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CNN Sunday Morning
Interview With Andrew Chaikin
Aired October 06, 2002 - 08:41 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: You know I've got a library full of space books, no surprise to you. But there is one that I will enjoy adding to my collection. It will go alongside some of the over books by this man. Andrew Chaikin wrote really the seminal account of the Apollo program and the moon race called "The Man on the Moon." He has put together some of his favorite images from both the U.S. and the Russian programs, both manned and unmanned. The book is simply titled "Space." Andrew Chaikin joins us from Boston, his home town, to talk about his latest effort. Good to see you, Andy.
ANDREW CHAIKIN, AUTHOR: Good to see you too.
O'BRIEN: All right. Obviously, I've enjoyed the book. I've been talking about it all morning. I'm sure that makes you very happy. So, why don't you just go home now, because I've already plugged it. .
CHAIKIN: I was going to say, really.
O'BRIEN: Let's look at some pictures, shall we? Why don't we?
CHAIKIN: Let's go for it.
O'BRIEN: Here's what I liked about this book, as we look at a picture of the Mercury 7. Everybody has seen this picture. Look at the next picture.
CHAIKIN: And they look sort of like gladiators.
O'BRIEN: They do. It's very Tom Wolfean (ph), if that's a word. But this is the Soviet 6.
CHAIKIN: Right, and this is sort of like the big Super Bowl, this is the opposing team, and you can see second from the left is Alexei Leonov, who became the first man to walk in space, and right next to him, third from the left, is Yuri Gagarin, first man in space. And second from the right, of course, Valentina Tereshkova, first woman in space. So in the early stages of this Cold War space match, the Russians were winning all the games.
O'BRIEN: All right, now let's go on to talk about Yuri Gagarin briefly. Yuri Gagarin, who was -- he was just in his 20s, right, and he was selected...
CHAIKIN: He was 27 years old. He was a fighter pilot, and you know, was rocketed into space on April 12th of '61, and became an instant, you know, legend.
O'BRIEN: He's an icon in Russia to this day. I mean, he really is almost sainted in that secular society.
CHAIKIN: Absolutely.
O'BRIEN: But then I look at the first U.S. astronaut to go to space. A lot people on the street would tell you it was John Glenn to this day. You know, a lot of people aren't plugged in. It was Alan Shepard, of course.
CHAIKIN: I know, that used to rankle Shepard. But you know, he was very proud of the fact that out of all the original seven, he was picked to be the first American in space. And look at the calm face on this man as he is ready to be blasted into space.
O'BRIEN: To paraphrase him, you know, I'm cooler than you boys, why don't we just light this candle. Something to that effect.
CHAIKIN: Words to live by.
O'BRIEN: Yes. All right. Let's go to Alexei Leonov and the first spacewalk. What the people don't realize is he nearly bought the farm in this one. There was really no air lock on the spacecraft at the time. He just kind of squeezed his way out of a rubber bladder (ph).
CHAIKIN: No, there was an air lock, but it was inflatable.
O'BRIEN: That's it, yeah.
CHAIKIN: And it was very narrow, and his space suit -- I don't know if you can see. Look at his -- the figure of Leonov. He is very kind of stiff like the Michelin man.
O'BRIEN: Michelin man kind of look, yeah.
CHAIKIN: ... because his suit is so stiff from the pressure. And he could barely -- he almost didn't make it back in after he had been outside. But again, this was another Soviet first.
O'BRIEN: Another first, yeah. And he managed to live to tell about it.
Ed White, of course, who died later in the Apollo 1 fire tragically.
(CROSSTALK)
CHAIKIN: These are the pictures that hooked me on the space program when I was 9 years old in '65, on "Life" magazine. This is what did it to me. I mean, this was just so unbelievably cool.
O'BRIEN: This is the mission that hooked me. I remember being taken out of the class to go watch this launch, and then just really loving Ed White and what he accomplished. It was really a wonderful thing.
We've got to move on because (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
CHAIKIN: Yeah, let's go.
O'BRIEN: Moon rise -- excuse me, Moon race and Earth rise. This shot, perhaps one of the more widely produced shots.
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: Can you imagine being there to see that Earth rise?
CHAIKIN: I have imagined it many times, and of course, I've sat across from the photographer, Billy Andrews (ph), who took this picture.
O'BRIEN: Apollo 8, we're talking about.
