Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Ray Bradbury Looks Back at Apollo 11

Episode Date: July 20, 2009

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Ray Bradbury and Apollo 11, this week on Planetary Radio. Hi everyone, welcome to Public Radio's travel show that takes you to the final frontier. I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society. Maybe it's having just read Andrew Chaikin's Voices from the Moon. Maybe it's the other media coverage that has swirled around this anniversary. Whatever it is, I'm thoroughly enjoying the opportunity to mark the 40th year since Neil Armstrong reported to us that the Eagle had landed. We'll salute that landing and its legacy with Ray Bradbury. Bill Nye, the science and planetary guy, will add his good wishes to the celebration,

and Bruce Betts will help me sort through your responses to our lunar challenge. What would you have said if you'd been the first to put your boot in the lunar dust? By the way, have you seen the pictures taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter of the Apollo landing sites? We've got the link at planetary.org slash radio. Let's get this special edition of the show underway. Here's Bill. Hey, hey, Bill Nye, the planetary guy here, Vice President of the Planetary Society. A Monday, July 20th is or was, depending on when you're listening, one historic day in the history of astronomy, in the history of humankind.

It was the day that humans walked on the moon in 1969, as reckoned in the Common Era. Now, the moon landings were a result of the Cold War. I mean, let's face it. Of course, it's glorious looking into space, picking up rocks, doing some geology from another world here on our world. But it was a result of a competition to see who could build the biggest number of history's most deadly rockets. And sure enough, the United States mobilized this tremendous workforce, built the big rockets, and got her done. Meanwhile, the former Soviet Union went

out of business about 20 years after all that. But despite the politics, the landing on the moon was pretty much the most exciting thing ever. I mean, for many days after the successful landing and the return of the Apollo 11 crew, everyone on Earth, everyone shared that spirit of excitement. And 40 years later, people like you, listeners to planetary radio and people all over the world, are still flying around in space, dreaming of going to distant worlds themselves and exploring our neighboring planets and distant stars, all because we got so excited about getting to the moon. The moon turns out to be not that exciting a place if you're a water-drinking, air-breathing animal like me, or probably like you.

But it is a remarkable thing that humans went there and brought some of that stuff back in the same way we learned about deep time and our own place in the history of our planet. It's exciting. So sometime during this week, I hope you take a moment and look up at the moon and realize that people went up there and explored in the name of all humankind. It's not bad. I've got to fly. Bill Nye the Planetary Guy.

He needs no introduction. Ray Bradbury has graced our microphone several times. It was just a few days ago that I drove to Ray's home in Los Angeles and joined him in his crowded study for yet another conversation. What you'll hear now are just a few excerpts from that nearly half-hour recording. You can listen to nearly the entire conversation at planetary.org slash radio. Ray's daughter warned me that I'd need to speak up, as his hearing is not what it used to be. I wonder if you feel as fortunate as I do in the whole history of humanity, to have been alive, not just when we first

left our planet, but to actually set foot on other worlds? Well, when I was a young boy, I thought I'll be an old man when we land on the moon. Well, I wasn't old. I was 49 years old. I was very young. I was 49 years old. I was very young. And I was in London that night, and I went over to be on the TV show.

And instead of introducing me, he introduced Engelbert Humperdinck. I remember this. I walked off the show, and the producer came running out after me. He said, what are you doing? I said, that idiot doesn't know this is the most important night in the history of mankind. I will not be on the show with that idiot.

He's stupid. Get me out of here. Get me a cab. So I went across London, and I met with Walter Cronkite. I did a broadcast on Telstar at midnight, telling all the reasons why space travel was important and why it was important that we were on the moon because we were on our way to Mars. And someday we would settle Mars and then we'd go to Alpha Centauri and we'd live forever. So this is the first step to living forever. Mankind has got to beat the sun going out

or the sun flaring up. So we're going to survive because of this very first step tonight and that it is snow should have had enough breaks. Now, wait, I got to stop you because you said snow. It's frost, right? David Frost?

