GBH Openvault

NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Robert Channing Seamans, Jr., Deputy Administrator at NASA and Professor at MIT, part 3 of 3

Part of To the Moon Interviews.

1998

Robert Channing Seamans, Jr., Deputy Administrator at NASA and Professor at MIT, is interviewed about the early years of the Apollo program. Seamans talks about finding the talent for the program, and talks about working with Werner von Braun, James Webb, and George Mueller. Seamans also describes the sensations of being near the Saturn V liftoff, and talks about James Webb's decision to send Apollo 10 to space without the Lunar Module in order to make maximum use of resources, as well as the competition with the Russians throughout the Apollo space program. According to Seamans, the NASA team was able to listen in on Russian space missions and scientific attempts, and Seamans describes some of the Russian accomplishments in space that pushed the Americans to work faster, although the Russians always kept quiet about their work. Seamans also describes watching the Apollo 11 lunar landing and worrying about getting the astronauts off of the moon, but mentions his certainty that America would make it to the moon. Seamans ends by crediting the Apollo program with changing humanity's understanding of its place in the universe.

Series

NOVA

Program

To the Moon

Program Number

2610

Title

Interview with Robert Channing Seamans, Jr., Deputy Administrator at NASA and Professor at MIT, part 3 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

0:23:37

Asset Type

Raw video

Media Type

Video

Subjects

American history

Apollo

Astronaut

Gemini

Moon

Space

Creators

WGBH Educational Foundation (Producing Organization)

Contributors

Seamans, Robert Channing, 1918-2008 (Interviewee)

Rights Summary

Rights Holder: WGBH Educational Foundation

Citation

Chicago: “NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Robert Channing Seamans, Jr., Deputy Administrator at NASA and Professor at MIT, part 3 of 3,” 1998, GBH Archives, accessed December 26, 2024, http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_FDCB0811DDC047B9AE132745CD0BED48.

MLA: “NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Robert Channing Seamans, Jr., Deputy Administrator at NASA and Professor at MIT, part 3 of 3.” 1998. GBH Archives. Web. December 26, 2024. <http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_FDCB0811DDC047B9AE132745CD0BED48>.

APA: NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Robert Channing Seamans, Jr., Deputy Administrator at NASA and Professor at MIT, part 3 of 3. Boston, MA: GBH Archives. Retrieved from http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_FDCB0811DDC047B9AE132745CD0BED48