FROM THE ARCHIVES -- JULY 20, 1969: Robert Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke discuss the Apollo 11 mission and the future of the space program with Walter Cronkite.
Here we have , two of the top three greatest science fiction writers of all time, and here I am, a person born in the 60s in a non English-speaking country and here is 2019, and I salute these two masters whilst I finish a novel writen by one of them.
This all happened seven years before I was born. I feel extremely grateful for the privilege of watching this. Robert Heinlein is a hero of mine and to finally hear his voice, speaking about such a beautiful dream, it brought me to tears.
Aeroprism, Heinlein stories ignited my passion for true science fiction (as contrasted to space opera and fantasy) more than a decade before the moon landing, which I watched live on a B&W television. Somewhere among my cluttered possessions resides a box of 35mm slides that I shot of the TV screen to commemorate that stupendous event, such technology as home video recording not having yet been developed by that date. I hope to similarly view the first human set foot on Mars before I buy the farm, for the event is long overdue! May you live long enough to witness the first ship departure bearing human beings beyond the Solar System.
I am so grateful this footage still exists for me to watch 50 years later and that humanity didn't decide to discard it from record. Listen to the passion in Heinlein's voice...I almost believe his prophecy, despite knowing what we now know about space travel...
I was 16 or so at the time and there were hours of clips shown before the landing. I hope it isn't all lost. I think one segment may have been a model railroad that showed how the Lunar Module separated from the S1B and docked with the Command Module.
I find it quite interesting how Robert Heinlein used that phrase of "one step" mere minutes before Neil Armstrong would make his immortal "One small step..." utterance as he descended to the lunar surface.
Will Long. I was wondering if anyone else caught that ...while reading comments your the only 1. Iv find so far. Who caught the 1step slip outta his mouth. After listening to RAH books I'm convinced they (nasa) copied his books all the names all terminology of words from his books to be used for so-called space exploration. *SMH* Now that I am awake, cleared all fluoride out of my life which calcifies the pineal gland some call it the 3rd. eye. I've noticed a huge difference in my life. I'm no longer a zombie... When I heard him say 1 step I stopped the vid with jaw dropped and said Wait a min. now we know who wrote the 1liner for Armstrong.. did u notice he caught himself and change the sentence. he knows he let that slip out of the bag or maybe it was done deliberate to see who's paid attention. Ether way this explains why Neil Armstrong never did interviews. He would have fell on his face w/ the lies. . Armstrong's behavior after moon landing never passed the smell test. the man who stepped on the moon won't do interviews,🤯 O ok 🤔 Well to you great CATCH glad I'm not the only one listen... 🙋
Damn! I remember this interview! I watched it as a kid, before I ever read a book by either of them. Heinlein is now at the top of my list of favorite writers with Sam Clemens (Mark Twain), and Clarke isn't far behind. I used to watch CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite every day. I wasn't at all surprised when he was voted to be the most trusted man in America a little later. Cronkite did excellent coverage of the moon landing.
Cronkite wept, when the moon landing happened. Tears of joy, excitement, disbelief made belief. For those who still think the moon landing was faked, "Mythbusters" did 2 episodes examining the "evidence" of the nonbelievers and blew them out of the water. Retired librarian, Michigan
@@bnic9471 lol. I was 7, but I was glued to our TV every night for CBS news and for anything that had to do with Apollo or spaceflight. The networks and NASA did a great job of teaching people about the missions and craft back then, and coverage of the moonshots was excellent. I remember watching this interview, but I wanted it to end and get back to the rockets and exciting stuff. Such is the mind of a 7 yr old.
This is what news presentations used to look like. They treated the viewers as intelligent adults. This would never make it to air today. Where's the leggy blonde? The swishes and swoops terminating with a deep chime? The moving background? The crawler with 'news' about Tom Cruise? Amazing how Cronkite could get an audience without calling his guests 'pinheads' or 'loons.'
Ever hear of the News Hour on PBS? I grew up on Walter, too, but to get weepy over it just because the THE BIG THREE U.S. NETWORK EVENING NEWS PROGRAMS are about bells and whistles (whistles directed at leggy blondes) while nearly a million other outlets exist we didn't have in 1969 where one can get serious news, seriously and soberly presented (familiar with the BBC?) is a little off base for me. Besides, what you seem to be comparing are Cronkite (and Huntley/Brinkley and others of the period) to LOCAL news shows, rather even than, say, the 7 pm time slot (EST) he would occupy today, where it's not as Tom Cruise-y and blonde leggy as the obvious bubble gum presented locally at 6 pm (again, EST). I mean, I appreciate your point, but you can still have today what we see here a thousand times over, thanks to the internet and satellite technology. An availability actually profoundly RESPONSIBLE for the Mickey Mouse-ification of the more expensive of the television news programs. It's either T&A or get ALL your news off a smart phone. And, by the way, they COULD have been interviewing Harvard or Cambridge University physicists rather than writers of popular fiction, but I'm thinking a choice was made we would be hard-pressed to prove had NOTHING to do with show business, right?
