After several delays, the space shuttle Endeavour blasted into space Monday on its final mission, the second-to-last of NASA’s shuttle program. On Thursday, May 19 at 6 a.m., Google, YouTube and the PBS NEWSHOUR will take the public aboard the orbiting Endeavour for an exclusive LIVE interview with Commander Mark Kelly and the crew of the shuttle and the International Space Station.
NewsHour science correspondent Miles O’Brien will host the live interview, but the questions will come from the public — submitted via YouTube, Twitter and Google’s Moderator service.
To date, 2,254 people have submitted 1,839 questions and cast 13,421 votes. The questions that received the most votes will be among those posed to the crew as they orbit the earth at 17,500 mph.
Injured Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, wife of Commander Kelly, was among hundreds of thousands who watched the launch live in Cape Canaveral, Florida. An additional 85,487 watched the launch live via the PBS NEWSHOUR, YouTube, Google live stream.
The exclusive live interview comes as NASA’s Shuttle program is coming to a close. Miles O’Brien has extensive experience covering the space program and has attended nearly 40 space launches. His coverage of the space program, including the final launch of the space shuttle Discovery, is available on the PBS NEWSHOUR Science Page.
The interview will be broadcast LIVE on NewsHour.PBS.org and on the NewsHour’s YouTube channel. A portion of the interview will air later on the NewsHour broadcast. *Since the interview is tied to the schedule of the space shuttle, the time and date of the interview are subject to change.
The interview marks the second time PBS NEWSHOUR has teamed up with Google and You Tube to offer the public direct access to top newsmakers. During the height of the Gulf oil spill crisis, in “America Speaks to BP,” the public was taken inside BP’s Houston headquarters and given the opportunity to ask Bob Dudley, the BP executive in charge of the cleanup, their questions about the spill and to offer suggestions for cleaning up the oil in an exclusive hour-long interview moderated by NEWSHOUR senior correspondent Ray Suarez.
PBS NEWSHOUR is seen five nights a week on more than 315 PBS stations across the country and is also available online, via public radio in select markets and via podcast. The program is produced by MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, in association with WETA Washington, DC, and THIRTEEN in New York. Major corporate funding for The NewsHour is provided by Chevron, BNSF Railway, Pacific Life, and Intel, with additional support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and public television viewers.