Pardon me. That's quite all right. I just didn't want to confuse the audience. Yeah. I to stop you because you said snow. It's frost, right? David Frost? Pardon me. That's quite all right. I just didn't want to confuse the audience. Frost, yeah. I don't know why I used snow, yeah. When I left that broadcast at the BBC in London, I walked across London laughing and crying all the way. It took me six hours to walk back to my hotel.

I didn't take a taxi again. I wanted to be in London all alone with back to my hotel. I didn't take a taxi again. I wanted to be in London all alone with myself and my joy. And I got back to the hotel and out in front there was a tabloid that said, Neil Armstrong walks on the moon, Bradbury walks at midnight. They report I walked off the David Frost show. And so I hated him so much. But it's good to have that headline. Me and Neil Armstrong in a single newspaper the morning after we landed on the moon.

It didn't start then, of course. I mean, I think, you know, your old friend Arthur C. Clarke. But it was in his story that he had, you know, a proto-human looking up at the moon and reaching for it and thinking, well, if I could just get to a high enough spot, I could reach it. Well, we're all similar people. We have the same dream. And landing on the moon was really dead for us. You were talking, though, before we started to record about, yes, I guess it's okay to be excited about the moon, but your heart is still farther out on that red planet.

Well, see, we've been building flimsy things in space, space stations, but they're not strong enough. But it's got to be the moon. And sometime in the next few years, we've got to reestablish ourselves on the moon. So you do see a role for the moon. You're happy to see that we're on the path to returning humans there? We should never have left. We've circled the earth with our rockets and photographed it, and that's good information, but it doesn't help us get to Mars. The moon has got to be a solid underground for us to build factories to go to Mars.

And it's going to take 30 or 40 years to establish a base on the moon. And then we'll go to Mars and we'll establish a civilization there which will last for thousands of years. And then we'll move from Mars to Alpha Centauri or a planet near there. You don't sound like you've lost any confidence in the human potential in the universe. We didn't think we could do it, and we did it. It was quite amazing. And I went down, I met with all the astronauts in 1967. I went to Houston. Life magazine sent me down to interview all the astronauts that were coming up.

interview all the astronauts that were coming up. None of them had any names yet. But Life Magazine had a meeting in a room with 70 astronauts. And the editor of Life Magazine said, young man, I think you might like to know in the back of the room today is Ray Bradbury. Everybody jumped to their feet and 70 astronauts ran back and clustered around me because they'd all read the Martian Chronicles. Isn't that wonderful? I'm part of the lunar exploration. It's so wonderful to be loved by these young men who treated me as an equal. I think you're part of much more than the lunar exploration. I think of the scientists and engineers who were also inspired to do what they've done, who are still inspired, who are still leading the missions that are taking us off of this

pale blue dot. Well, it's wonderful. The night the Viking lander landed on Mars, I was out at JPL, and I was watching the photographs come in on the TV, and then noticing a man behind me, and I turned, it was Wernher von Braun, and I didn't want to speak to him. I had mixed feelings, And I didn't want to speak to him. I had mixed feelings. But I realized he was a mixed creature. He was half black, half white. He was half good.

He was half evil. He invented the V2 rocket that destroyed England, and then he invented the rocket that took us to the moon. So I shook his hand, and he wrote an autograph on a piece of paper for me. You saw it all ahead of us. You inspired us. And so Wernher von Braun gave me credit for inspiring him to be a rocket engineer.

Isn't that beautiful? There's much history left to be made. In something like 10 years, humans will walk on the moon again. If we're lucky in something like 20 or 30 years, they'll walk on Mars for the first time. If you had a message for these future explorers, does anything come to mind that you might want them to hear from the past? No, I want everybody listening to me to think of Mars, only Mars, again and again and again. And think of going back to the moon

and make sure the government hears this from you. These are bad times today. If you read the Wall Street Journal, forget it, you know. If you buy stocks, sell them, get rid of them. But listen to me and say, back to the moon. The moon is everything and Mars is beyond waiting for us. I want to be buried on Mars. I don't want to be the first live person to arrive there and read too late. But I want to be the first dead person that gets there. I want to arrive in a Campbell's soup can and bury me on Mars in a thing called the Bradbury Abyss. They got a name, a place on Mars for me, and I will welcome that.

