Apollo 11 Moon Landing – “One Small Step…” – (July 20, 1969) – EP 4

It was the finale to a decade of turbulence and upheaval, but this time it was an event through which a nation could put aside its differences and stand together to marvel at the achievement. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy had pledged that before the sixties were over, an American would walk on the moon.

The enormity of the mission aside, one question remained, how to get a television signal 240,000 miles from the lunar surface onto televisions in living rooms around the globe. Robert Wussler, Walter Cronkite’s producer, called it “the world’s greatest single broadcast” in television history.

Summary :

Hosts:

Contributors :

Don Hewitt (Former CBS News Producer) – Inhouse Garner Collection/TVAcademy Walter Cronkite (CBS Anchor) – Inhouse Television Academy Richard Nafzger – Engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center responsible for getting the television signal from the lunar surface to Earth. – Recorded Joel Banow – CBS News director of the Apollo 11 telecast – Recorded (Father) Mike Russo – Walter Cronkite’s desk assistant – Recorded Stan Lebar – Westinghouse Program Manager responsible for creating the ApolloTV Lunar Camera and collaborated with Nafzger to coordinate the worldwidetelevision transmission of the Apollo 11 moon walk. – Archival interview Julian Goodman – President of NBC – TV Academy Archive Sanford Socolow – CBS News producer – TV Academy Archive Danny Epstein – Music director describes the programming that NBC hadprepared for the night of the moon landing – TV Academy Archive James Wall – CBS Stage Manager responsible for setting up a replica of themoonscape in an airplane hangar. – TV Academy Archive Lewis Gomavitz – Director / producer – TV Academy Archive

KeyRESOURCES

The Nixon White House prepared this letter in the event that American astronauts did not survive the Apollo 11 mission.

Apollo 11 lunar landing mission (PDF)

Technical Crew Debriefing (PDF)

Video

At roughly the same moment CBS put Eagle on the Moon, ABC’s model touched down on its lunar surface and the DPS flame went out, and ABC cut to a mock-up instrument panel with a flashing LUNAR CONTACT light. Eagle, of course, was still flying. There were a few awkward cuts between the interior mock-up and the model until, just in time for the “engine stop” call, the videotape of the model’s “landing” was racked and the little LM landed as Aldrin made the touchdown call.

Here’s how ABC handled it, starting a minute and a half before the flight plan called for touchdown:

Apollo 11 Moon Landing – “One Small Step…” – (July 20, 1969) – EP 4

KeyRESOURCES

Video

The start of ABC’s launch day coverage, with Frank Reynolds

Jules Bergman narrates ABC coverage’s of the Apollo 11 launch

The beautiful and haunting intro to the CBS launch broadcast

CBS coverage of the Apollo 11 launch

NBC coverage of the Apollo 11 launch

Audio

Audio

OtherEpisodes

EPISODE 4

EPISODE 4

EPISODE 1 - APOLLO 11

EPISODE 2 - APOLLO 11

EPISODE 3 - APOLLO 11

EPISODE 4 - APOLLO 11

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