CHAIKIN: This is the picture that gave us the 21st century perspective 40 years ahead of time. We saw the earth as it truly is.
O'BRIEN: All right, and let's go to Apollo 11. We were talking about the Saturn 5. This is a great shot. It gives you a real sense of -- you know, Michael Collins' book is called "Carrying the Fire." Michael Collins who was in the command module orbiting the moon during Apollo 11. That's carrying the fire to me, right there.
CHAIKIN: A mythic -- a mythic scene as this gigantic rocket heads toward space.
O'BRIEN: All right. And then, of course, Buzz on the moon. Right up there with the Earth. That's probably even more widely produced. I love looking at the glare shield on that one. You see Neil taking the picture.
CHAIKIN: That's right.
O'BRIEN: And then, of course, you see the leg of the LEM and you see the flag.
CHAIKIN: Miles, I don't need to be here for this interview. You know as much about these pictures as I do.
O'BRIEN: Just grab a cup of coffee and talk amongst yourselves. Here's what I like about this, Andy, you've got to tell me how you found this shot. OK -- there is Neil Armstrong and the LEM. This is a great shot. Talk about a blanketing grin. You know what I mean?
CHAIKIN: Well, he's obviously extremely happy that everything went so well, and it's the, you know, the first man to walk on the moon right there.
O'BRIEN: Yeah, yeah. Now, here's what's fascinating to me. We have all seen the footprint shot. That's kind of another one in the icon category. But check this out. This next shot is a plaque. Tell us about this plaque and who put it there. CHAIKIN: Yeah, this plaque was left two years later on the moon in July of '71 by Apollo 15 commander Dave Scott. And the plaque commemorates several cosmonauts and astronauts who had died in the line of duty, including the three astronauts of Apollo 1 who died in the fire. And next to the plaque, on the surface of the moon, you can see a little aluminum figure, which represents the fallen astronaut. He is resting on a series of little scoops made by Dave Scott in his space suit gloves. He kind of hollowed out a little piece of the soil and left these mementos for his fallen comrades.
O'BRIEN: I got to tell you, it kind of gives me goose bumps, and to think that that is just sitting there as we see it now, to this moment, and will be there for really conceivably until -- unless something hits the moon -- for a long time. There is Dave Scott.
CHAIKIN: And there is Dave Scott. And look at the beautiful surroundings of these later missions when they explored the mountains of the moon. Miles, I really feel that these pictures are -- yes, they are a document of extraordinary events, but they also stand up as pictures.
O'BRIEN: Yeah, I agree with you on that.
Let's go to the shuttle program. Space shuttle. This is Columbia coming in from its maiden voyage, April of 1981. A lot people don't realize as we look at a picture of John Young (ph) doing...
CHAIKIN: Actually, it was the second voyage.
O'BRIEN: That was the second?
CHAIKIN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Now, here is John Young (ph) in STS- 1, a legend already from having flown the first Gemini, having walked on the moon on Apollo 16, and NASA chose him to command the first flight of the shuttle. And he is happy to be in orbit.
O'BRIEN: And that was the first time, when Young (ph) and Crippin (ph) were strapped into that spacecraft, it was the first time that a man-spaced vehicle flew for the first time actually with people in it.
CHAIKIN: That's right, they always used to test them without people. And actually, the shuttle could have flown, if they designed it that way, without people, but they didn't want to do that. The Russians later did.
O'BRIEN: Interesting. Let's talk about that as we look at the quick shot of the Challenger in orbit on one of its earlier missions. That was I believe on the Sally Rodd (ph) mission.
CHAIKIN: That's right. There was a free-flying satellite called SPAZ (ph), that took this picture, and I just think it's a beautiful art shot. I mean, I love the pattern of the clouds below.
O'BRIEN: Wonderful. And then -- but let's look at this, and for a minute, folks will say, oh, there's the shuttle coming back. No.
CHAIKIN: This is the Russian shuttle.
O'BRIEN: This is Buran, snow storm, right?
CHAIKIN: That's right. And it was flown only once in space unmanned. So the Soviets designed their own shuttle very much like ours, but they ran out of money for that program very quickly, and the shuttle only flew once.
O'BRIEN: I'm told it landed in the 39-knot crosswind there at Baiconur, no problem. Unmanned.
CHAIKIN: You got me there.
O'BRIEN: I don't know. That's what they said. All right now, who knows, this might have been a bit of Russian embellishment.
(UNINTELLIGIBLE) in space, this is the manned maneuvering unit...