More from Ray Bradbury is just ahead. Again, you can hear nearly our entire conversation at planetary.org slash radio. Back in a minute. I'm Sally Ride. After becoming the first American woman in space, I dedicated myself to supporting space exploration and the education and inspiration of our youth. That's why I formed Sally Ride Science, and that's why I support the Planetary Society. The Society works with space agencies around the world and gets people directly involved with real

space missions. It takes a lot to create exciting projects like the first solar sail, informative publications like an award-winning magazine, and many other outreach efforts like this radio show. Help make space exploration and inspiration happen. Here's how you can join us. You can learn more about the Planetary Society at our website, planetary.org slash radio, or by calling 1-800-9-WORLDS. Planetary Radio. I'm Matt Kaplan. We continue our recent conversation with Ray Bradbury. Ray talked about much more than Apollo 11.

You've already heard him mention that he was at JPL in 1976 when Viking 1 landed on Mars. I was a young college student. Oh, my God. I finagled my way into JPL, and I was standing with you in Von Karman Auditorium and a few other people, the great writer, your colleague Ted Sturgeon was also standing with us when Viking landed on Mars. That's right. And I was interviewed by NBC radio interviewer,

TV interviewer. He said, Ray, how does it feel not to be landed on Mars? There are no cities and no people. I said, stand back and shut up. We are the Martians. We are the Martians from now on. So shut up and go away. I made him do that.

You put it somewhat like that in the Martian Chronicles, of course, when the parents bring their children out and they look down into the river and they see themselves. That's right. That's the end of the book, yes. I remember something else from that day. As we stood in this circle, someone came running up. This is before the Viking landed and said, Heinlein is here, Robert Heinlein. Oh my God, yeah. I don't know if it was you or Ted Sturgeon

said, oh my goodness, Heinlein is here. I don't know if he's talking to me, but he was upstairs in the cafeteria or something. Well, Heinlein was a good friend of mine, and he sold my first story for me. Isn't that unbelievable? Really? I was 19 years old, and I showed Heinlein a story, and he sent a script magazine for me, and they wrote me and said, we're going to publish this. And it was all because Heinlein gave it to them. I was 19 years old. Wow. He gave me a beginning. I did not know. That's a wonderful story. Did you remain friends? No, he didn't like me because when the war started, he thought I should have gone out and signed up to be a soldier.

And he didn't know that my vision was so bad. I was technically blind. When I went down for the examination, I got to the optometrist, and he said, read those letters. I said, what letters? He said, on the card. I said, what card? On the wall. What wall? And he said, give me your glasses. Let me see. So he looked at my glasses and he said, do you really want to be in the army? I said, I'm not sure. And I wasn't. I became a 4F. He said, Heinlein didn't like that though. He thought I shouldn't be a 4F. Well, how could I change my eyes? I couldn't.

I think he was sorry that he couldn't go himself. That's right. He did a lot of subsidiary work along the way. Yeah, yeah. When I think of him and I think of that entire family of greats that you are identified with, Heinlein, Asimov, Clark, and some others that us real fans remember. A lot of them were my teachers. Edmund Hamilton and Lee Brackett were my friends and teachers. They lived up in Venice, a few blocks away from me.

And every Sunday afternoon, from the age of 21 to 26, I met Lee Brackett at Muscle Beach in Santa Monica, and I read her brilliant stories, and she read my dreadful stories. And finally, I began to write some decent stories. And they became part of the Martian Chronicles. And that was all influenced by Norman Corwin, the great radio writer. He was my friend that encouraged me about writing on Mars. And also, a wonderful

thing happened after I published the Martian Chronicles. A fan wrote me 10 years later and said, Mr. Bradbury, has anybody noticed that Martian Chronicles was influenced by The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. And I wrote back and said, yes, I read Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath when I was 19 years old. I loved the book. And every other chapter is prose poetry. It's not fiction.

So if you read Grapes of Wrath, you're not reading a novel. Every other chapter is prose poetry. So I learned how to write prose poetry. And I put that in the Martian Chronicles. And every other chapter is not a story. It's prose poetry. Well, you've mentioned, I mean, Norman Corwin, Steinbeck, people who are great heroes of mine.

