32: "First on the Moon- The Apollo 11 50th Anniversary Experience" with author Rod Pyle

Friend of the show Rod Pyle returns to discuss his latest book, and all things Apollo with Beth AND…

• Receiving the foreword from Buzz Aldrin himself!
• Rod's impressions and insights from speaking with the Apollo 11 astronauts' children (now grown adults)
• Combing through the NASA archives to find incredible, never before shared documents, photos and stories from the Apollo era
• And what the future of space can be, returning to the Moon, on to Mars, and beyond…

Quotes from Rod here:

"You get the sense of an eternal restlessness with Buzz (Aldrin)… he demands that we move further and faster and beyond in space exploration, and he has not stopped thinking about that since the day he returned."

"One thing that always impressed me from my years of training at the Johnson Space Center, I would walk along the Saturn V rocket, and share the experience with several executives who would start crying because it's such a powerful experience as you walk from one end to the other, where you see what a massive accomplishment it all was…and I take them to the top of the rocket and explain that 'all this is just to get the astronauts to the moon,' and they are astonished."

"What I always try to do in my books is to both give the quotes of numbers, details about the missions, how many pounds of thrust the Saturn V rocket uses, etc., but that's not speaking to our hearts, and that's the conversation we need to have with people. The last time I saw this done well was when Elon Musk launched his Tesla from a Falcon Heavy into space, looking back on the Earth."

"On Apollo 12, Pete Conrad and Allan Bean were very serious and they were setting down the LEM, and there was this easy banter between two brothers sharing a common goal and landing right on target. He (Conrad) came down right on the money, and when they landed, it was like party time inside the LEM, they were slapping each other's backs and it like listening to the

"Throughout the [Apollo12] moonwalks, and there were two (Pete Conrad and Allan Bean), they were so overjoyed not just to be there and to be there on the moon, but to be in each other's company; there was this warmth, and this joy, this kind of excitement and this almost child-like thrill."

About Rod Pyle:

Rod Pyle is a space author, journalist and historian who has authored 15 books on space history, exploration and development for major publishers that have been released in ten languages. He is the Editor-in-Chief for the National Space Society's quarterly print magazine Ad Astra, and his frequent articles have appeared in Space.com, LiveScience, Futurity, Huffington Post, Popular Science, Caltech's E&S magazine, and WIRED. He has written extensively for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech, including Technology Highlights for NASA'S Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Rod co-authored and lectured for the Apollo Executive Leadership Program for NASA's Johnson Space Center and The Conference Board. New book releases for 2019 include Space 2.0 (with a foreword by Buzz Aldrin), Interplanetary Robots, Heroes of the Space Age, and First on the Moon (also with a foreword by Aldrin), which is currently in its fifth printing. Rod's previous Apollo books Missions to the Moon (foreword by Gene Kranz) and Destination Moon are being republished for 2019.

Rod appears on national radio and television, with regular slots on KFI/Los Angeles, and WGN/Chicago (both market leaders), as well as popular podcasts and radio in numerous other markets. Rod hosts a podcast called Cool Space News on iHeart Radio, and appears on PBS's Between the Lines and C-SPAN's Book TV regularly. He holds an MA from Stanford University and a BFA from the Art Center College of Design, and lives in Alhambra, California.

Where to find Rod Pyle:

Ad Astra: https://space.nss.org/ad-astra-the-magazine-of-the-national-space-society/

Cool Space News Podcast: https://kfiam640.iheart.com/content/2019-07-12-cool-space-news-with-rod-pyle/

First on the Moon: https://www.amazon.com/First-Moon-Apollo-Anniversary-Experience/dp/1454931973