xxxpx. good evening from los angeles. tonight as we get ready to celebrate this country's 238th birthday, we'll begin with a conversation with one of america's heroes, astronaut buzz aldrin. he made the apollo 11 moon landing in 1969. aldrin is also the author of eight books, including his latest "mission to mars, my vision for space exploration." then we'll turn to a conversation with chaz ebert, whose late husband roger ebert, was one of the country's most respect and beloved movie critics. he is the subject of a new documentary called "life itself," which opens tomorrow. we're glad you can join us. those conversations coming up right now. ♪

>> by contribution to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. in all of human history only 12 men had walked on the moon, including buzz aldrin, who made his momentous stroll right after neil armstrong july 20, 1969. the historic landing 45 years ago was watched by some 600

million people around the globe. he is also designed rendezvous to the gemini and has written some eight texts now, lug his latest, mission to mars, my vision of space station exploration." i am always honored to have him on this program, buzz aldrin. ser, good to see you again. >> thank you. great to be back with you. >> great to have you on again. let me jump right in. i want you to make the case in the time that i have tonight why a mission to mars? >> well, american greatness was elevated significantly after sputnik. i have been asking myself why didn't we do that? why did we have to catch up? i've been putting together a foundation to look at space

policy, how it has evolved so we can maybe uncover some of the good things we did and some that are not so good. the shape that we're in right now is not good at all, and you can't blame it all on a half a percent. the budget, that hasn't helped. >> why do you think mars is the place we ought to be shooting for? why mars? >> mars is so much more like the earth. if it's over 24 hours. the slant of the poles in rotation is pretty close, 24, 23 degrees. that's close. it has seasons. it certainly has ice at the polls. it's pretty well established that underneath a certain amount

of dust, there's maybe a frozen ocean. it's probably wrong, but i have always been looking for why and how can we learn more and do things better. i feel very proud of having had some innovation occasionally, taking my fighter pilot experience about how we get in a perfect approach curve. if the -- that i threw at the last mission is trying to catch the target, the gena around the earth, that's not that much different from the earth catching up with mars going around the sun. the rendezvous aspects led me to come up with something in 1985

that, to my knowledge and that's quite a while ago, nobody else thought of. why don't we let the earth slide by mars and then come back to the earth and then keep doing that? cycling back and forth. that's fundamental and has been improved on by purdue university, and that's another one of my stamps of innovation on what we can do in the future. >> so getting to the moon isn't a piece of cake. it's easier now than it was back in the day. >> well, that's -- >> that's not a piece of cake, but mars, that's 150 times farther. >> that's a good number. that's a good number. >> a long ways. >> what's important is when we left, every mission -- that includes 24 human beings, some went more than once. 24 people in nine launches in saturn went to the moon, and we

went on a free return trajectory, which meant if there was something wrong after the rocket got -- put us on course, we would swing around the monday and come back to the earth. the propulsion system had a redid you understar redundancy in it. those things don't exist if you go to mars. there's no free return. and another one of my innovative thoughts, of course, when you have something cycling around the earth and you're going to launch, and catch up with it, that's called a hyperbolic rendezvous. it's a little more difficult because it has to be on time, and then about five months later you're going to swing by mars and the -- they're going to enter the atmosphere and make a landing. how do you protect against a

propulsion failure? it's like a war time pilot. if you have a target, you send one bomber there. it will get shot down. if you send two fighters there, one of them is going to get through. you can have a dual launch, and instead of -- in formation, you bolt them together, nobody started that before. tell me why you think that congress -- given what's happening with nasa now would possess the kind of money it would take to get us to mars in the first place. a lot of people don't think that's a political will is there to invest in a mission to mars. >> well, it probably isn't right now because the world, the country, especially our country right now is focused on what's in it for me right now. short-term objectives. we've got political influences that have a lot to do with where that money is spent, and on what

is it spent? what does that mean to you? >> old stufr. >> exactly. those are my words. old stuff. >> right. >> but it keeps people in the same jobs, and it keeps the politicians re-elected. loo why not let private industry do this? there are a lot of people in private business who -- why should this at this point a mission to mars be a government project and not a -- >> well, i agree, and most people do who have been around the space program and many other programs that private industry

with less expensive and more innovative ways of accomplishing things. >> what do you think? >> i'm amazed a little blonde-haired kid. my father was a pioneer in aviation, and he knew the right people. somehow. it just got into my blood. i was disqualified because i hadn't gone through test pilot training. i didn't really want to be the best stick and rutter person. i shot down two airplanes in korea. i wasn't a slouch. i just didn't want my future to be in aviation. i wanted it to be in space

activities. that's where i continued to pursue and finally the door swung open. buzz walked in the door. things have been happening that have been very fortunate to buzz whose mother's maiden name was marianne moon. >> marianne moon. >> i department know that. you learn something every day around here. how cool is that? >> well -- >> mother named marianne moon, and you end up -- >> how cool is having a name buzz? >> his name is buzz aldrin. his latest text is called "mission to mars, my vision for space exploration," and that is the big question. will we ever get to mars, and glad to have you on. thanks, sir. a conversation with chaz ebert on the documentary of her