But I think of somebody else who, if anybody had a claim on being called the first Martian other than you, it was Burroughs, Edgar Rice Burroughs, who was your early inspiration. Oh, absolutely, yes. Yeah, he wrote eight or nine books about Mars, and in one of his books, The Gods of Mars, John Carter goes out and stands on the lawn of summer and raises his hands toward Mars and says, Mars, take me home. And Mars took him home. So when I was 12 years old, I did the same thing. I went out on the lawn and I said to Mars, take me home. He took me home and I've never been back. And that was the month I became a writer. I was 12 years old, and my first story was a sequel to a story by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

So Mars has been in my life all of my life. I don't want to keep you any longer unless there's anything else you'd like to add. No, I just want to pass a message to everyone about living. Number one, God goes in my left ear and goes through my brain and comes out the right ear and leaves the gossamer behind. When I wake up in the morning, God has left a gossamer there for me to read. I get out of bed and write a story. I've got some over there for me to read.

I get out of bed and write a story. I wish this gift to you. Do what you love and love what you do. You're looking at someone here who spent his life doing what he loved and loving what he did. And that is my message to you. And Pope Bradbury bids you all good night. Thank you, Ray, and thank you for all of those stories. It is time for What's Up on Planetary Radio.

Happy 40th anniversary, Bruce Betts. Thank you. Oh, you mean, Bruce Betts. Thank you. Oh, you mean of Apollo 11. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to celebrate. And it's this contest that you suggested that we're going to get to

at the end of today's segment where we're going to share some of the things that listeners said they would have said if they had been the first to step on the moon. But first, tell us about the night sky. All right, I'll try to zip through this. There's a lot there, though. We got Saturn in the evening sky over in the west. We've got Jupiter rising in the late evening in the east, very bright, and up in the south in the

pre-dawn. And in the pre-dawn, Venus, very bright, extremely bright over in the east with Mars reddish and dimmer above it. And if you're listening to this and happen right after we post it or on a radio station and happen to be in the right place, there is indeed a total eclipse of the sun, July 22nd, visible from a small corridor running through India, China, Japan, nearby countries in the Western Pacific Ocean, and of course a partial solar eclipse visible from most of Eastern Asia and Western Pacific. If you're out there, enjoy. This week in space history, I hear something happened, Matt. Oh, God, remind me.

Well, besides Apollo 11 landing, this was a big, big week in space. 1976, Viking 1 landed on Mars, first successful Mars landing. As mentioned by Ray Bradbury in our interview today. Excellent. Also, Apollo-Soyuz crew returns to Earth. It was the last U.S. splashdown. Apollo 15 launch, just crazy, crazy space week all over the place. That's exciting, and how appropriate, too.

On to Random Space Facts. Did you lift that from Verdi or Puccini? No. All right, so it's not a cover. I wouldn't want to insult them that way. Okay. So, of course, I have to give some Apollo 11 facts. What's interesting, Apollo 11 was really first mission, let's get down there, let's plant the flag, let's get some rocks, let's get back.

So their total time on the surface with spacecraft landing, spacecraft takeoff, was only about 21 and a half hours. So less than 24 hours. And their lunar EVA duration, how long they were outside walking around on the moon, about two and a half hours. So less than 24 hours. And their lunar EVA duration, how long they were outside walking around on the moon, about two and a half hours. And they collected about 21 and a half kilograms, or about 47 and a half pounds of rocks and soil samples. Amazing. Yeah. And it only got better. Now we move on to the trivia contest. And we asked you you if you were the first person stepping out of the moon what would you have said make us laugh be profound whatever

how'd we do Matt I mean I know how we did we did great I've seen these things tell us more about them for once you got to see them before we actually came on the radio as you could see not bad we got some very nice responses from our very creative listeners and decided that we would split

these up and award. Remember, we offered a couple of weeks ago Ulysses polo shirts, the Ulysses mission that we talked about two weeks ago. We were provided some shirts by the wonderful Nigel Angold of that mission. So here are the nominees in the profound division. Didn't they just name the Emmy nominees? I don't think any of these people were named. So the first one was one that was actually chosen by one of your sons. Yes, this was Kevin's favorite. And it's Susan. Susan Noe of Carrollton, Texas for the future. Which is short and sweet.

