GBH Openvault

NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Carolyn Shoemaker, Astronomer, part 2 of 3

Part of To the Moon Interviews.

1998

Carolyn Shoemaker, Astronomer credited with discovering or co-discovering 800 asteroids and 32 comets, is interviewed about husband Gene Shoemaker's role in the NASA space program. The interview begins with shots of the Grand Canyon, and then images of Shoemaker at work. Shoemaker discusses Gene's illness, which prevented him from becoming an astronaut, and his desire to include geology in the astronauts' training. Gene took the astronauts into the field to train them (Carolyn says that Neil Armstrong was the best of the astronauts at geology), and encouraged Jack Schmitt to become an astronaut. Eventually, Gene Shoemaker decided to leave NASA out of frustration with NASA's lack of interest in geology and the difficulty of the office politics, and ended his career with NASA as the Chief Investigator for Apollo 12.

Series

NOVA

Program

To the Moon

Program Number

2610

Title

Interview with Carolyn Shoemaker, Astronomer, 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

0:22:36

Asset Type

Raw video

Media Type

Video

Subjects

Gemini

Moon

Apollo

Astronaut

Space

American history

Creators

WGBH Educational Foundation (Producing Organization)

Contributors

Shoemaker, Carolyn, 1929- (Interviewee)

Rights Summary

Rights Holder: WGBH Educational Foundation

Citation

Chicago: “NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Carolyn Shoemaker, Astronomer, part 2 of 3,” 1998, GBH Archives, accessed April 24, 2024, http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_F4E8C38DE4C546B293D5363C7261C358.

MLA: “NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Carolyn Shoemaker, Astronomer, part 2 of 3.” 1998. GBH Archives. Web. April 24, 2024. <http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_F4E8C38DE4C546B293D5363C7261C358>.

APA: NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Carolyn Shoemaker, Astronomer, part 2 of 3. Boston, MA: GBH Archives. Retrieved from http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_F4E8C38DE4C546B293D5363C7261C358