Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Apollo 13 Flight Controller to Speak at Pearland Library


The Pearland Library, a branch of the Brazoria County Library System, will host Sy Liebergot, Apollo 13 flight controller, at 7 p.m. on September 18 in the branch’s meeting room. Liebergot will talk about the Apollo 13 mission, during which an oxygen tank in the service module exploded while he was at one of the consoles in Mission Control. His autobiography, “Apollo EECOM: Journey of a Lifetime,” will be available for purchase, and refreshments will be served by the Pearland Community Friends of the Library

Liebergot will give a presentation called “Apollo 13: The Longest Hour.” It is non-technical and intended for the general public. It lasts about one hour, and it is accompanied by slides, audio, and video. Liebergot will speak about what it was like to be an EECOM (Electrical, Environmental and Consumables) flight controller in Mission Control when the cryogenic oxygen storage tank exploded. At first the multiple failures flashing across his screens seemed far too overwhelming to be anything but instrumentation failure. The spacecraft and its crew, 200,000 miles from Earth and hurtling in the wrong direction, had less than three hours of life left in the command and service modules.

Liebergot has an interest in space knowledge preservation, and he is the only Apollo era flight controller regularly speaking to the public. The final Apollo moon mission celebrates its 40th anniversary in December. Liebergot’s professional career spans the entire Apollo lunar program, the Skylab missions, the Apollo-Soyuz project, the early space shuttle flights, and the International Space Station program.

Liebergot has lectured about his experiences extensively. Among his appearances in 2012, he was the Engineering and Science Day keynote speaker at Louisiana Tech University in April. He was interviewed by Japan’s NHK in July. He will appear at the Museum of Flight in Seattle later in September, and he will be a celebrity lecturer on the Crystal Cruise ship “Serenity” in November while it sails from Lisbon, Portugal, to Barcelona, Spain. In the past, he has spoken at many venues, including Utah State University, the London Science Museum, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has also appeared in the PBS documentary “Apollo 13, To the Edge and Back,” and he served as the on-camera host for the documentary “In the Shadow of the Moon” produced by the CBS affiliate in Austin.

A feature film portraying many of the events Liebergot will discuss will be shown in the meeting room at 2 p.m. on September 22. In this film, which stars Tom Hanks, Sy Liebergot is played by Clint Howard. Liebergot also served as an advisor to the film. 

The Pearland Library is located at 3522 Liberty Drive in Pearland. For more information, contact the branch at 281-652-1677.
 

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