GBH Openvault
NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Charles "Pete" Conrad Jr., astronaut, engineer, and Commander on Apollo 12, part 2 of 2
Part of To the Moon Interviews.
1998
Charles "Pete" Conrad Jr., astronaut, engineer, and Commander on Apollo 12 is interviewed about the Apollo 12 mission. Conrad describes the mission's liftoff problems and his identification of the fact that the spacecraft had been hit by lightning. Apollo 12 also had difficulties in landing on the moon, partly because of changes to the calculations in finding their location. Conrad had made a bet with someone about whether or not the astronauts' words were scripted by NASA or the US Government, so he pre-arranged what he would say upon landing on the moon, but never got the payoff. He describes his thoughts on the scientist-astronauts and the astronauts' quarantine after returning to the moon, and the accomplishments of Apollo, despite the program ending too soon. The interview ends with Conrad's explanation of his work today in "space services" for commercial space travel.
- Series
- NOVA
- Program
- To the Moon
- Program Number
2610
- Title
Interview with Charles "Pete" Conrad Jr., astronaut, engineer, and Commander on Apollo 12, part 2 of 2
- 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
0:22:10
- Asset Type
Raw video
- Media Type
Video
- Subjects
- Space
- Moon
- Gemini
- Apollo
- Astronaut
- American history
- Creators
- WGBH Educational Foundation (Producing Organization)
- Contributors
- Conrad, Charles "Pete", 1930-1999 (Interviewee)
- Rights Summary
Rights Holder: WGBH Educational Foundation
- Citation
- Chicago: “NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Charles "Pete" Conrad Jr., astronaut, engineer, and Commander on Apollo 12, part 2 of 2,” 1998, GBH Archives, accessed November 23, 2024, http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_5C70D3A0E3114809866AF48E67A79D81.
- MLA: “NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Charles "Pete" Conrad Jr., astronaut, engineer, and Commander on Apollo 12, part 2 of 2.” 1998. GBH Archives. Web. November 23, 2024. <http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_5C70D3A0E3114809866AF48E67A79D81>.
- APA: NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Charles "Pete" Conrad Jr., astronaut, engineer, and Commander on Apollo 12, part 2 of 2. Boston, MA: GBH Archives. Retrieved from http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_5C70D3A0E3114809866AF48E67A79D81