late husband, roger ebert. stay with us. for anyone who loves movies, a thumbs up from roger ebert was the holy fwral. he championed the best of small independent films to major studio blockbusters. his remarkable life, including his battle with terminal cancer, is chronicleed in a new documentary titled "life itself." the film is spearheaded by chaz ebert, president of the ebert company, who also heads up the ebert foundation. we'll look at a scene from the documentary "life itself" which opens tomorrow. >> chaz was probably more life-although altering for him than his tv show. she really liked mihm for what he was and not who he was. >> she changed his life immeasurably. she changed his personality. hey, i was eight months pregnant, and roger grabbed the cab in front of me in new york.

he is not that kind of guy now. i think gene was so happy that roger found his mate. >> he was 50 years old when we got married. he used to tell me i waited just about all my life to find you, and i'm glad i did. i'm never going to let you go. >> i have to tell you a funny story when i ran into roger -- roger was a guest on the show a number of times, and i ran into hem once. years before he was a guest on the program. i don't know what made me say this, but i walked up to roger ebert, and i said to him -- i told him how much i respect his work and how much i really appreciate his pushing and being a champion for small film. i said to him i knew i really liked you when i discovered you were married to a sister. he laughed. i said who knew that roger ebert? are you watch this guy with the thumbs up and thumbs down? you married to a sister, man?

we got -- he laughed, and we had a great conversation about that. this is the sister that roger ebert was married to. how did this happen? >> how did it happen? >> you and roger, how did you all connect? >> well, we were -- we met at a restaurant. previous to meeting at a restaurant, he had seen me at an aa meeting, and he had taken -- it was an open meeting that's open to whether you are an alcoholic or not an alcoholic, and so ann landers who was a friend of his wanted to take him to the meeting so that she could update her. she used to write something called "20 questions about alcohol," and so she wanted to update it, and she wanted to visit a meeting and ask roger to take her. he said he saw me at the meeting, and later that nooim night we were at a restaurant, and i was sitting with people that he knew, and he said he was a little shy -- not always shy. >> can't imagine roger ever

being shy. >> he asked john eppy to come over to the table and introduce us. that's how it started. >> what do you make -- i don't want to make too much of it, but you got a lot of years to think about this. is there any significance, anything to think about the fact that you and roger ebert met at an aa meeting? is there anything there? >> well, let me answer the question this way. i think that there was some sort of divine intervention to our meeting, period. to our lives together because it's not -- there are so many things that are -- so many synchronicities. the fact that i'm even sitting here talking to you about him, i was much more private than that. i would have never envisioned that i would lose a husband and be talking about him private --

i mean publicly, you know, more than a year after he died. there are so many things -- so many things. i wish i could enumerate some of them for you, but there's something. >> that's the purpose of a documentary. it tells that for you. it tells the story about roger and about you and about his work and about his life and legacy. what do you hope the take-away is from the documentary "life itself?" >> what i hope the take-away is -- this may not be the take-away, but what i hope the take-away is for anything when we talk about roger's leg as where i is he is such a beautiful writer, but i think that his philosophy on life, on empathy, on walking in another person's shoes, on -- a different gender, different circumstances, different economic situation, had an empathy.

being your brother's keeper, your sister's sister is -- that's what i hope. i mean, things like that are really the things i think are most important. >> what in his back story made him that way? >> you know, i have been trying to figure that out, and i don't know. i don't know what made him that way. i think he was born that way really because even there's something in a scene in "life itself" where ronler is the head of the daily illini newspaper in college. at the time that those four young girls were killed in a bombing in birmingham, and what he says about that, what he had the presence of mind to say as this young guy i was overwhelmed. i had never seen it. the first time i saw it was in the miss, and he talked about the blood on our hands for those

bombings and i just think he was just born that way. >> we got to do a little digging. i'm not sure -- i'm not sure that any of us is born that way. i think we live in a world where especially -- roger is of a different ear wra. i think we live in a world where empathy doesn't just happen to people. what i have discovered is there's usually an experience, something in their childhood, something they went through, something they were exposed to, something happens that allows people to have that -- helps develop. at best we have sympathy for other people. >> you are right. >> empathy for other people is another thing. i have to dig a little deeper and see what you think caused that. >> i have to tell you something, tavis. roger and i used to watch your show. >> i appreciate it. i loved having him on. >> no, we loved it because you don't let people just say, okay, he was born that way and let it go. you dig deeper. >> i didn't mean to push back on you like that. >> no, no, no. i'm glad you did. you're right.

