Rod Pyle
Rod Pyle is an author, journalist, television producer and editor in chief of Ad Astra magazine for the National Space Society. He has written 18 books on space history, exploration and development, including "Space 2.0," "First on the Moon" and "Innovation the NASA Way." He has written for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech, WIRED, Popular Science, Space.com, Live Science, the World Economic Forum and the Library of Congress. Rod co-authored the "Apollo Leadership Experience" for NASA's Johnson Space Center and has produced, directed and written for The History Channel, Discovery Networks and Disney.
Latest articles by Rod Pyle
![an astronaut in a white space suit stands beside the chinese flag on the moon](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/KhL9E7znBKhmYmQqErSWub-320-80.jpg)
A red moon: Will the next 'Sputnik Moment' be made in China?
By John Kross, Rod Pyle published
The next Sputnik Moment will take place against the backdrop of great power competition, as it did in the 1950s. This time, the top contenders are the U.S. and China.
![Pluto composite](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/zjBQZuE7X24fisUku6rh3c-320-80.jpg)
NASA's New Horizons mission faces an uncertain future (op-ed)
By Rod Pyle published
With its budget being trimmed for 2024, NASA is making some weighty decisions... and one includes drastically trimming New Horizons funds by replacing the current science staff with a new team.
![Haughton Crater and the Haughton-Mars Project (HMP) base.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/4AnBMNuZ2xHioFhGHbWVWX-320-80.jpg)
A month on 'Mars': Preparing to visit the Red Planet ... on Earth
By Rod Pyle last updated
On Aug. 1, a group of eight researchers and their associates headed to the high Arctic to spend a month at the Haughton-Mars Project base on Devon Island.
![Members of the Month on Mars expedition stand next to a small propeller aircraft.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/h7QYk9FGaej35QjiddJvdf-320-80.jpg)
A month on 'Mars': Traveling to the Red Planet
By Rod Pyle last updated
The Month on Mars expedition traveled to the Haughton-Mars Project base for its summer field season at a simulated Martian outpost.
![An image of the Haughton-Mars Project (HMP) site on Devon Island.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/uruUkyM7f3yKYCRjWtqsNf-320-80.jpg)
A month on 'Mars': First journeys in our Arctic home
By Rod Pyle last updated
The Month on Mars expedition begins its fieldwork listening to some of the earliest radio frequency signals in the universe.
![A barren landscape near the Haughton-Mars Project base in the Arctic.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/UqKKwb5oPLuyuaFWADnphT-320-80.jpg)
A month on 'Mars': Get to know the Haughton-Mars Project
By Rod Pyle last updated
When flying to the Haughton-Mars Project (HMP) base, the impression is one of a vast wasteland below. The landscape looks featureless and bleak, but in fact holds many surprises.
![five men stand in a barren arctic landscape under a blue sky dotted with wispy clouds](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/wyJiLE4CMHe3kwd6StkcKj-320-80.jpg)
A month on 'Mars': Journey to the 'Planet of the Apes Valley'
By Rod Pyle last updated
On day six it was time for our first traverse away from the Haughton-Mars Project base on Devon Island in the Arctic.
![A line of ATVs outside of the Haughton-Mars Project base.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/ku8BBwGMz6hWjKnmqMvLeN-320-80.jpg)
A month on 'Mars': Flags and footprints of the moon and Arctic
By Rod Pyle last updated
The Haughton-Mars Project is planting flags and leaving footprints, but in a very different way than Apollo astronauts did on the moon.
![Four ATVs drive across a barren, reddish Arctic landscape.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/f5vvxJCfEaMBrzP9fLFgyB-320-80.jpg)
A month on 'Mars': The Arctic comes alive
By Rod Pyle last updated
It was a very scenic way to begin the traverse, and for someone who has pored over both orbital and ground-level images of Mars for years, it was quite easy to believe you were on that planet.
![A foggy, barren Arctic landscape.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/8ZhAP4nKkTpcWZD3BPt9a3-320-80.jpg)
A month on 'Mars': Fogbound on Devon Island
By Rod Pyle last updated
The weather has taken a turn for the worse at the Haughton-Mars Project on Devon Island in the Arctic.
![The sun sets on a barren red landscape in the Arctic.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/7KS82qoixH5mfCkPUW6sp3-320-80.jpg)
A Month on 'Mars': Return to Earth
By Rod Pyle published
Despite all the dangers of its rugged surface, our simulated Mars base is inhabited by magic.
![A barren landscape near the Haughton-Mars Project base in the Arctic.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/UqKKwb5oPLuyuaFWADnphT-320-80.jpg)
A month on 'Mars': Trekking through Ingenuity Valley
By Rod Pyle last updated
While there are no signs of humankind here, we have plenty of other neighbors surrounding our simulated Martian home base at the Haughton-Mars Project on Devon Island in the Arctic.
