| Title | 13 Minutes to the Moon | |
| Date | Tuesday June 25 2019, @01:10AM | |
| Author | chromas | |
| Topic | ||
| from the farty-minutes-to-uranus dept. | ||
With the 50th anniversary of the first Moon landing fast approaching, there's a veritable deluge of programs, events, and media of various forms, all dedicated to recapturing an astonishing moment in humanity's collective history. All of these things face a serious challenge: the Apollo missions have been revisited so many times and from so many angles, it's difficult to say anything truly new.
Go for the obvious points, and you'll face telling a big chunk of your audience things they already knew. Aim for something truly novel, and there's the risk that you'll end up focusing on an aspect that's obscure simply because it's not that interesting or important. These problems are compounded for an audience like Ars', where most of us have spent a bit of time obsessed by the space program, and the hurdles to finding some novelty grow even higher.
The promise of a new angle on a familiar subject was what got me listening to a production by the BBC's World Service entitled 13 Minutes to the Moon. This multi-episode podcast focuses on what's really the key moment in Apollo 11: the final descent and touchdown of the Eagle lander that delivered Armstrong and Aldrin to the Moon's surface.
Thanks to an article I saw on Ars Technica, I was reminded that the BBC is in the process of producing and releasing a series of downloadable podcasts called 13 Minutes To The Moon which covers people and events which lead up to and included the launch of Apollo 11 — the first manned landing on the moon — on July 20, 1969:
On 13 May 2019, the BBC will be launching 13 Minutes To The Moon, a 12-part series covering the Apollo programme through the final dramatic 13-minute descent of the Apollo 11 mission, when everything came close to going badly wrong. Communication was breaking down, technology was failing and fuel was running out.
The BBC World Service has been making a major impact on the world of podcasting and this new series tells the story of the scientists, engineers, programmers and astronauts whose work during those tense minutes - and for years beforehand - prevented failure. The theme music written by Grammy and Academy Award-winner Hans Zimmer for Bleeding Fingers Music, is the first that the composer has ever written for podcast.
The final episode will be recorded live at Houston’s Rice University, where U.S. President John F. Kennedy made his speech in 1962, famously announcing his ambition to take humankind to the moon. It will be released on the exact 50th anniversary of the moon landing, 20 July 2019.
13 Minutes to the Moon is the full story of how a predominantly young workforce was mobilised to make JFK’s vision a reality, despite having no idea at the start how to do it. The podcast has secured revealing, in-depth interviews with some of the key figures who made it happen. And we’ll hear about what happened between 1961 and 1969 to create what was one of humanity’s greatest triumphs.
By the end of the series, listeners will know in detail the dramatic sequence of events of those final 13 minutes to the moon. Episode 11 will be the 13 minutes in real time.
The show is hosted by Dr. Kevin Fong, who wanted to be an astronaut, and holds degrees in astrophysics, medicine and space engineering. He grew up inspired by stories of the Apollo programme, and wanted to take the listener along with him on a deep dive into a subject of lifelong fascination. As he says in the first episode, it isn’t a spoiler to say we know they got there: "This podcast is about trying to understand how that happened."
New episodes of the podcasts are being released periodically. So far, 4 introductory pieces and 6 episodes are available for direct listening or download.
I just finished listening to Episode 6: Saving 1968 and must confess I always thought Apollo 8's mission seemed strange... approach and orbit the moon, but do not land when you were so very close? This episode made clear how much of an undertaking that mission actually was and how great a triumph it actually was.
Most highly recommended!
Original Submission #1 Original Submission #2
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printed from SoylentNews, 13 Minutes to the Moon on 2024-04-20 00:17:54