore Sorensen, speechwriter and adviser to President John F. Kennedy, is interviewed about the political element of the Apollo program. Sorensen describes the general impression that the Russians were very close to getting to the moon and talks about Kennedy's knowledge of and interest in the potential of space, and recounts Kennedy's inquiries into the research and development into a space program. Sorensen explains the pushback that Kennedy received from others worried about the space program's use of financial, material, and intellectual resources, and says that Kennedy responded by his theory that space was the new frontier. After Yuri Gagarin's flight, Kennedy called a big meeting that resulted in the creation of the space program, which Sorensen explains, and talks about Kennedy's speech announcing the intention to go to the moon. Sorensen describes the progression of the framing of Kennedy's speech to go to the moon and guesses that, if Kennedy were alive, he would be proud of his determination to take Americans to the moon. Sorensen ends by describing the differences in approaches to the Cold War between Russia and the US, and explains how space was a means of tempting neutral countries to a particular side. The footage ends with B-roll of Sorensen looking at a book on Kennedy, Sorensen's reading of a quote from the book, audio of room tone from an interview with John Houbolt, and wild sound from the exterior of a building at NASA.
License Clip
- Series
- NOVA
- Program
- To the Moon
- Program Number
2610
- Title
Interview with Theodore Sorensen, speechwriter and adviser to President John F. Kennedy
- Series Description
NOVA is a general-interest documentary series that addresses a single science issue each week. Billed as "science adventures for curious grown-ups" when it first aired in March, 1974, NOVA continues to offer an informative and entertaining approach to a challenging subject. It is also one of television's most acclaimed series, having won every major television award, most of them many times over.
- Program Description
Alan Binder, former Principal Investigator of NASA's Lunar Prospector mission, is interviewed about the Lunar Prospector. Binder says that if moon travel became viable again, he would want to go to the moon, but says that in order to get financial and public support for space exploration, scientists need to sell the science of the moon. Another option, according to Binder, is to make travel to the moon commercially viable, and lists many benefits of going to the moon, including using it as a fuel source, or colonizing the surface for human habitation (audio cuts out from 00:07:30 - 00:09:00). Binder explains the work of the Lunar Prospector and talks about the necessity of having computers to do a lot of the work. On Apollo, Binder calls the program the most significant event of the 21st century, and talks about the roles of the Apollo program, the Clementine spacecraft, and hte Lunar Prospector. The interview ends with Binder's views on his relationship with NASA, which he characterizes as being needlessly bound up in beaurocracy and red tape.
- Duration
0:24:52
- Asset Type
Raw video
- Media Type
Video
- Subjects
- Apollo
- American history
- Moon
- Astronaut
- Space
- Gemini
- Creators
- WGBH Educational Foundation (Producing Organization)
- Contributors
- Sorensen, Theodore Chaikin, 1928-2010 (Interviewee)
- Rights Summary
Rights Holder: WGBH Educational Foundation
- Citation
- Chicago: “NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Theodore Sorensen, speechwriter and adviser to President John F. Kennedy,” 1998, GBH Archives, accessed April 24, 2024, http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_D070A681476F45EFBB44C3BB938AB394.
- MLA: “NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Theodore Sorensen, speechwriter and adviser to President John F. Kennedy.” 1998. GBH Archives. Web. April 24, 2024. <http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_D070A681476F45EFBB44C3BB938AB394>.
- APA: NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Theodore Sorensen, speechwriter and adviser to President John F. Kennedy. Boston, MA: GBH Archives. Retrieved from http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_D070A681476F45EFBB44C3BB938AB394