About
Rod Pyle is a space author and journalist who has authored 22 mass market books for major publishers and NASA that have been released in ten languages. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of Ad Astra magazine, available in digital and retail outlets internationally. 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, including their annual Technology Highlights book, prepared specifically for the U.S. Executive Branch and Congress. Rod co-authored and lectured for the Apollo Executive Leadership Program for NASA’s Johnson Space Center and The Conference Board. He was also commissioned by the Library of Congress to write a foreword for the accession of Neil Armstrong’s first words on the moon.
Rod has keynoted for IBM/Watson, BAE Defense, Northrop Grumman, NASA/Johnson Space Center, The Conference Board, the International Space Development Conference, AIAA, IEEE, the Smithsonian Institution, ICESCO (The Islamic world Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), Space Tech Expo, the Young President’s Organization, Norway’s Energy Valley and their STEM affiliate, the Chabot Science Center, Griffith Observatory, and schools, libraries, and nonprofits.
Rod co-hosts the This Week in Space podcast, now 230 episodes, and appears frequently on national television and radio as a space expert.
Rod holds an MA from Stanford University and a BFA from the Art Center College of Design. Prior to book authoring, Rod produced nonfiction programming for The History Channel, Discovery Communications and a number of educational program providers, as well as producing TV commercials for over a decade. He additionally worked in visual effects on "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" and a number of sci-fi pilots for Paramount Television, and created previsualization effects for the reboot of "Battlestar Galactica." A number of his books, including "Space 2.0," “Innovation the NASA Way,” “Destination Mars” and “The Space Race” have been adopted for educational uses including secondary and university textbooks. He lives in Southern California.
Featured Work
Boldly Into the Unknown
A never-before-told story from a NASA insider—experience the highs and lows of the golden era of spaceflight through the eyes of a former Apollo flight director
As a flight director for all of the Apollo program’s crewed missions, Gerry Griffin was instrumental in the Apollo 11 landing, the rescue of the Apollo 13 crew, and the successes of Apollo missions 12, 15, and 17, for which he served as lead flight director. His storied NASA career took him through the Gemini program, Apollo missions, and the shuttle era before he became the director of the Johnson Space Center. Space historian and author Rod Pyle worked with Griffin to recount incredible and untold stories from across his NASA years in the fascinating Boldly into the Unknown, including:
• Early and challenging days of Project Gemini where missions flew within weeks of one another and plans changed abruptly
• The tragedy of the Apollo 1 fire, the investigations, and its impact on the program and workforce
• The daring adventure that was Apollo 8, which flew the unproven Saturn V rocket and orbited the Moon for the first time
• The lightning strikes that almost ended the Apollo 12 mission and other white-knuckle experiences working in Mission Control
Griffin’s reflections offer a riveting insider’s look at what it was like to work on the earliest and most daring human spaceflight missions. Boldly into the Unknown is a valuable record of the glory days of space exploration and of a man who helped lead NASA through unexpected challenges and groundbreaking accomplishments.
Other Works
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Space 2.0
2019
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"First to the Moon"
2019
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"Heroes of the Space Age"
2019
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"Interplanetary Robots"
2019
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"Mars: Making Contact"
2018
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"Space 2.0"
2018
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"Amazing Stories of the Space Age"
2017
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"Blueprint for a Battlestar: Serious Explanations behind Sci-Fi's Greatest Inventions"
2017
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"Innovation the NASA Way"
2014
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"Curiosity: An Inside at the Mars Rover Mission"
2014
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"Destination Mars"
2012
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"Missions to the Moon"
2009
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"Destination Moon"
2005
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"In Their Own Words: The Space Race"
2004