![A view of the desolate landscape surrounding the base camp of the Haughton-Mars Project on Devon Island in the Arctic.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/BXDYHjTeYJebtjzFEvToRL-320-80.jpg)
A Month on 'Mars': Countdown to departure
By Rod Pyle last updated
Like polar expeditions of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and future human missions to the moon or Mars, we are working in close quarters at the Haughton-Mars Project.
![The EDGES experiment. The tint on the ground is due to thousands of colored wires running left and right.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/7rtKEv9DST3RPaXUhmXsMo-320-80.jpg)
A month on 'Mars': Living on the EDGES
By Rod Pyle last updated
Devon Island is one of the most radio-quiet places in the northern hemisphere, a perfect place for the Haughton-Mars Project to conduct the EDGES experiment.
![The sun is just visible through clouds above a dry Arctic base camp.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/5FzPP7dsbCTAUhwR64ffhb-320-80.jpg)
A month on 'Mars': A Kinder, Gentler Mars
By Rod Pyle published
While places like the Haughton-Mars Project do not perfectly model the soil chemistry, intense radiation, lower gravity, or thin atmosphere of Mars, there is still great value in the work done here.
![A view of the Arctic landscape at sunset.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/nYEv9b87cBfHxFiftXB3JK-320-80.jpg)
A month on 'Mars': Trekking across the Arctic
By Rod Pyle published
Being in an environment such as the simulated Martian landscape of the Haughton-Mars Project in the Arctic magnifies what would normally be small problems.
![Vavilov's dedicated colleagues at Moscow's Institute of Plant Industry fight off rats — and their own brutal hunger through the Nazi siege of Leningrad — to ensure not a single grain of rice is lost to the future.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/cyQ6zdokVUzY9PMgYwgvbY-320-80.jpg)
'Cosmos: Possible Worlds' episode 4 explores our eternal quest to end hunger
By Rod Pyle last updated
The fourth episode of "Cosmos: Possible Worlds" sees host Neil deGrasse Tyson looking to the past and honoring botanist Nikolai Ivanovic Vavilov, pioneer of modern plant breeding.
![The Ship of the Imagination heads for Saturn's moon Enceladus, a restricted "Category V" world that keeps its potentially life-harboring secrets hidden deep beneath its surface.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/ewpyFyaosrvWuSJFn4HuAj-320-80.jpg)
'Cosmos: Possible Worlds' episode 3 delves into how life began on a roiling, violent Earth
By Rod Pyle published
"Lost City of Life" takes viewers on a journey through space and time to witness the tenacity and creativity of life on Earth and the prospects of life throughout the universe.
![cosmos: possible worlds neil degrasse tyson](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/YU27iZYtiGC2MEMDBxDJAQ-320-80.jpg)
'Cosmos: Possible Worlds' episode 2 will make you think
By Rod Pyle last updated
The second episode of the brand new season 3 of "Cosmos: Possible Worlds" takes us, as the show so often does, from ancient times on Earth through to the very edge of the galaxy.
![Redesigned and equipped with new capabilities, the Ship of the Imagination rises out of the Pacific, ready to take host Neil deGrasse Tyson and viewers on an adventure through space and time.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/gmMqmL2vAn89HfZv2owig7-320-80.jpg)
'Cosmos: Possible Worlds' episode 1 takes viewers on a wild ride with the Ship of Imagination
By Rod Pyle published
Monday (March 9) marked the kickoff of the third season of the venerable "Cosmos" series on the National Geographic channel.
![The ship of imagination as seen in the first episode of the new season of "Cosmos."](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/u4zqVmcjA5qgZFoFA2Z5KM-320-80.jpg)
'Cosmos: Possible Worlds' takes us back into a universe of science
By Rod Pyle published
A new season of the rebooted television show "Cosmos" arrives on screens today (March 9) after a long delay.
![Apollo: Missions to the Moon](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/vciz5P4y8Fmg4yd8iohE7R-320-80.jpg)
Apollo Documentary Shares Overlooked Footage from Space Race
By Rod Pyle last updated
Apollo 11's historic magnitude is etched in Americans' minds, but behind the "one small step" are unknown stories that have slipped through the cracks.
![A SpaceX Crew Dragon space capsule aces the company's 16th mock abort parachute test in Southern California in the summer of 2018. This image is a still from a SpaceX video.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/huzcV9Wx6vdNoKnJtQZHQH-320-80.jpg)
Parachutes, Abort Engines Are Key Challenges for SpaceX's Crew Dragon Capsule
By Rod Pyle published
Elon Musk and Jim Bridenstine came together recently to discuss the remaining challenges for Commercial Crew.
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