GBH Openvault

NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with James W. Head III, Professor of Geological Sciences at Brown University, part 1 of 3

Part of To the Moon Interviews.

1998

James W. Head III, Professor of Geological Sciences at Brown University, who studies volcanoes on Earth and other planets, in interviewed about the science side of the Apollo program. Head describes how he came to work with NASA, and the mentality that he and fellow scientists had that enabled them to get to the moon. Before going to the moon people did not have a lot of ideas about the moon's history, so early missions to the moon were sent with the goal of increasing knowledge. Head describes working with Farouk El-Baz and Rocco Petrone as his bosses, and recalls the process of site selection from geological and practical perspectives. According to Head, Gene Shoemaker had a difficult time with the Apollo program because of a difference in expectations, and talks about the site selection for the Apollo 13 mission, and describes his sadness that Apollo 13 was not able to do the mission, and characterizes the crew's enthusiasm for geology. However, when the mission was completed by the Apollo 14 crew, a lot was learned about impact craters and ejecta deposits. Footage includes B-roll of Head and some maps.

Series

NOVA

Program

To the Moon

Program Number

2610

Title

Interview with James W. Head III, Professor of Geological Sciences at Brown University, part 1 of 3

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

0:23:16

Asset Type

Raw video

Media Type

Video

Subjects

Apollo

Gemini

American history

Astronaut

Moon

Space

Creators

WGBH Educational Foundation (Producing Organization)

Contributors

Head, James W., 1941- (Interviewee)

Rights Summary

Rights Holder: WGBH Educational Foundation

Citation

Chicago: “NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with James W. Head III, Professor of Geological Sciences at Brown University, part 1 of 3,” 1998, GBH Archives, accessed April 20, 2024, http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_064B97A32C2444F093C6540D269230FD.

MLA: “NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with James W. Head III, Professor of Geological Sciences at Brown University, part 1 of 3.” 1998. GBH Archives. Web. April 20, 2024. <http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_064B97A32C2444F093C6540D269230FD>.

APA: NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with James W. Head III, Professor of Geological Sciences at Brown University, part 1 of 3. Boston, MA: GBH Archives. Retrieved from http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_064B97A32C2444F093C6540D269230FD