In the first half, former assistant professor, and lecturer with NASA's Johnson Space Center, Rod Pyle joined George Noory for a conversation about the upcoming 50th anniversary of the first Apollo moon landing, and behind-the-scenes stories about the astronauts and what really happened during the 1969 mission. What they accomplished in that era of technology was amazing, he said. "This stuff was being designed in the early 1960s with pencil, graph paper, protractors, and slide rules," he marveled, adding that we have more computing power in the cell phones in our pockets than what the Apollo crew had. Apollo 11 had just one 2.5 hour moonwalk, amid the 22 hours they were on the lunar surface. During this time, they were instructed to sleep, something they could scarcely bring themselves to do, Pyle recounted.
He interviewed some of the astronaut's family members, including Mark Armstrong (Neil's son), as well as Andy Aldrin (Buzz's son). Andy told him that when his Dad was walking on the moon, he wasn't worried about his safety (as he trusted NASA), but that his father would clumsily trip over the camera cable and knock out the TV transmission. Refuting the conspiracy theory that we never went to the moon, Pyle cited a convergence of data including Japan's 2008 lunar probe which took shots that match the photographs of the Apollo astronauts, and the Soviet Union's admission that they were closely tracking the activity of the Apollo 11 mission. He also talked about how after the Apollo missions, national priorities shifted and that's one reason why America hasn't had further manned landings.
------------------------------
Entrepreneur and author Stefan Aarnio, as the CEO of two multi-million dollar companies, travels the world educating business people, while also taking time for spiritual vision quests and fasting to stay on track with humanity and the universe. In the latter half, he spoke about his latest work which looks at how different historical cycles affect concepts of masculinity. He argues that hard times create strong men, and good times create weak men. He believes we're in a time period where there has been somewhat of a reversal between male and female traits. There are negative and positive aspects to this-- but one problem that arises, he suggested, is that when you have strong women, they have a harder time finding a comparable mate.
Men need to be assertive and have boundaries, Aarnio continued, rather than be pushovers. The rise of political correctness stems from feminine attributes, he opined, and this relates to "having more and more women in power, and things have gotten softer because we haven't had so many threats. When we have a threat, the genders go back to being polarized and having different roles." He foresees turbulent times ahead with an 80-year cycle coming to an end and leading to conflict or war-- possibly even a new Civil War in the US.
News segment guests: Dr. Gary Ridenour, Jeff Nelken