September 27th, 1-5; 7:30 – 9 pm
Von Braun Astronomical Society will celebrate Astronomy Day on September 27th in person at Monte Sano State Park! Daytime events (between 1 – 5 pm) will include: mini-planetarium shows, Telescope tours, and Meteor radar demos. Evening events (between 7:30 – 9 pm) will include a keynote speech followed by a planetarium show.
Astronomy Day is FREE and open to the public!
7:30 PM Keynote talk by Mr. Rod Pyle
Silver Dust and Red Dreams: The Moon and Mars Circa 1950
Rod Pyle is a space author, journalist, and historian who has authored 20 books on space history, exploration and development for major publishers and NASA 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 articles have appeared in Space.com, LiveScience, Futurity, Huffington Post, Popular Science, the BBC’s Sky at Night, the World Economic Forum, Caltech’s E&S magazine, and WIRED. Rod has written extensively for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech, including Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s annual Technology Highlights book. Rod co-authored and lectured for the Apollo Executive Leadership Program for NASA’s Johnson Space Center and The Conference Board. His recent books 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). Both First on the Moon and Rod’s previous Missions to the Moon (foreword by Gene Kranz) were national bestsellers and translated into multiple languages. He was recently commissioned by the Library of Congress to write the preface for Neil Armstrong’s first words on the moon for its accession to the permanent collection.
Rod has also produced or consulted on multiple space documentaries for The History Channel, Discovery Communications and National Geographic. He also worked in visual effects on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and the Battlestar Galactica 2004 reboot, as well as sci-fi TV pilots. Rod was a consulting producer on the National Geographic documentaries Apollo 11 and The Real Stuff (based on Tom Wolfe's iconic book The Right Stuff).
Rod is an advisor for the Haughton-Mars Project (HMP), a NASA-affiliated Mars analog base in the High Arctic. Besides assisting with fieldwork there, he handles publicity and outreach for HMP and the Mars Institute with Dr. Pascal Lee.
Rod can be seen on The History Channel’s UnXplained: With William Shatner and is a regular guest on national radio with KFI/Los Angeles, WABC/New York, and WGN/Chicago as well as popular podcasts and radio in other markets. Rod co-hosts and produces the This Week in Space with Space.com’s Tariq Malik. He holds an MA from Stanford University and a BFA from the Art Center College of Design, and lives in Alhambra, California.
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