Uploaded April 2008 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
In this pre-lecture Q&A Dr. Harrison 'Jack' Schmitt shares his thoughts on the future of space travel, what his family thought of his profession as an astronaut, and his experiences from Apollo 17.
Return to the Moon: What it was like and will be like!
-Dr. Harrison 'Jack' Schmitt
A view of Apollo 17 in the context of what is left to learn and accomplish on the Moon with an eye to science, settlement, and providing energy for the Earth.
At the Space Center Lecture Series on March 13,2008 Dr. Schmitt shared his experience with the Apollo 17 mission, lunar resource utilization, and his thoughts on the future of lunar science and exploration. The Apollo 17 mission was the last of the great campaigns to the moon and included the longest lunar surface interval of any mission in history. Don't miss Jack's exciting tales of past lunar exploration and future plans to Return to the Moon.
The Space Center Lecture Series was co-founded and is co-hosted by Dr. Benjamin Longmier and Mr. Gary Kitmacher.
For t-shirts, donations, photos, and downloadable video and lecture slides please visit:
SpaceCenterLectureSeries.com
In this pre-lecture Q&A Dr. Harrison 'Jack' Schmitt shares his thoughts on the future of space travel, what his family thought of his profession as an astronaut, and his experiences from Apollo 17.
Return to the Moon: What it was like and will be like!
-Dr. Harrison 'Jack' Schmitt
A view of Apollo 17 in the context of what is left to learn and accomplish on the Moon with an eye to science, settlement, and providing energy for the Earth.
At the Space Center Lecture Series on March 13,2008 Dr. Schmitt shared his experience with the Apollo 17 mission, lunar resource utilization, and his thoughts on the future of lunar science and exploration. The Apollo 17 mission was the last of the great campaigns to the moon and included the longest lunar surface interval of any mission in history. Don't miss Jack's exciting tales of past lunar exploration and future plans to Return to the Moon.
The Space Center Lecture Series was co-founded and is co-hosted by Dr. Benjamin Longmier and Mr. Gary Kitmacher.
For t-shirts, donations, photos, and downloadable video and lecture slides please visit:
SpaceCenterLectureSeries.com
![Update: Russian Space Program, James Oberg [HD]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/xAa_o79_XUU/mqdefault.jpg "Update: Russian Space Program, James Oberg [HD]
Space Center Lecture Series
www.SpaceCenterLectureSeries.com
Update: Russian Space Program
James Oberg
Mar 25, 2010
Houston, TX
Not long ago Jim Oberg had the unique opportunity to visit a top secret Russian military base where a converted military missile was used to orbit the Genesis-2 inflatable habitat prototype for Bigelow Aerospace. He describes his experiences at the southwestern Siberian base called Yasniy (known to the CIA as the Dombarovskiy ICBM base) watching a Dnepr launch vehicle blast off from an underground silo normally used for nuclear-armed Satan ICBMs, and also nosing around to see what else he could see without getting shot at.
James Oberg, 63, is one of the worlds leading popularizers and interpreters of space exploration. As the NBC News Space Consultant he often appears in broadcast and website assessments of space events, explaining them and placing them in broader context, and usual breaking inside stories far ahead of other news media sites. As guide for public-access expeditions to space-related locations for the American Museum of Natural History, he interprets space achievements as manifestations of human ingenuity and creativity, painted on metal and concrete and plastic rather than the more traditional canvas and marble and textiles. As contributor to numerous space technology publications he assesses in depth the important accomplishments and trends of developments in space activities around the world, not only in the US but in Russia and China and elsewhere.
When he was an active rocket scientist, Oberg had a 22-year career as a space engineer in Houston, where he specialized in NASA space shuttle operations for orbital rendezvous, as a contractor employee. He was a NASA Trainee at Northwestern University in 1966-9, and worked at the Johnson Space Center in Houston 1975-1997. In support of NASAs spaceflight operations he has written books on Rendezvous Flight Procedures, on Mission Control Center console operations, and on the history of orbital rendezvous. In honor of his pioneering work on developing and documenting these space shuttle rendezvous techniques, he was named by the NASA-Area Association of Technical Societies as their 1984 Technical Person of the Year. In 1997 he received the Sustained Superior Performance award for coordinating the design of the complex first Space Station assembly mission.
He has written ten books and more than a thousand magazine and newspaper articles on all aspects of space flight. Among these books are: Red Star in Orbit, generally considered the best inside portrait of the history of Soviet space activities through 1981; New Earths, the worlds first non-fiction treatment of the far-out futuristic topic of terraforming or planetary engineering; Pioneering Space (with his wife as co-author), a broad and insightful view of the human side of the spaceflight experience; The New Race for Space, which described the development and prospects for closer US/Russian space flight cooperation; and Uncovering Soviet Disasters, a penetrating analysis of secrecy and technological shortcomings in the former USSR which received wide praise around the world and even in post-glasnost Moscow. His 1999 book, Space Power Theory, commissioned by the US Space Command, described how the United States has achieved space superiority and how it can exploit and maintain it into the next century. He also contributes key articles on space topics to several leading encyclopedias and annual reference books. His latest book, Star-Crossed Orbits: Inside the US/Russian Space Alliance, described the development of the International Space Station and the actual role the Russians played in making it possible, in somewhat less flattering terms than official NASA histories.")
