Nancy Atkinson's Blog

https://youtu.be/-Z5tXFYxEM0

Above is a link to a video preview — or ‘book trailer’ — of some of the people and stories you’ll find in my new book Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions It is a tribute to not only the 60 people I feature in the book, but everyone who worked on the Apollo program.

This trailer’ includes an amazing song by award-winning singer/songwriter Ben Bedford, and I’m so grateful to be able to share this song, “The Pilot and the Flying Machine, Part 1.”

The story of how this video came about stems from the fact that I’ve been a fan of Ben for over 10 years now, and when I lived in Illinois — where Ben is from — my husband and I would try to go hear Ben sing and play guitar as often as we could. We got to know Ben and his wife/amazing backup singer Kari and they even came to sing for a backyard concert at our house at a surprise birthday party my husband organized and planned for me (and the surprise was executed successfully, if not magnificently!)

Fast forward to March of 2019. We had been living in Minnesota for a few years, and Ben came to sing in Minneapolis. Of course, we attended. He opened the night by singing the song “The Pilot and the Flying Machine, Part 1.” Now, I know that I have heard that song many times before. But that night, it seemed like it was a brand new song. I had spent the last several months — over a year, actually — immersed in writing “Eight Years to the Moon.” For all intents and purposes, I was living in the 1960’s and the only thing in my head were all the stories of Apollo I had heard and transferred to paper. When Ben sang that song, I could almost ‘see’ this video playing in my head. The song was a perfect tribute to the women and men who made it possible to land on the Moon with Project Apollo.

Making the video wasn’t quite as easy as how it played in my head, since I have limited video editing experience. But here it is, and I hope you enjoy it!

Hello there! I’d like to introduce you to my upcoming book, “Eight Years to the Moon!” But before I tell you all about it, I have some very fun news to share:

I’m excited to announce that Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart has written the foreword for the book! I’m absolutely thrilled he took the time out of his very busy year, full of Apollo 50th anniversary events to write this, and I really love what he wrote.

Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo MissionsNancy Atkinson

Rusty is one of the most interesting and thoughtful people I’ve ever had the chance to talk with, and he brings a unique viewpoint of those incredible days of the 1960’s when we figured out how to go to the Moon.

Which brings me back to the book….

“Eight Years to the Moon” tells the story of the Apollo program through the eyes of those who truly worked behind the scenes. The book includes the stories of about 60 people (over 40 that I interviewed and the oral histories of about 20 more), all told within the larger story of Apollo. Many of these people haven’t had the chance to widely share their stories before. Of note, some of the stories include the experiences of two of the few women engineers at NASA and one of the few African American engineers that worked for one of the contractor companies (Honeywell) in the 1960s.

The stories in the book range from funny, to heart-warming, to heart-breaking and they provide a glimpse into the lives of some of the hundreds of thousands of people who made it possible to land humans on the Moon. Many of the people I interviewed shared personal photographs, part of over 150 images in the book.

Through interviews and research, I uncovered little-known details about the Apollo program, including a potentially catastrophic event that could have ended the Apollo 11 mission in disaster.

“Eight Years to the Moon” will be released on July 2 (but is available for preorder at your favorite online stores,) I’ll be sharing more about the book and “writing of” stories in the days to come.

My sincere thanks to everyone who made this book possible: everyone who took the time to talk with me to share their unique Apollo stories and insights and who worked with me to ensure accuracy of technical and historical details, as well as the wonderful people at Page Street Publishing, who had the idea for the book.

Although I’m still a bit groggy after taking a red-eye flight home, I’ve been completely energized by my experiences this past weekend at the Tucson Festival of Books. What an amazing event and an incredible experience! Powered by over 2,000 volunteers, 350 participating authors and over 130,000 visitors, this Festival celebrates our love of books and stories, and I’m so grateful to have had the chance to be part of it.

From the moment I stepped onto the Mall area at the University of Arizona, I was blown away by the size and diversity of this event, which is the third largest book festival in the US. Plus, the people-watching was great, with lots of interesting — and famous — people and ‘characters!’

The two events I participated in were panel session discussions, and again, both were wonderful experiences. On Saturday, the session was titled “Incredible Stories From Space” (I was really excited they used the title of my book!) and Kristin Block from the HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission and I talked about various robotic missions going on in solar system and beyond and the importance of exploration. While I interviewed Kristin for my book, this is the first time we had met in person. Getting to know her was really great, as she is really a wonderful person and engineer. The moderator for our panel was professor, astronomer and author Chris Impey.

For the session on Sunday, I moderated a panel called “Women Writing About Women in Science,” and again teamed up with Kristin Block, as well as two incredible authors: Nathalia Holt, who wrote “Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us from Missiles to the Moon to Mars,” a New York Times Best Seller about the women who served as human computers for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Julian Guthrie, author of “How to Make a Spaceship: A Band of Renegades, an Epic Race, and the Birth of Private Spaceflight,” which tells the compelling story of the Ansari XPRIZE to spur commercial spaceflight.

Read the rest of this post on Nancy Atkinson.com! http://www.nancyatkinson.com/blog/201...

I was honored to be asked to join a radio call-in show on Maine Public Radio, "Maine Calling." I joined host Irwin Gratz and astronomer Edward Gleason from the University of Southern Maine, and we discussed various events in space and astronomy coming up in 2017 and provided updates on several of the missions that were part of “Incredible Stories From Space.”

I had the chance to do the interview from an historic radio studio, too!

Irwin and Edward were delightful to talk with and listeners called in with great questions. You can listen to the replay of the 50-minute show ....

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Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind the Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos.


Nancy Atkinson

Since this is my first blog post on Goodreads, I'd like to introduce readers to my upcoming book, “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos.”

In the book, I have the opportunity to share the stories told to me by over 35 NASA scientists and engineers, stories that chronicle the struggles and triumphs of several robotic missions that are truly changing our understanding of the Solar System and beyond. I am honored and humbled to share their stories.

It's taken nearly a year of work, thousands of miles of travel, and numerous interviews in person, on the phone and via email.

I’m very grateful that I could travel to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Space Telescope Science Institute, Goddard Space Flight Center, and the Applied Physics Lab at Johns Hopkins University to see many of the “mission controls” for the spacecraft and see where all the action happens.

It is now a countdown of four weeks to the release of this, my first book, which will be on December 20, 2016!

This means that those of you in the western hemisphere can now pre-order the book and receive it in time for the holidays (links below!)

Those holidays include Winter Solstice, Festivus, Chanukah, Christmas, Boxing Day, Kwanzaa, and of course National Fruitcake Day (December 27, in case you were wondering).

Find the book on:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Incredible-Sto...

Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/incre...

IndieBound: http://www.indiebound.org/book/978162...

Books-A-Million: http://www.booksamillion.com/product/...

Just a little plug here, but Amazon and B&N are both having great sale prices on the book right now, so take advantage! The book is available in both paperback and on Kindle, as a Kindle etextbook, which give you more interactive options while you read.

For my friends in Europe, the release date will be January 9, 2017.

I’m so excited to be able to share the stories of over 35 NASA scientists and engineers to introduce more people to the plucky robots out there exploring the cosmos!

The Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind the Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos.

Nancy Atkinson