GBH Openvault

NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Seymour "Sy" Liebergot, NASA flight controller during the Apollo program, part 2 of 3

Part of To the Moon Interviews.

1998

Sy Liebergot, retired NASA flight controller during the Apollo program, is interviewed about various Apollo missions. He describes the mission systems of Apollo 7, and the tension within the Mission Operation Control Rooms (MOCR) during Apollo 11 and describes Gene Kranz and Chris Kraft's roles during the mission. Liebergot also describes his limited interactions with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin during Apollo 11, and describes his view of the astronauts as pilots instead of engineers. Liebergot describes how John Aaron saved Apollo 12 from aborting its mission after it lost display information because of battery fuel loss and a lightning strike, which Aaron was able to successfully fix by having the astronauts flip some switches. The tape ends with a discussion of Apollo 13 and why they had not prepared for that level of failure during training because of the unprecedented nature of the failure, and each crew member's ability to respond to the crisis.

Series

NOVA

Program

To the Moon

Program Number

2610

Title

Interview with Seymour "Sy" Liebergot, NASA flight controller during the Apollo program, part 2 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

0:22:33

Asset Type

Raw video

Media Type

Video

Subjects

American history

Astronaut

Gemini

Space

Apollo

Moon

Creators

WGBH Educational Foundation (Producing Organization)

Contributors

Liebergot, Seymour "Sy", 1936- (Interviewee)

Rights Summary

Rights Holder: WGBH Educational Foundation

Citation

Chicago: “NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Seymour "Sy" Liebergot, NASA flight controller during the Apollo program, part 2 of 3,” 1998, GBH Archives, accessed December 27, 2024, http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_91370EC303304D79A66536CF1303B4BE.

MLA: “NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Seymour "Sy" Liebergot, NASA flight controller during the Apollo program, part 2 of 3.” 1998. GBH Archives. Web. December 27, 2024. <http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_91370EC303304D79A66536CF1303B4BE>.

APA: NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Seymour "Sy" Liebergot, NASA flight controller during the Apollo program, part 2 of 3. Boston, MA: GBH Archives. Retrieved from http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_91370EC303304D79A66536CF1303B4BE