NASA Television has been awarded a primetime Emmy award for
engineering excellence, in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the
technological innovations that led to the first broadcast from the moon by Apollo
11 astronauts on July 20, 1969.
"I congratulate the many NASA staffers who are being
recognized by the academy with this award for contributions to television
engineering excellence," said NASA chief Charles Bolden. "From the
first landing of man on
the moon in 1969 to today's high definition broadcasts of America's ongoing
space exploration initiatives, television has been a powerful communications
tool that enables the agency to share its achievements in exploration and
discovery with the world."
The 2009 Philo T. Farnsworth Award, named after the man
credited with designing and building the world's first working television
system, honors an agency, company or institution with contributions over a long
period of time that have significantly affected the state of television technology
and engineering.
Farnsworth and his wife Elma, whom he called 'Pem,' watched
that first
broadcast from the moon as astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin
touched down on the lunar surface.
"We were watching it and when Neil Armstrong landed on
the moon Phil turned to me and said, 'Pem, this has made it all worthwhile,'"
Elma Farnsworth said in a 1996 interview. "Before then, he wasn't too sure."
The Emmy will be presented to NASA during a ceremony on
Saturday at the Renaissance Hotel in Los Angeles.
Richard Nafzger, an engineer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., will accept the award along with Apollo 11 Lunar Module
Pilot and moonwalker
Buzz Aldrin on behalf of NASA. Nafzger was 28 years old when he worked with
the team that brought television from the moon to a world-wide audience
estimated at more than 600 million people.
"I am honored to have been selected to accept this
award on behalf of NASA and the hundreds of engineers and technicians who made
the telecast of this historic event possible," Nafzger said.
This is NASA Television's second Emmy Award for 2009. In
January, the Midsouth Chapter of the National Television Academy awarded NASA
TV the Governor's Award for Lifetime Achievement at a ceremony in Nashville, Tenn.
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