GBH Openvault
NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Graham Ryder, Geologist and Lunar Scientist, part 1 of 2
Part of To the Moon Interviews.
1998
Graham Ryder, Geologist and Lunar Scientist, is interviewed about his initial interests in planetary science and the field of lunar science in the contemporary period. Ryder explains how he got into planetary science and explains his work on anorthosites are, and struggles to define anorthosites for the layman. As lunar samples began to come back to Earth, Ryder describes the quick pace of studying the samples between Apollo missions, and says that sometimes they had a matter of months to study the samples, although ideally he would have wanted a year between missions to fully study the lunar samples. Although the Apollo missions were finished in 1972, the lunar samples were still being studied at the time of recording, and were still providing insights into the timeline of the moon and its lunar craters. Ryder ends by explaining why he thinks that people need to be sent back to the moon, and the final 5 minutes of audio (no video) are clips from interviews with William Hartmann and Graham Ryder.
- Series
- NOVA
- Program
- To the Moon
- Program Number
2610
- Title
Interview with Graham Ryder, Geologist and Lunar Scientist, 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
0:16:48
- Asset Type
Raw video
- Media Type
Video
- Subjects
- Astronaut
- Moon
- American history
- Space
- Apollo
- Gemini
- Creators
- WGBH Educational Foundation (Producing Organization)
- Contributors
- Ryder, Graham, 1949-2002 (Interviewee)
- Rights Summary
Rights Holder: WGBH Educational Foundation
- Citation
- Chicago: “NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Graham Ryder, Geologist and Lunar Scientist, part 1 of 2,” 1998, GBH Archives, accessed April 20, 2024, http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_9B674300142E440DB2646F0A47496A71.
- MLA: “NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Graham Ryder, Geologist and Lunar Scientist, part 1 of 2.” 1998. GBH Archives. Web. April 20, 2024. <http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_9B674300142E440DB2646F0A47496A71>.
- APA: NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Graham Ryder, Geologist and Lunar Scientist, part 1 of 2. Boston, MA: GBH Archives. Retrieved from http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_9B674300142E440DB2646F0A47496A71