ML138448
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Subject: (Interview). Subtitle: Walter Cronkite. Timecode In: 00:01:00. Timecode out: 00:26:54. Notes: Journalism; Space Program. Equipment Notes: Stereo=1; Dual-Channel Mono. NPR/NGS RADIO EXPEDITIONS Show: Geographic Century Log of DAT #:1 Date:04/07/99 ng = not good ok = okay g = good vg = very good AC 00:01:00 Begins with asides¿ Identify yourself in regards to your impact on American culture in regards to space. 00:01:35 WC 00:01:36 Well, I think that¿s up to you to say rather than me to say. I suppose there was an impact of our reporting of, on the space program undoubtedly. A lot of people were getting most of their news from television and, of course, the vision of the space flights was an important part of the story so the public was turning to television for a lot of it¿s information. As a consequence, those of us who were broadcasting the space flights and trying to fill in the important engineering and political details that were behind those flights, I suppose had a following of a type. AC 00:02:27 Well, it was more than that from my perspective. This was not simply politics but there¿s something else in your space coverage, a sense that you were enjoying this story. 00:03:05 WC 00:03:06 Well, I think that¿s probably true, in fact I know it¿s true. I did enjoy the story. I was enthusiastic about it. There was even some criticism from some of my colleagues at the time that perhaps I was a cheerleader for the space program. Interestingly enough, the people who were running the space program at that time didn¿t seem to think so. There was a lot of critics from them that I was a little harsh on them. That usually developed in the more internal aspects of the coverage, that is, the news conferences and the educational news conferences that they were having for us in the press. At those times I asked a lot of very critical questions and I think they thought of me as something of a bee in their bonnet. At some points I uh, I took these matters to the public in my space reporting but none of that diminished my enthusiasm for the entire program of getting man into space and in particularly in fulfilling President Kennedy¿s pledge to put a man on the moon and get him back safely in the decade. What a great incredible adventure that was! It was an inconceivable, almost, to most of us, a goal when Kennedy enunciated it. Even those of us who had been covering early rocketry in this country.. And I was interested in rocketry from, I suppose, my first experience with it in London when I was bombed out by one of Hitler¿s early rockets, I had watched the development of the rocket program with quite a bit of interest and occasionally covered matters. I went out to White Sands in the early days, for some of the testing by the German scientists primarily out there the Van Braun team. And as that program developed I became more and more fascinated with it. This was, what an incredible story this was! That man was finally going to escape his environment on earth and go out into that hostile environment of space for the first time. The men who were making those trips, some of them were thought to be merely substituting for monkeys, that anybody could ride the spacecraft into space. Not true! They were taking chances with their lives. When Glenn made the first orbital flight we had very little knowledge of what might transpire out there in that Mercury space craft of his. There had been two Russian flights before that in orbit but they weren¿t sharing their information with us as to what had transpired with their men in their flights what the space effect had been on them. Nor were they giving us information about the technical aspects of their spacecraft. Did we have the right formula to get the men out there and back safely? I¿m just talking now, about low earth orbit. We didn¿... (Notes truncated)
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- 1 Mar 2005 - Ben Brotman
- Digitized
- 1 Mar 2005 - Ben Brotman
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- 1 Mar 2005 - Ben Brotman