GBH Openvault

NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Christopher Columbus Kraft Jr., NASA engineer and manager who helped establish NASA's Mission Control Center, part 2 of 4

Part of To the Moon Interviews.

1998

Christopher Kraft, NASA engineer and manager partly responsible for creating NASA's Mission Control Center, is interviewed about the control room. He discusses the dedication of the team in the control center, and his memories of the fire on the Apollo 1, the complacency that may have led to the fire, and the sobering effect of the disaster on the Apollo program, as well as Kraft's belief that reaching the moon was made possible by the need to slow down and integrate learning as a result of the fire. Kraft also discusses Wally Schirra's concerns about the spacecraft, the incorporation of science and scientists like Jack Schmitt into the Apollo program, and the importance of Apollo 8. Parts of the footage have been redacted for privacy reasons.

Series

NOVA

Program

To the Moon

Program Number

2610

Title

Interview with Christopher Columbus Kraft Jr., NASA engineer and manager who helped establish NASA's Mission Control Center, part 2 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

0:23:48

Asset Type

Raw video

Media Type

Video

Subjects

Gemini

Apollo

American history

Space

Moon

Astronaut

Creators

WGBH Educational Foundation (Producing Organization)

Contributors

Kraft, Christopher Columbus, 1924- (Interviewee)

Rights Summary

Rights Holder: WGBH Educational Foundation

Citation

Chicago: “NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Christopher Columbus Kraft Jr., NASA engineer and manager who helped establish NASA's Mission Control Center, part 2 of 4,” 1998, GBH Archives, accessed April 19, 2024, http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_60EFDFFFC2FA49A28242EE9E37F6EAC7.

MLA: “NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Christopher Columbus Kraft Jr., NASA engineer and manager who helped establish NASA's Mission Control Center, part 2 of 4.” 1998. GBH Archives. Web. April 19, 2024. <http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_60EFDFFFC2FA49A28242EE9E37F6EAC7>.

APA: NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Christopher Columbus Kraft Jr., NASA engineer and manager who helped establish NASA's Mission Control Center, part 2 of 4. Boston, MA: GBH Archives. Retrieved from http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_60EFDFFFC2FA49A28242EE9E37F6EAC7