(CROSSTALK)
CHAIKIN: Now, this is science fiction come to life. I really feel that this like a 2001 shot. McAndlis (ph) is flying the first manned maneuvering unit, and he's hundreds of feet away from the shuttle. He is essentially a self-contained spacecraft, and you'd think he would be scared, he would be frightened, he'd be lonely. No, he was on top of the world, because he was doing something nobody had ever done before.
O'BRIEN: All right. Let's get into the space station there a little bit, and talk about Mir, the Mir era.
(CROSSTALK)
CHAIKIN: This is Salut 7, that's right. And before Mir, the Soviets had a very ambitious program of space stations, but they were sort of one-room stations. I mean, it was like living in a small house trailer for six months or eight months. Here you see a couple of the guys in Salut relaxing by playing a game of chess. The chess board is floating in zero gravity between them.
O'BRIEN: That's pretty neat. That's neat stuff when you see that. And then, of course, the Mir era -- we remember, of course, was -- there's Mir, and we remember it -- most people in the U.S. for some of the travails aboard Mir, despite its incredible record over 13 years or so.
CHAIKIN: That's right.
O'BRIEN: Look at this shot of Jerry Linninger (ph) right after the fire on board Mir. That's a great shot.
CHAIKIN: Yeah, he's wearing a respirator. And they not only had a fire on that flight, but they had coolant leaks, and you know, they were mopping up blobs of toxic coolant, and they had a collision on one of the later missions. But I tell you, Mir stands as a testament to what can be accomplished against adversity in space, and people who go to Mars are going to have to face those same kinds of problems.
O'BRIEN: All right. When you kind of put all these pictures in a pile, what do you walk away with?
CHAIKIN: To me, they tell a story of human ingenuity, human persistence. They have taken us beyond ourselves. They have shown us magnificent distance. And they invite us to keep exploring. I believe that this is the mission of human beings, to keep exploring.
O'BRIEN: All right. The book is "Space." The author is Andrew Chaikin. We didn't get to all of them, because I put post-it notes on just about every page. We apologize for that. But great to see you again, Andy, and good luck with the book, OK?
CHAIKIN: Thanks a lot, Miles, great to be here.
O'BRIEN: Take care.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired October 6, 2002 - 08:41 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: You know I've got a library full of space books, no surprise to you. But there is one that I will enjoy adding to my collection. It will go alongside some of the over books by this man. Andrew Chaikin wrote really the seminal account of the Apollo program and the moon race called "The Man on the Moon." He has put together some of his favorite images from both the U.S. and the Russian programs, both manned and unmanned. The book is simply titled "Space." Andrew Chaikin joins us from Boston, his home town, to talk about his latest effort. Good to see you, Andy.
ANDREW CHAIKIN, AUTHOR: Good to see you too.
O'BRIEN: All right. Obviously, I've enjoyed the book. I've been talking about it all morning. I'm sure that makes you very happy. So, why don't you just go home now, because I've already plugged it. .
CHAIKIN: I was going to say, really.
O'BRIEN: Let's look at some pictures, shall we? Why don't we?
CHAIKIN: Let's go for it.
O'BRIEN: Here's what I liked about this book, as we look at a picture of the Mercury 7. Everybody has seen this picture. Look at the next picture.
CHAIKIN: And they look sort of like gladiators.
O'BRIEN: They do. It's very Tom Wolfean (ph), if that's a word. But this is the Soviet 6.
CHAIKIN: Right, and this is sort of like the big Super Bowl, this is the opposing team, and you can see second from the left is Alexei Leonov, who became the first man to walk in space, and right next to him, third from the left, is Yuri Gagarin, first man in space. And second from the right, of course, Valentina Tereshkova, first woman in space. So in the early stages of this Cold War space match, the Russians were winning all the games.
O'BRIEN: All right, now let's go on to talk about Yuri Gagarin briefly. Yuri Gagarin, who was -- he was just in his 20s, right, and he was selected...
CHAIKIN: He was 27 years old. He was a fighter pilot, and you know, was rocketed into space on April 12th of '61, and became an instant, you know, legend.
O'BRIEN: He's an icon in Russia to this day. I mean, he really is almost sainted in that secular society.
CHAIKIN: Absolutely.
O'BRIEN: But then I look at the first U.S. astronaut to go to space. A lot people on the street would tell you it was John Glenn to this day. You know, a lot of people aren't plugged in. It was Alan Shepard, of course.