there is more of an answer to that. >> he was such a brilliant critic. he had this empathy for characters. he was -- it's the humanity and the characters that he celebrated. different societial issues and tough subject matter. there was an empathy, a connection to the humanity in those characters that came to life when roger had these conversations. i am always curious as to how that develops in people. you mentioned that you didn't see a particular scene until you went to the premier. i happen to know you didn't see none of the scenes until you went to the premier because i'm told from my research that you didn't want to -- you didn't want to see it until it was time to see it. what were you afraid or avoiding, maybe afraid? why did you not want to see it? >> i wanted to wait. you know why? i wanted to have a roger

experience of seeing it at sundance for the first time with this audience who all, you know, love independent films, and i just -- i don't know. maybe that was a crazy idea. as it turns out, because i had my family with me and we were crying and the audience was crying, and, you know, we were laughing and it was just such a wonderful movie that i wanted to experience this the way that roger and i experienced many other movies at sundance. i wanted to see it at the movies. >> that makes perfect sense. what did you learn about yourself, chaz, going through the cancer ordeal that went on for so long with roger? he was such a fighter against this disease, this illness. >> awhat do you feel about roger during this period? what did you learn about chaz during this period? >> oh, wrau. don't ask the questions that make me cry. >> you know what, just in case.

>> okay. all right. all right. >> there you go. >> what i learned, number one, is how deeply we loved each other, and i knew we loved each other. i didn't know. when you go through something like that, i never fell anyone that -- for some people that situation is too much, it's too intense. taking care of someone that sick for that long i never regretted one day of it, and i just learned that i loved him so much, but i wanted to, number one -- i didn't want to lose him, and i also didn't -- i wanted to get him a life that he was happy living. even with all the challenges that he would have after his surgeries, and i think that we were successful on both counts. i also learned that i was stronger than i thought i was.

i thought that he was tough as mails. he was tough as nails. he was a fighter, and the optimist that i thought i was marrying, i found that -- confirmed that. that's what we liked about each other. that we were both optimists. he remained an optimist, but he was also a realist. at the end when he knew it was time for him to go, he said you must let me go. you must let me go. my time here on this earth is over, and, um, so i actually learned a lot. i also learned that you can't do it alone. that family and friends and your faith really, really are important. >> i happened to be in chicago the day that roger ebert passed. fwroo no. >> i was actually in the city that day. >> oh. >> and making the rounds on this book tour that i was on. everywhere i went that day people in the greenrooms, the producers would ask me do you

have a story about roger ebert? we would like you to say something about roger. the story in chicago and around the country for that matter. everybody talked about roger ebert that day. i was asked any number of questions about roger ebert, and i go back to your comment about how tough as nails he was, and i say it in some iterations that he was a tough and courageous fighter, and that didn't surprise me because he seemed to be the quintessential example of a guy who knew that to be able to dish it, he had to be able to take it. >> right. >> you -- it made perfects sense. you can't be a movie critic. who are you to give my project a thumbs down? you can't -- you can't be a movie critic and dish it out all the time and not be able to take it. i celebrated the fact that when it came his -- with his moment of truth came, he was who i

thought he was. he was who i thought he was. he was able to dish it, but he fought, again, so valiantly. >> you're right. >> it made perfect sense to me. >> you are a man of good taste and brilliance. there are some people who are thin-skinned, and there are also critics, and they can't take it, but he certainly could. he certainly -- his doctors said that roger was probably one of the toughest patients he ever had, so i think also because roger, he loved life so much. he was so curious about what was going to happen the next day. what were the newspapers going to say the next day? what book was he going to read? he loved our grandchildren. we loved our family life together. he just -- you know, he still kind of -- >> the ebert fest, does it

continue some. >> the ebert fest continues. we had the 16th annual roger ebert film festival just -- we had spike lee doing "do the right thing" the 25th anniversary of that. we had alver stone there with the 25th an verse have i of "born on the fourth of july." lots of other filmmakers. s yes, it's going strong. >> a person involved with this project is martin scorsese. there's a wonderful story in this project about what your husband roger ebert did for martin scorsese. you have to see it. it's a wonderful project. scorsese -- in fact, most people in this business have up and down periods, and in his down periods, these are scorsese words, i'm paraphrasing, if his down period roger ebert was involved in a project that really focused a whole new light on scorsese's project, his work writ large, and scorsese gives roger ebert a lot of credit in helping to give him the bounce back he needed in his own

career, and that's -- those are big words coming from a guy like martin scorsese. for more of my conversation with chaz, here is the website at pbs.org/tavis smiley. chaz, good to have you on the program. all the best on the project. i know we'll learn a lot about the life and legacy of roger ebert. i had it just in case. i wasn't fwog try to barbara walters you. that's our show tonight. ♪ >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. >> hi, i'm tavis smiley. coming up a conversation first about china's expanding quest for natural resources and malaysian born singer una. that's next time. see you then.

♪ >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. xxxxx

tonight on "quest" -- it's a repeated theme in hollywood movies -- a killer asteroid zooming toward earth. but that couldn't happen for real, could it? you might be surprised to hear the answer. and stately oak trees -- they're the very essence of strength. find out what california scientists are doing to protect them from a deadly, unseen enemy. major funding for "quest" is provided by -- the national science foundation. the gordon and betty moore