GBH Openvault

NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Farouk El-Baz, Director of the Center for Remote Sensing at Boston University, part 2 of 3

Part of To the Moon Interviews.

1998

Farouk El-Baz, Director of the Center for Remote Sensing at Boston University, and space scientist who worked on the Apollo program, is interviewed about the Apollo program. He explains the necessity of having Apollo 12 land exactly where they planned, which required additional training. El-Baz calls Pete Conrad a "wild card" and credits his constant chatter with providing a great play-by-play of events on the moon. He also describes the photographs from the Apollo 11 mission as a "treasure trove", and explains the Apollo 14 mission's difficulties in finding their landing site, and its negative impact on the mission. On Apollo 15, the first J-mission, El-Baz explains the site selection, as well as the site selection for Apollo 17, and talks about the need for manned lunar missions, instead of relying on robots. El-Baz calls Apollo 16 the most interesting mission because its site was not as expected. As the Apollo program wound down, the scientists were more insistent on getting good information, and El-Baz says that Apollo 17 was the most scientifically interesting mission because of its discovery of orange soil, which led to later issues and discoveries. El-Baz talks about working with Gene Cernan and Jack Schmitt, and talks about the significance of having a scientist on the moon as a realization of early Apollo program goals. Final shots include B-roll of El-Baz talking.

Series

NOVA

Program

To the Moon

Program Number

2610

Title

Interview with Farouk El-Baz, Director of the Center for Remote Sensing at Boston University, 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

0:22:41

Asset Type

Raw video

Media Type

Video

Subjects

Moon

Space

Gemini

Apollo

Astronaut

American history

Creators

WGBH Educational Foundation (Producing Organization)

Contributors

El-Baz, Farouk, 1938- (Interviewee)

Rights Summary

Rights Holder: WGBH Educational Foundation

Citation

Chicago: “NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Farouk El-Baz, Director of the Center for Remote Sensing at Boston University, part 2 of 3,” 1998, GBH Archives, accessed December 26, 2024, http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_BA2FE86BA5E843BE9750F767366F8E55.

MLA: “NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Farouk El-Baz, Director of the Center for Remote Sensing at Boston University, part 2 of 3.” 1998. GBH Archives. Web. December 26, 2024. <http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_BA2FE86BA5E843BE9750F767366F8E55>.

APA: NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Farouk El-Baz, Director of the Center for Remote Sensing at Boston University, part 2 of 3. Boston, MA: GBH Archives. Retrieved from http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_BA2FE86BA5E843BE9750F767366F8E55