CHAIKIN: I know, that used to rankle Shepard. But you know, he was very proud of the fact that out of all the original seven, he was picked to be the first American in space. And look at the calm face on this man as he is ready to be blasted into space.
O'BRIEN: To paraphrase him, you know, I'm cooler than you boys, why don't we just light this candle. Something to that effect.
CHAIKIN: Words to live by.
O'BRIEN: Yes. All right. Let's go to Alexei Leonov and the first spacewalk. What the people don't realize is he nearly bought the farm in this one. There was really no air lock on the spacecraft at the time. He just kind of squeezed his way out of a rubber bladder (ph).
CHAIKIN: No, there was an air lock, but it was inflatable.
O'BRIEN: That's it, yeah.
CHAIKIN: And it was very narrow, and his space suit -- I don't know if you can see. Look at his -- the figure of Leonov. He is very kind of stiff like the Michelin man.
O'BRIEN: Michelin man kind of look, yeah.
CHAIKIN: ... because his suit is so stiff from the pressure. And he could barely -- he almost didn't make it back in after he had been outside. But again, this was another Soviet first.
O'BRIEN: Another first, yeah. And he managed to live to tell about it.
Ed White, of course, who died later in the Apollo 1 fire tragically.
(CROSSTALK)
CHAIKIN: These are the pictures that hooked me on the space program when I was 9 years old in '65, on "Life" magazine. This is what did it to me. I mean, this was just so unbelievably cool.
O'BRIEN: This is the mission that hooked me. I remember being taken out of the class to go watch this launch, and then just really loving Ed White and what he accomplished. It was really a wonderful thing.
We've got to move on because (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
CHAIKIN: Yeah, let's go.
O'BRIEN: Moon rise -- excuse me, Moon race and Earth rise. This shot, perhaps one of the more widely produced shots.
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: Can you imagine being there to see that Earth rise?
CHAIKIN: I have imagined it many times, and of course, I've sat across from the photographer, Billy Andrews (ph), who took this picture.
O'BRIEN: Apollo 8, we're talking about.
CHAIKIN: This is the picture that gave us the 21st century perspective 40 years ahead of time. We saw the earth as it truly is.
O'BRIEN: All right, and let's go to Apollo 11. We were talking about the Saturn 5. This is a great shot. It gives you a real sense of -- you know, Michael Collins' book is called "Carrying the Fire." Michael Collins who was in the command module orbiting the moon during Apollo 11. That's carrying the fire to me, right there.
CHAIKIN: A mythic -- a mythic scene as this gigantic rocket heads toward space.
O'BRIEN: All right. And then, of course, Buzz on the moon. Right up there with the Earth. That's probably even more widely produced. I love looking at the glare shield on that one. You see Neil taking the picture.
CHAIKIN: That's right.
O'BRIEN: And then, of course, you see the leg of the LEM and you see the flag.
CHAIKIN: Miles, I don't need to be here for this interview. You know as much about these pictures as I do.
O'BRIEN: Just grab a cup of coffee and talk amongst yourselves. Here's what I like about this, Andy, you've got to tell me how you found this shot. OK -- there is Neil Armstrong and the LEM. This is a great shot. Talk about a blanketing grin. You know what I mean?
CHAIKIN: Well, he's obviously extremely happy that everything went so well, and it's the, you know, the first man to walk on the moon right there.
O'BRIEN: Yeah, yeah. Now, here's what's fascinating to me. We have all seen the footprint shot. That's kind of another one in the icon category. But check this out. This next shot is a plaque. Tell us about this plaque and who put it there. CHAIKIN: Yeah, this plaque was left two years later on the moon in July of '71 by Apollo 15 commander Dave Scott. And the plaque commemorates several cosmonauts and astronauts who had died in the line of duty, including the three astronauts of Apollo 1 who died in the fire. And next to the plaque, on the surface of the moon, you can see a little aluminum figure, which represents the fallen astronaut. He is resting on a series of little scoops made by Dave Scott in his space suit gloves. He kind of hollowed out a little piece of the soil and left these mementos for his fallen comrades.
O'BRIEN: I got to tell you, it kind of gives me goose bumps, and to think that that is just sitting there as we see it now, to this moment, and will be there for really conceivably until -- unless something hits the moon -- for a long time. There is Dave Scott.
