Out to Launch
KITMAN, MARVIN
ON TELEVISION By Marvin Kitman Out to Launch Since cbs and nbc are two of my favorite networks, I feel bad about criticizing the moon shows they put on last month for us stay-at-homes. A lot of...
...For on cbs, noted aerospace executive Wally Schirra had explained early in the marathon that Apollo 10 had been four miles off-course—it had something to do with the moon, as I understood Schirra—and he assured us the computers would allow for it this time...
...Columbus says he's discovered a new world...
...The landing, after all, made us a captive audience...
...On the positive side, from a strictly television production point of view, a 15-hour show based on the results of equipment failure would have been a sure nominee for an Emmy...
...The lunar touchdown four miles from the projected landing site also created a flurry of excitement...
...Gloria Steinem of New York magazine, one of the critics, probably was thinking about Cronkite's reliability as an interpretative reporter in referring to her as "a kid...
...You say something...
...Once on the moon, the astronauts reporting from Tranquility Base failed to meet my low standards...
...I prayed that Chrysler did not have some minor role in the aerospace program...
...Neither nasa nor the networks issued a statement on the failure of the historic first words to come out loud and clear...
...It's hard to say which of the networks won the race to explain one of the most overexplained events in history...
...So what if the astronauts actually landed on the moon the morning of July 20...
...As a former owner of a Plymouth Valiant, and many other products of our advanced technology, my heart pounded unbearably those last two minutes prior to Eagle's takeoff...
...Those boulders, on closer inspection, were not little creatures with bald heads...
...At first I thought the ghosts on the screen might be secret moon police, but on later investigation I learned they were caused by the primitive slow-scan tv camera (circa Gemini) that nasa sent to the moon...
...Part of the problem was that the flight of Apollo 11 turned out to be uneventful...
...One wanted to hear the conversations between the module and Houston, not the television voice-overs...
...The President might have been wiser to send a telegram...
...I felt like the Italian father who in 1493 cried to his children, "Bambinos, come quick...
...This amounted to a miscalculation of roughly .000009 per cent—something an American public accustomed to delays in transportation could no doubt take in stride...
...I bet nasa could even make our commuter trains run on time...
...Since the astronauts had all their chores written on their sleeves, I theorize that this was due to equipment failure, rather than to Armstrong's voice choking with emotion...
...But what really disturbed me was the use of simulation during the touchdown...
...Bigga deal," they replied, running out into the streets to dance the tarantella...
...Still, the television journey to the moon had its exciting moments?mostly when a piece of machinery was supposed to do an important job...
...The gloating of Dr...
...had more than its fair share of space establishment experts, a mixed blessing...
...And now He is making what appears to be the third in a series of ribs . . . Incredible . . . Adam, this is Walter Cronkite here...
...Yet here we saw a real failure of American technology...
...It is still not clear why the first three seconds of television from the moon showed the space explorers standing on their heads...
...One element of surprise was Eagle's arrival on the moon 16 seconds late...
...At nbc, the first words uttered at this moment were, "What did he say...
...I get dizzy riding the elevators in the cbs and rca Buildings...
...Cronkite also distinguished himself by choosing this once-in-a-life-time opportunity to launch a gratuitous attack upon several cbs guests who earlier in the day had expressed reservations about the wisdom of Apollo...
...We didn't see the Eagle actually landing, did we...
...I wonder what all those kids who pooh-poohed this program are saying now," remarked the dean of tv space reporters, wiping a speck of imaginary dust out of his eye...
...After the mind ceased boggling at the realization that the voices were coming live from so great a distance, one heard Aldrin say, "There's an angular rock, and about 10 feet beyond is an even larger one that's well rounded...
...In view of all the advice President Nixon was able to draw upon in preparing his spontaneous phone call to the moon, his failure to congratulate poor old Collins, the man without whom none of this would have been possible, struck me as odd...
...My notes on cbs are garbled after that, but the dialogue ran something like: Cronkite: I'm speechless...
...Armstrong said, "Houston, Tranquility Base here...
...It's very pretty out there...
...Whatever the case, this was the first off-the-cuff address in the moon's history...
