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NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Leon "Lee" Silver, Ph.D., Professor of Geology at the California Institute of Technology, part 3 of 4

Part of To the Moon Interviews.

1998

Leon "Lee" Silver, W.M. Keck Foundation Professor for Resource Geology, emeritus, at Caltech, is interviewed about Jim Lovell's discovery of a Paiute pot while doing geology training in Nevada, describes various astronauts' interest in geology and science including Jim Lovell, Jack Schmitt, Fred Haise, John Young, and Charles Duke. Silver also discusses the need for manned moon exploration to do the scientific work that robots wouldn't be able to do, using Apollo 15 as an example. Other scientific discoveries on the moon include Neil Armstrong's collection of samples during Apollo 11, Apollo 14's loss of 5% of their experiment, and ends with Silver's discussion of the back room (audio only for final "back room" discussion).


License Clip
Series
NOVA
Program
To the Moon
Program Number

2610

Title

Interview with Leon "Lee" Silver, Ph.D., Professor of Geology at the California Institute of Technology, part 3 of 4

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

0:23:10

Asset Type

Raw video

Media Type

Video

Subjects
Gemini
Apollo
American history
Astronaut
Moon
Space
Creators
WGBH Educational Foundation (Producing Organization)
Contributors
Silver, Leon "Lee" Theodore, 1925- (Interviewee)
Rights Summary

Rights Holder: WGBH Educational Foundation

Citation
Chicago: “NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Leon "Lee" Silver, Ph.D., Professor of Geology at the California Institute of Technology, part 3 of 4,” 1998, GBH Archives, accessed March 28, 2024, http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_1BB80D2FADF8486D962F79350811C259.
MLA: “NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Leon "Lee" Silver, Ph.D., Professor of Geology at the California Institute of Technology, part 3 of 4.” 1998. GBH Archives. Web. March 28, 2024. <http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_1BB80D2FADF8486D962F79350811C259>.
APA: NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Leon "Lee" Silver, Ph.D., Professor of Geology at the California Institute of Technology, part 3 of 4. Boston, MA: GBH Archives. Retrieved from http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_1BB80D2FADF8486D962F79350811C259
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