Apollo 11 coverage on CBS

[Wellesnet]

Orson Welles was part of CBS News coverage of the Apollo 11 mission 50 years ago.
He narrated documentary, A History of Space Journeys, and was interviewed by Mike Wallace in London on The War of the Worlds radio broadcast of 30 years earlier.
http://www.wellesnet.com/orson-welles-apollo-11/

[Le Chiffre]

(Note: CBS News streaming service, CBSN, will rebroadcast Cronkite’s account of the moon landing and moonwalk on Saturday, July 20, at 1:17 p.m. and 7:56 p.m. PT.)

It would be great if someone with Cable TV could record this.

"I am very very - I hate to use the word superstitious because I take it much more seriously then that - I am awfully serious about the Moon. I think that Robert Graves was right when he said that the most blasphemous thing that has happened since Alexander cut the Gordian Knot was when we landed on the Moon. And having let loose with a piece of eccentricity of that kind, you'll see who you're dealing with. The point is that the only name on the Moon is Nixon, and that they played golf."
- Orson Welles, Filming The Trial

Funny how the U.S. has never gone back to the Moon in the 45 years or so since the last Apollo mission. Maybe they took Welles's words to heart.

From Wellesnet Facebook (Bongo Pete):

Welles told Peter Bogdanovich 'The moon is very important to me' and he said the same on the Arena interview. Speaking of Don Quixote, he said 'I once had a finished version where the Don and Sancho go to the Moon, but then [the United States] went to the Moon, which ruined it' He found the location for The Trial when he thought he saw two moons in Paris (one was the clock of the Gare D'Orsay: 'I'm not such a fool as to not take the moon very seriously, and I saw the moon from my window, very large, what we call in America a harvest moon. Then, miraculously there were two of them. Two moons, like a sign from heaven!' I think somewhere also he said he thought it was wrong, or impious, to set foot on the moon.

[Wellesnet]

Orson Welles narrates "The Greatest Adventure", a 1979 program that tells the story of the U.S. Space program of the 1960s, which culminated in the first moon landing. This one-hour program has never been released on DVD:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaZeSzMkvUc

[Wich2]

Funny how the U.S. has never gone back to the Moon in the 45 years or so since the last Apollo mission. Maybe they took Welles's words to heart.

Chief, speaking as a guy who followed NASA faithfully from Mercury on, and whose only other career dream than Actor was Astronaut, that wasn't due to any concern about Orson, or about poetic vision!

" 'Twas Congress killed the Beast!"

- Craig

[Le Chiffre]

That makes sense, since the Apollo program was a huge expense. I read somewhere online that it would cost about $150 billion in today's dollars. Can you imagine if it really had been faked? Someone would have walked away with $150b. Nice tidy little sum.

I saw the new Apollo 11 docu at a local theatre a couple of months ago, and one of the main impressions i got while watching it was how almost insanely dangerous the mission was. Blasting off from the Moon is not something that can practiced or tested. It either works perfectly the first time or the astronauts die...with the whole world watching. That danger of the mission from start to finish was bourne out a couple of years later when the Apollo 13 crew barely escaped with their lives, without even making it to the lunar surface.

The U.S.'s abandonment of the Moon makes me wonder how long it will be until we have actual bases there, like in 2001. How can we find that sentinel until we do?