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We Choose To Go To The Moon On PBS With John Monsky · Arroe Collins Like It's Live

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  Speaker 1: Hey, there's a podcast network I would love for you
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: to check out, arrow.net, A-R-R-O-E.net. Not just a podcast, but
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: it's 21 different choices. One of the most popular ones
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: is The Daily Mess. Putting ourselves right here in this
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: present place of right now. Now the question is, how
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: do you stay and how do you grow beyond this
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: moment of now without looking over your shoulder? Pretty heavy stuff, right? Oh,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: when you're driving in the car, it'll sink right in
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: and put you in the right place at the right time.
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  Speaker 1: The Daily Mess on Arrow.net, A-R-R-O-E.net. Enjoy your exploration.
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  Speaker 2: Hi there, Arrow. Hey, good morning.
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  Speaker 1: How are you doing today?
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  Speaker 2: Great to talk to you.
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  Speaker 1: Dude, I got to tell you something. You are rocking
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  Speaker 1: so many memories when it comes to We Choose to
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  Speaker 1: Go to the Moon. And the reason why is because
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  Speaker 1: I was that kid in Montana that would tip over
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  Speaker 1: the doghouse, and that was my space capsule. I went
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  Speaker 1: to the moon in that doghouse. I'm telling you that
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  Speaker 1: right now. And you take me back on this PBS special.
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  Speaker 1: I'm just so grateful that you're doing this.
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  Speaker 2: It's a thrill to do it, and.
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  Speaker 3: Your story is a story I keep hearing over and over.
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  Speaker 3: Not too many people went to the moon in their doghouse,
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  Speaker 3: but the mercury capsule was about that size.
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  Speaker 2: So, you know, but over and over, I hear the story.
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  Speaker 3: And we capture some of that in the show, you know, 400,000
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  Speaker 3: Americans working on it.
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  Speaker 2: There's that great line where... And the lady says to
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  Speaker 2: Neil Armstrong, I built your radio.
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  Speaker 3: Nothing else may work on that capsule, but I admit
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  Speaker 3: that radio will work.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, everybody cared.
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  Speaker 1: Is it wrong for me to want to share a
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  Speaker 1: tear like I did when I saw Neil Armstrong's son
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  Speaker 1: and granddaughter? I mean, it's like a full circle moment
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  Speaker 1: for me because it's like, oh, my God, this is
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  Speaker 1: so real. And you do make this journey real. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: That was, there were a couple of, there were many
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  Speaker 3: moments in the show where.
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  Speaker 2: I was less worried about the audience.
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  Speaker 3: Our professional performers like Taylor Louderman, who plays Poppy Northcutt,
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  Speaker 3: the first woman in Mission Control, 25 years old. When
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  Speaker 3: Poppy stands up in the audience at the end of
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  Speaker 3: the show, tears are rolling down her cheeks. And then
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  Speaker 3: the other actors start crying. The tears start rolling. So
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  Speaker 3: there's an emotional impact. We could not even anticipate when
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  Speaker 3: we rolled the script. But that moment with Mark and
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  Speaker 3: his daughter, Neil's granddaughter, we were all breathless.
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  Speaker 2: The performers, not just the audience.
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  Speaker 1: You know, one of the greatest things about this, when
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  Speaker 1: you included the 45-piece orchestra with this, in my heart
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  Speaker 1: I went, but of course, because when they're in space,
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  Speaker 1: there's music all the time. So therefore, I wanted exactly
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  Speaker 1: the way that you presented this, because that's the way
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  Speaker 1: I envisioned being on that space capsule.
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  Speaker 2: And it was there.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, they carried a cassette player, but when they
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  Speaker 3: do Apollo 8 and were able to do 2001 Space Odyssey, Sprock, Saracusta,
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  Speaker 3: with an orchestra, it's like The pictures and Bill Anders
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  Speaker 3: talking about that experience.
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  Speaker 2: It's hard to recreate. Carnegie Hall was such a beautiful
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  Speaker 2: space to do this in.
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  Speaker 3: And I like to say we're... Telling the history, but
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  Speaker 3: making history at the same time.
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  Speaker 2: Well, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And then you also include Artemis as well, Artemis 2.
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  Speaker 1: And I mean, we just learned something new about it,
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  Speaker 1: how it went beyond the moon. I can't imagine what
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  Speaker 1: you'll say 35, 50 years from now when it comes
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  Speaker 1: to where we are in space. And we go back
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  Speaker 1: to shows like this going, that's where it began. That's
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  Speaker 1: what we embraced as fans of this and as Americans.
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  Speaker 2: Well, you can't. make this stuff up.
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  Speaker 3: And that's why I say, you know, history happening while
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  Speaker 3: we're telling this history, we're standing on stage that one night, two.
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  Speaker 2: Years to put this production together.
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  Speaker 3: And we're standing on stage and Artemis is looping around
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  Speaker 3: the moon.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, who could figure it?
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  Speaker 1: To make those photographs on that stage so lifelike. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: it's one of those things where I know what I
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  Speaker 1: felt on the flat screen TV, but to be there
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  Speaker 1: at Carnegie Hall to see it so lifelike, what was
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  Speaker 1: it like for you personally?
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  Speaker 2: It was.
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  Speaker 3: Very, very emotional and sometimes terrifying in this sense. When
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  Speaker 3: those six performers do the landings, And you see on
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  Speaker 3: the screen and in Carnegie Hall, the blinking.
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  Speaker 2: Light, low fuel, low fuel, low fuel.