CHAIKIN: And there is Dave Scott. And look at the beautiful surroundings of these later missions when they explored the mountains of the moon. Miles, I really feel that these pictures are -- yes, they are a document of extraordinary events, but they also stand up as pictures.
O'BRIEN: Yeah, I agree with you on that.
Let's go to the shuttle program. Space shuttle. This is Columbia coming in from its maiden voyage, April of 1981. A lot people don't realize as we look at a picture of John Young (ph) doing...
CHAIKIN: Actually, it was the second voyage.
O'BRIEN: That was the second?
CHAIKIN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Now, here is John Young (ph) in STS- 1, a legend already from having flown the first Gemini, having walked on the moon on Apollo 16, and NASA chose him to command the first flight of the shuttle. And he is happy to be in orbit.
O'BRIEN: And that was the first time, when Young (ph) and Crippin (ph) were strapped into that spacecraft, it was the first time that a man-spaced vehicle flew for the first time actually with people in it.
CHAIKIN: That's right, they always used to test them without people. And actually, the shuttle could have flown, if they designed it that way, without people, but they didn't want to do that. The Russians later did.
O'BRIEN: Interesting. Let's talk about that as we look at the quick shot of the Challenger in orbit on one of its earlier missions. That was I believe on the Sally Rodd (ph) mission.
CHAIKIN: That's right. There was a free-flying satellite called SPAZ (ph), that took this picture, and I just think it's a beautiful art shot. I mean, I love the pattern of the clouds below.
O'BRIEN: Wonderful. And then -- but let's look at this, and for a minute, folks will say, oh, there's the shuttle coming back. No.
CHAIKIN: This is the Russian shuttle.
O'BRIEN: This is Buran, snow storm, right?
CHAIKIN: That's right. And it was flown only once in space unmanned. So the Soviets designed their own shuttle very much like ours, but they ran out of money for that program very quickly, and the shuttle only flew once.
O'BRIEN: I'm told it landed in the 39-knot crosswind there at Baiconur, no problem. Unmanned.
CHAIKIN: You got me there.
O'BRIEN: I don't know. That's what they said. All right now, who knows, this might have been a bit of Russian embellishment.
(UNINTELLIGIBLE) in space, this is the manned maneuvering unit...
(CROSSTALK)
CHAIKIN: Now, this is science fiction come to life. I really feel that this like a 2001 shot. McAndlis (ph) is flying the first manned maneuvering unit, and he's hundreds of feet away from the shuttle. He is essentially a self-contained spacecraft, and you'd think he would be scared, he would be frightened, he'd be lonely. No, he was on top of the world, because he was doing something nobody had ever done before.
O'BRIEN: All right. Let's get into the space station there a little bit, and talk about Mir, the Mir era.
(CROSSTALK)
CHAIKIN: This is Salut 7, that's right. And before Mir, the Soviets had a very ambitious program of space stations, but they were sort of one-room stations. I mean, it was like living in a small house trailer for six months or eight months. Here you see a couple of the guys in Salut relaxing by playing a game of chess. The chess board is floating in zero gravity between them.
O'BRIEN: That's pretty neat. That's neat stuff when you see that. And then, of course, the Mir era -- we remember, of course, was -- there's Mir, and we remember it -- most people in the U.S. for some of the travails aboard Mir, despite its incredible record over 13 years or so.
CHAIKIN: That's right.
O'BRIEN: Look at this shot of Jerry Linninger (ph) right after the fire on board Mir. That's a great shot.
CHAIKIN: Yeah, he's wearing a respirator. And they not only had a fire on that flight, but they had coolant leaks, and you know, they were mopping up blobs of toxic coolant, and they had a collision on one of the later missions. But I tell you, Mir stands as a testament to what can be accomplished against adversity in space, and people who go to Mars are going to have to face those same kinds of problems.
O'BRIEN: All right. When you kind of put all these pictures in a pile, what do you walk away with?
CHAIKIN: To me, they tell a story of human ingenuity, human persistence. They have taken us beyond ourselves. They have shown us magnificent distance. And they invite us to keep exploring. I believe that this is the mission of human beings, to keep exploring.
O'BRIEN: All right. The book is "Space." The author is Andrew Chaikin. We didn't get to all of them, because I put post-it notes on just about every page. We apologize for that. But great to see you again, Andy, and good luck with the book, OK?
CHAIKIN: Thanks a lot, Miles, great to be here.
O'BRIEN: Take care.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