Okay. Tom Hendricks, old friend of the show, here is what he came up with. And he's one of those who said, you know, Neil did such a good job. A lot of people said they felt kind of presumptuous trying to come up with something better. But here's what Tom did. This is but the first step in mankind's journey to the stars. Not bad. Thank you, Tom.

Those are our two runners up. Are you ready for the most profound? I'm so ready. It's also, I think, the longest, which almost knocked it out, but we decided to go with it anyway. Here it is from Eric Bruner of Cary, North Carolina. As long as men have known the moon to be a world, they have dreamed of going there.

The dream of yesterday has become the reality of today, Carolina. As long as men have known the moon to be a world, they have dreamed of going there. The dream of yesterday has become the reality of today. And now there is no dream we cannot make real. Very cool. I would fear if I were stepping onto the moon, I'd have trouble remembering all of that. Yeah, I don't think I'd have wanted to put that on Neil, but it's very nice. But a very, very profound sentiment, like we were looking for. Maybe it should have been on the plaque. Okay, now you and I came up with our favorites among the humorous, in the humorous

category. The goofball category. Right, exactly. And, I don't know, did you like this one from Brandon Robbins? That's a dangerous question, but go ahead. Where's my iPhone? I've got to tweet this. I like it. I had issues with the chronological discontinuity. Yeah, but I think that's part of the charm myself.

Lemuel Lewis. Lemuel Lewis probably had the most succinct. Yippee! Very realistic. As usual, we can always depend on Torsten Zimmer to send us lots of good stuff. I'm only going to mention one of his. These were all runner-ups. And this may be kind of obvious,

but still, it needed to be said. Is that a monolith? And then, I think we both had the same favorite. He gave us, he also wins for the biggest number of phrases to repeat on the moon. And this came from our friend Steve Witte. When I say friend, he's no more a friend than any of the rest of you. But we do hear from him pretty regularly from Allen Park, Michigan. Do you have this in front of you? You want to read some of these? I'm sorry, I don't. And I don't want to

misquote it. Oh, okay. So please, go ahead. Use that fabulous radio voice of yours. Well, there are a couple of these that I was particularly tickled by and a couple that Bruce was pretty much in love with. And so here's one of them. The rocks are moving. They're alive. Now, I like this one a lot.

A piano. Buzz, there's a piano here. Well, that's just grand. And then I think this may have been your favorite. Buzz, you won't believe this, but there's a cow here. She didn't make it over the moon after all. Made me laugh out loud. And here's my favorite.

Step on the moon and say, it's mine, mine, mine, all mine. I got to do the laugh better ah that is good nice work why thank you so there you go i guess we're going to send a ulysses polo shirt to steve witty as the winner of the humor category and the same to eric bruner as the winner in the profound category thank you to all of you who entered. Great stuff, as always. We love you to bits. Yes, we do. Thank you very much.

Very, very entertaining. And let's go on to the next trivia contest. One more. One more Apollo 11 for the road. How long were the Apollo 11 astronauts in quarantine after they returned from the moon? You know, the number of days, basically. Go to planetary.org slash radio, find out how to enter. Make sure they didn't bring us moon bugs.

You mean they let them out? Ooh. Well, if not, then calculate the days since then till now. Anyway, you have until the 27th of July, July 27 at 2 p.m. Pacific time to get us the answer to this latest space trivia question. Okay. All right. Happy anniversary. Happy anniversary to you too. It is a great, great day. And I'm very happy to say, as I said to Ray Bradbury, I feel incredibly fortunate to be have been around when this first step was taken. Yes, indeed.

All right, everybody, go out there, look up at the night sky, and think about green cheese. Thank you, and good night. Mmm, I'm hungry. Green cheese and ham, maybe. Anyway, he's Bruce Betts, the director of projects for the Planetary Society. He joins us every week, even during the 40th anniversary of the first landing on the moon. That week, too, here on What's Up.

Planetary Radio is produced by the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California. Have a great week, and be sure to look up at that big, beautiful moon. We walked there, you and I, and we will again. Thank you.