Boy, does this bring back the memories. Study hall, in junior high school, Clarkston, Michigan. For the first time that I was aware of, a teacher brought a television into our study hall to watch the moon landings. No one was required to attend any classes. We were all there! Even though, none of us were there! It was a time when communications between continents via satellite was still a technological miracle. Nothing seemed impossible, even if the "Rise of the Nerds" was yet to be imagined. The transistor radio --- powered by batteries --- was still so new that only a few students owned one. (I Want to Hold Your Hand, by the Beatles --- played on the school bus) It all seems so tame, now....
What a shame that this momentous achievement did not inspire us to press forward as these men envisioned - at least not yet. Never underestimate cowardice of politicians or the corrosiveness of bureaucrats.
It was doomed to be thus, even then. Apollo was about sticking it to the Russians first, and scientific exploration came a very poor second. Remember that anorthosite “Genesis Rock” from Apollo 16? They found it because they were looking for something like it. And they were only looking because they had been trained to. On prior missions, they were just going round picking up any old rocks.
I was 15 years old when this happened. I had read a book or two by Arthur at this time, and read my first books by Robert in the next year. I am seeing this for first time. I saw some coverage on ABC and NBC, but the area I grew up in did not have good coverage by CBS.
I wish news and other broadcasts were this intelligent, respectful, and optimistic today. Makes me happy hearing Clark and Heinlein for the first time. Also wish we hadn't just stopped going to the moon. Makes me sad how the space program, in some respects, seemed to flop after the mid-70s. Something changed, and I'm not sure what. I wasn't born for a few more years. I wish the stupidity of today could be minimized and removed from society...
You know what the ironic thing about this is... we look back o these men as if they are fragments of the past. But this is history gentleman, this is something special that will forever define us.
It's amazing hearing it as an American. To our ears it sounds broadly "British" but occasionally dipping into a thick old-timey rural accent, especially with those "R" sounds!
His accent is called Transatlantic or mid Atlantic Accenct. Because he was from Britain and came to America, that accent which was part British and part American was called transatlantic. British people who moved here in the early 1900’s from Britain passed that accent onto their kids who learned it too.
TO CBS- hoping you will package this and a lot of other highlights from this broadcast into a new dvd / blu ray in time for the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11.
This saddens me how much optimism we lost. I love these two writers but it seems, at least temporarily, their vision of the future did not come to pass. I fear now it never will as long as human stupidity reigns.
It seemed simple on that day that we were going to the planets, building space colonies and who knows, even going to cease wars. What a moment July 20, 1969 was. Just a brief interlude though.
I worry that it was high tide for the human race, since we've done so little with manned exploration since Apollo 17. We must get back out there. I hope the current administration's plans for the moon and Mars pan out. Few of us will ever get to leave earth, barring some cheap, fantastic technology, but it must be done, anyhow.
if only we could unite as a species and put war aside and focus on space exploration. Instead, we are fighting about what a waste it would be to spend on this instead of other things and whether or not it should be privatized. I remember having this optimism from reading Asimov and Heinlein 30 years ago. Never suspected we would all have iPhones and not have returned to the moon.
"My theory is that it's going to land with a bottle of wodka". That's what I call badass dark humor😂.❤. Those were naive ignorant days. But he's so right.
They may be overstating their case. Despite our problems here on earth, our planet may be the only hospitable planet in the entire universe and the only decent place for us to reside regardless of the power we think we may develop to transform some of these other planets. People love to ponder the mystery and beauty of space, but we may be alone in the universe, and I think anyone who decides to venture off on a long trip into space in the near or far future will start missing this little planet really fast.
No kidding. The planet we evolved on is the one most suited to us? But one of our distinguishing characteristics as a species is that we alter our environment to suit us. Else-wise L.A. wouldn't be able to have a tenth of it's current population. Given enough power, we can and will alter anywhere we think is worthwhile to live into a habitable place.
Thanks so much for publishing this video from the first Moon landing. If only we had more such events to look forward to, rather than the same old barbarism and evil, currently being evidenced by the Ukraine invasion...
i was too young at the time. it must've been amazing. what a shame their optimism hasn't been rewarded. even now, people conspire to stall Elon Musk's Starship, which is surely the next great step forward for mankind...
Cronkite, Clark, Heinlein What is it like to see a dream to becoming a reality??? Bezos, Branson,Musk let us learn, discover than move men and women to a better world... 🌎🌍
yeah, he was very stern about that, like all his assets are in satellite programmes. He's a thought off the top of my head, build off of an island into the water such as St Helena and when the submerged town is supported you can light a fire like anywhere else.
this bit of smug propaganda was supposed to calm fears about the military's space race and the question of what good is it in a world already under the gun.