...While such a precaution might eliminate thrill seekers from the potential audience, every summer the American people show they don't mind watching tapes...
...The Eagle has landed...
...they were mere rocks...
...Yet over the years nasa has gone to such great lengths in spending taxpayer's funds to cater to the media, one wonders why it drew the line at throwing up another space ship to cover the landing of the Eagle live...
...But I prefer to consider how reassuring it would be if in the future these space shows were taped in advance...
...The transcript of Armstrong's initial utterance in the newspapers, undoubtedly the version which will be recorded in history, despite his subsequent correction, gives no indication that it was garbled...
...But I am told that here on earth you can buy a camera for 200 bucks that gives better resolution...
...Newspapers and magazines turned many of us into experts in the course of the past few months, a fact tv refused to recognize...
...We'll come back to you later . . . He is connecting the knee bone to the . . ." By his own count, this was Cronkite's 21st stint before the cameras covering space shows...
...And when the astronauts finally reached their destination, the scenery reminded one of Newton Minow's celebrated wasteland...
...Or why they waited until taking two steps down the ladder before turning on the cameras, when the lanyard could have been yanked immediately after the hatch was opened...
...As a result of this false economy, the networks were forced to fall back on their ingenuity in portraying the touchdown...
...Cutting eight or nine orbits would have improved the pace of the show...
...A lot of air time (about 31 hours) and thought went into these spectacles of lunacy, but I don't think they worked...
...A joke to the effect that his name was secretly added to the moon plaque, in honor of all he has done to sell the space program to the American public, is now making the rounds, cbs, it seemed to me...
...This was solid, honest reporting by Brinkley and McGee under difficult conditions...
...I could see money going up the drain when I heard Armstrong describe the pure black moon sky: "It has a starry beauty all its own...
...Geological Survey astrogeologist who made the moon maps used by the astronauts—over the discovery that the moon fit his predictions, would have been more appropriate in the paymaster's office of the Houston Space Center...
...Meanwhile, at cbs Walter Cronkite was making history in his own way by commenting "Whew...
...What a phone call Nixon would have placed then...
...Shut up, Walt...
...The space agency probably had its reasons for spending $400,000 on this kind of equipment...
...When the astronauts started walking and talking on the moon, nobody at cbs was speechless...
...It was little consolation that the first Italians to hear Columbus' reports of the Carribean probably thought, "Christ, it sounds just like south of Naples...
...It would have been a petty cash expenditure in the $24 billion budget, and one easily justified in pr terms...
...As Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin took their first halting steps, they did not fall off the horizon's edge...
...If you're awake, can you tell us if the ribs will play any other role in the next stage of the man-on-earth epic...
...In my opinion, Apollo II would be a great achievement whenever it took place...
...Nobody likes to think about money when discussing the space program...
...The pictures of the astronauts were out of focus...
...The first words upon landing have been widely reported...
...Then we could have heard a Western Union operator calling the moon...
...Radio was far more effective than television, leaving something to the imagination...
...It was vintage Disneyland (1967...
...Television coverage appeared to prove that if you've seen one part of the moon you've seen it all, so it didn't matter much where the ship landed...
...Unidentified: No...
...But little has been said about the first words of the network anchormen...
...Commercial considerations, though, obviously precluded the exercise of such editorial judgment...
...My daughter retreated into her own little world, washing her hair...
...As a taxpayer, I trust the two astronauts will have more to say on these subjects in their debriefings...
...Newell Trask—the U.S...
...These were of special interest to me, I guess, because I found it much easier to identify with fellows like David Brinkley and Frank McGee of nbc, and Walter Cronkite of cbs...
...You say something...
...I found myself wondering how cbs might have covered the Creation...
...This is not to say that nasa did not tape the shows in advance...
...A four-mile miscalculation on Mars, however, could be as catastrophic as a landing four miles to the east of Kennedy Air port in New York City...
...As soon as the switch to simulation began, my son announced that he was going out to play stickball...
...I'm more speechless than you...
...Director Fred Stollmack should have said something like...
Vol. 52 • August 1969 • No. 15
