NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Alan Binder, Principal Investigator of NASA's Lunar Prospector mission, part 4 of 4

Okay, okay, what kind of people are on your team, what kind of people are on your team and where are they coming from? Do you think this is a place for you? Well, the team we have of course is very small and if I just eliminate my discussion right now to the engineering staff that helps me run prospect, this is about a dozen people which is a very small group of course and most of them are quite young they're in their thirties, they're interested in doing this because it's extremely interesting to fly a mission. I will guarantee you that flying a spacecraft is one of those beautiful things to do. There is. I always say I have the best computer game there is and it's real. I firmly believe that we are on the verge of moving back to the moon and building a lunar base and starting

a lunar column and to me this is the future of mankind. This is where we're going to learn to live and work off the earth and this is how we learn them to go to Mars and elsewhere and it's an extremely exciting area. Most people remember we've had this 25 years of nothing but prospectors sort of open that door and there are a lot of young people now who are saying well maybe we can start studying the moon again and they would like to do it. I'm very pleased about that because the more people who want to do it the more pressure is applied or at least the more interest is demonstrated and you start doing these things again. So do you think these young men and women moving in are going to have a good, vibrant growing field ahead of them? I hope so. Let me put it that way. I mean clearly when I was young that's the way it was and it all fell apart and we're trying to reconstruct that now. I could sincerely hope so because exploring the universe is a phenomenal thing to do. It's exciting, it's beautiful, it's rewarding and it helps develop where we're supposed to go in my mind. It's the future of mankind. Last question. Not as a scientist or maybe

as a scientist but also as a man, as a guy. You know you had this vision and it was contrary to so much and you did it. You put that thing up there and it could blow up tomorrow and you've proved your point. How do you feel? How's it feel now? Well having prospected now and be successful but being spectacularly successful and being essentially a flawless mission and producing some of the best science data has ever been produced and is extremely gratifying. It's not that I told you so because this is much bigger than just the personal thing. I'm extremely pleased that I see this growing interest now in doing commercial exploration, getting man back to the moon. So I feel that the years that I spend and I have to say right now you know there's a lot of people who were my volunteers who of course are left in Houston who are not part of this. I still go back, we have dinners and you know emotionally they're a part of this too and they appreciate that in the sense that the work they did was not

in vain. It's extremely gratifying to have accomplished this and if this was the last thing I did I would be happy. I don't want it to be the last thing but this is a crowning achievement. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. My pleasure. Yeah, bro. We have to only make

completely quiet for 30 seconds or so. I'm going to run my camera when you're roped home. Thank you.