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  Speaker 3: And you hear them talking through the landing. It's so
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  Speaker 3: different than reading it in a book.
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  Speaker 2: And even in.
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  Speaker 3: Rehearsal, I was gripping my seat. And Armstrong put that
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  Speaker 3: down with 17 seconds of fuel left. He had to
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  Speaker 3: go over a crater in a boulder field they never expected. And,
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  Speaker 3: you know, you couldn't you couldn't make this up. You
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  Speaker 3: couldn't forget the Netflix series. There's no drama like this.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Please don't move.
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  Speaker 1: We'll be back with John Monsky coming up next. It's
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  Speaker 1: on PBS. It's called We Choose to Go to the Moon.
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  Speaker 1: We are back with John Monsky. there's something about the
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  Speaker 1: pause and the way that they that that you can't
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  Speaker 1: race through this you can't hit fast forward and the
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  Speaker 1: thing is is that you if you experience that then
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  Speaker 1: you yourself as a person with on earth you were
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  Speaker 1: in space because that pause was so.
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  Speaker 3: Important every second counted in these uh missions and uh
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  Speaker 3: You know, I think the hardest moment in the show,
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  Speaker 3: there were a number of hard moments, but was the
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  Speaker 3: Apollo 1 fire. And we tell that story not from
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  Speaker 3: Cape Canaveral, although... We hear how it starts and all that.
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  Speaker 3: But from Houston, where you hear each of the astronauts'
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  Speaker 3: wives recounting what happened five, six o'clock in the evening,
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  Speaker 3: knock on the door, first some of the astronauts' wives,
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  Speaker 3: then people from NASA, and they recall what happened and
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  Speaker 3: how they had to go back and tell their kids
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  Speaker 3: about And the performers, Liz Gillies and Joy Woods and
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  Speaker 3: Taylor Louderman do that so well. And then we stop
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  Speaker 3: and the families of the Apollo 1 fire are there.
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  Speaker 3: And we drop the burial flags of Grisham, White and
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  Speaker 3: Chaffee from the balcony and you hear sounds of silence.
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  Speaker 2: It's hard. It's hard to....
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  Speaker 3: Sort of relive that and what was remarkable I always
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  Speaker 3: say we're sort of making history while telling history is
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  Speaker 3: that crew was never together after the fire two of
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  Speaker 3: them were buried at West Point I mean one at
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  Speaker 3: West Point two at Arlington so this was the first
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  Speaker 3: time through their flags that we brought that crew back
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  Speaker 3: together probably the last time because the flags have gone
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  Speaker 3: back to their families they were there for just this
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  Speaker 3: one night but when you watch that And when I
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  Speaker 3: heard sounds of silence on the stage and watched those
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  Speaker 3: flags drop from the balcony.
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  Speaker 2: I.
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  Speaker 3: Was lucky that we had reached the second act and
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  Speaker 3: it was time.
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  Speaker 2: For an intermission.
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  Speaker 1: Where can people go to find this? I know where
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  Speaker 1: PBS is on my flat screen TV, but there's always
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: going to be people across this country that goes, I
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  Speaker 1: don't know where to go. And so where can they
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  Speaker 1: go to find out more about We Choose to Go
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  Speaker 1: to the Moon?
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  Speaker 3: So the exciting thing is you don't have to figure
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  Speaker 3: anything out. Just turn on your TV, 8 p.m. November 10th, Eastern,
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  Speaker 3: 7 p.m.
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  Speaker 2: Central, right on PBS. Just flick it on.
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  Speaker 3: But you can watch it afterwards on PBS, PBS app, PBS.org.
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  Speaker 3: Check your local listings. It will be played multiple times
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  Speaker 3: honoring PBS. A lot of these astronauts that were veterans
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  Speaker 3: on the 10th Veterans Day. And I encourage you to
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  Speaker 3: watch it with your family. Yes. Because it's a story
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  Speaker 3: about family persevering and families sacrificing. And a dialogue happens
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  Speaker 3: afterwards that's meaningful.
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  Speaker 1: You have got to come back to this show anytime
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  Speaker 1: in the future. I've been blessed with the opportunity to
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  Speaker 1: talk to a lot of astronauts over the years. And
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  Speaker 1: I'm telling you, I love the energy and the spark
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  Speaker 1: of just, it's out there. Let's go get it. But
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  Speaker 1: they never say, I'm going to go get it. It's always,
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  Speaker 1: let us all go get it. That's what I love
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  Speaker 1: about astronauts.
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  Speaker 3: This moment is that you just said, I love iHeartRadio.
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  Speaker 2: And thank you for having me.
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  Speaker 3: But the moment you just said that, To me, it
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  Speaker 3: was one of the seminal moments in the show because
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  Speaker 3: you see Neil Armstrong is buried at sea. He said,
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  Speaker 3: no monument, no parade, no TV coverage.
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  Speaker 2: Why?
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  Speaker 3: Because it was never about him. He didn't want it
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  Speaker 3: to be about him. It was about the mission. It
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  Speaker 3: was about the country. And it was about all the people, 400,000 Americans.
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  Speaker 3: It was about us.
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  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
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  Speaker 1: You be brilliant today, and thank you so much for
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  Speaker 1: sharing this with us. I just love where your heart
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  Speaker 1: is and where we're growing into a brand new tomorrow.
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  Speaker 3: Thank you, and thanks for bringing this story, letting people
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  Speaker 3: know about this story.
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  Speaker 2: November 10th, 8 p.m. Eastern, 7 p.m. Central. PBS.