GBH Openvault

NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Glynn Lunney, NASA engineer and flight director during the Gemini and Apollo programs, part 3 of 4

Part of To the Moon Interviews.

1998

Glynn Lunney, NASA engineer and flight director during the Gemini and Apollo programs, is interviewed about the earlier Apollo missions. Lunney talks about the circumstances of Apollo 7, and his initial interactions with lunar scientists, as well as his high opinion of Apollo 8's significance to the Apollo program, and his reaction to hearing about the Apollo 8 flight mission. On the Apollo 12 landing site, Lunney talks about his reaction to the choice, and the geologists' opposition to the site, and explains how the landing sites are selected. Lunney describes the timeline of the Apollo 13 crisis and the technical issues that took place, including issues with the trajectory, heat, carbon dioxide, and the spacecraft's return to Earth, and explains the issues and Mission Control's reactions and solutions to these issues.

Series

NOVA

Program

To the Moon

Program Number

2610

Title

Interview with Glynn Lunney, NASA engineer and flight director during the Gemini and Apollo programs, 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

0:22:54

Asset Type

Raw video

Media Type

Video

Subjects

American history

Astronaut

Moon

Space

Apollo

Gemini

Creators

WGBH Educational Foundation (Producing Organization)

Contributors

Lunney, Glynn, 1936- (Interviewee)

Rights Summary

Rights Holder: WGBH Educational Foundation

Citation

Chicago: “NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Glynn Lunney, NASA engineer and flight director during the Gemini and Apollo programs, part 3 of 4,” 1998, GBH Archives, accessed December 26, 2024, http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_950E19C9F1FF462C9EA81683E4A99C18.

MLA: “NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Glynn Lunney, NASA engineer and flight director during the Gemini and Apollo programs, part 3 of 4.” 1998. GBH Archives. Web. December 26, 2024. <http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_950E19C9F1FF462C9EA81683E4A99C18>.

APA: NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Glynn Lunney, NASA engineer and flight director during the Gemini and Apollo programs, part 3 of 4. Boston, MA: GBH Archives. Retrieved from http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_950E19C9F1FF462C9EA81683E4A99C18