Chronicling the Voyage

To parallel Apollo 11 's trip to the moon, the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria would have had to be accompanied by a fleet of dispatch boats filled with scientists, singers and scribes. Each day, one of the boats would have returned to Spain to report on the voyage, and the court would have been entertained by a new ballad about Columbus' exploits.

The TV-age equivalent was the special watch maintained by Frank Reynolds and Jules Bergman on ABC, Walter Cronkite and Wally Schirra on CBS, and Chet Huntley, David Brinkley and Frank McGee on NBC. The climax was reached when all three networks canceled their regular programs-- CBS and NBC for 31 hours starting at 11 a.m. on Sunday, and ABC for 30 hours beginning at noon--to report, contemplate and analyze the space epic. To fill the hours the networks pulled out all the stops and scheduled an impressive array of names. ABC commissioned Duke Ellington to write and perform a piece of music, Moon Maiden. The network also 1) lined up Steve Allen to sit down at a piano and discourse on the moon and romance in popular music, 2) called together a panel of scientists and science-fiction writers including Rod Serling, Isaac Asimov, Frederik Pohl and John Pierce, 3) planned a four-part essay on movie scifi, featuring Flash Gordon and the Clay People, plus clips from Destination Moon and 2001: A Space Odyssey and 4) taped James Dickey reading one of his space poems.

Ultimate Values. NBC's schedule during the rarefied race for the moon ratings included James Earl Jones and Van Heflin delivering dramatic readings and Rod McKuen reciting poetry. The network also promised discussions of the moon and its ultimate value by Authors Michael Crichton and James Simon Kunen, Critic Marya Mannes and Scientist Athelstan Spilhaus.

CBS called on Sir Bernard Lovell, director of the Jodrell Bank Experimental Station in England and one of the world's foremost authorities on astronomy, for a live interview feature. And while ABC might have 2001 film clips for its viewers, CBS planned to have 2001 's author, Arthur Clarke, on hand, along with Sir Francis Chichester, Buster Crabbe (Buck Rogers) and Buckminster Fuller.

For their part in the moon special, the astronauts were scheduled to beam their live production back to earth via a signal sent through space to a receiving station in Parkes, Australia, from which point it was to be relayed on around the world. And the camera that did all this work? Not really very impressive looking: a 7.25-lb. miniaturized instrument that resembles an ordinary home-movie camera but operates on the same principle as its TV-studio big brother. It contains 250 components designed to operate in a vacuum and under extreme temperature conditions. Some of the parts are no larger than the pupil of an eye; others are as thin as a photo negative. Westinghouse designed the camera so that the astronauts, busy with important scientific experiments, would have a minimum of fussing to do once it was set up on a tripod on the lunar surface. Aside from switching from slow to fast scanning, no adjustments are necessary other than choosing between four fixed-focus lenses--a wide angle, a telephoto, a lens for lunar daylight and a lens for lunar nighttime.

To ward off the sun, which can skyrocket the temperature up to 240DEG F., the camera is equipped with a highly polished bottom and a top cover treated with heat-resistant paint. It operates on only 6.5 watts of power--less than that used by a household night light. Though it cost about $400,000, the camera is as disposable as an aluminum beer can. Sad to say, this tough little minibrute was destined to be left behind on the surface of the moon.

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