Apollo 11 Moon Landing - “One Small Step…” – (July 20, 1969)

July 20, 2021

It was the finale to a decade of turbulence and upheaval, but this time it was an event through which a nation could put aside its differences and stand together to marvel at the achievement. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy had pledged that before the sixties were over, an American would walk on the moon.

The enormity of the mission aside, one question remained, how to get a television signal 240 thousand miles from the lunar surface onto televisions in living rooms around the globe. Robert Wussler, Walter Cronkite's producer, called it "the world's greatest single broadcast" in television history.

Broadcast audio licensed from CBS News

Contributors:

• Walter Cronkite, Former CBS anchor (Courtesy of the Television Academy Foundation Interviews. See the full interviews at TelevisionAcademy.com/Interviews.)
• Richard Nafzger, Former engineer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center responsible for getting the television signal from the lunar surface to Earth.
• Danny Epstein - Music director for NBC (Courtesy of the Television Academy Foundation Interviews. See the full interviews at TelevisionAcademy.com/Interviews.)
• James Wall, Former CBS Stage Manager (Courtesy of the Television Academy Foundation Interviews. See the full interviews at TelevisionAcademy.com/Interviews.)
• Mike Russo, Walter Cronkite’s desk assistant
• Joel Banow, Director of the Apollo 11 telecast for CBS News

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