GBH Openvault

NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Frank Borman, astronaut and Commander on Apollo 8, part 1 of 2

Part of To the Moon Interviews.

1998

Frank Borman, astronaut and Commander on Apollo 8, is interviewed about his experiences in space. He describes spending two weeks in the Gemini capsule with Jim Lovell, and describes some of the experiments they undertook while on Gemini 7. To pass the time, Borman and Lovell would read books like "Roughing It" and "Drums Along the Mohawk", and sang the Nat King Cole song, "Put Your Sweet Lips Near Mine" to each other. Doctors were worried about bone loss and the astronauts' ability to pump blood upon returning to Earth. Borman also discusses where he was when he heard about the Apollo 1 fire, his role on the committee investigating the cause, and the changes that resulted from the fire. Borman ends with a description of Apollo 8, how he became involved, the details of deciding the mission, and describes his feelings of being in the Apollo 8 CSM and his feelings during their Christmas Eve broadcast.

Series

NOVA

Program

To the Moon

Program Number

2610

Title

Interview with Frank Borman, astronaut and Commander on Apollo 8, part 1 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

0:22:20

Asset Type

Raw video

Media Type

Video

Subjects

Apollo

Moon

Space

Astronaut

Gemini

American history

Creators

WGBH Educational Foundation (Producing Organization)

Contributors

Borman, Frank, 1928- (Interviewee)

Rights Summary

Rights Holder: WGBH Educational Foundation

Citation

Chicago: “NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Frank Borman, astronaut and Commander on Apollo 8, part 1 of 2,” 1998, GBH Archives, accessed April 16, 2024, http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_6E520A5A2FC34AA3B98F737477BBCD36.

MLA: “NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Frank Borman, astronaut and Commander on Apollo 8, part 1 of 2.” 1998. GBH Archives. Web. April 16, 2024. <http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_6E520A5A2FC34AA3B98F737477BBCD36>.

APA: NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Frank Borman, astronaut and Commander on Apollo 8, part 1 of 2. Boston, MA: GBH Archives. Retrieved from http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_6E520A5A2FC34AA3B98F737477BBCD36