(This program is not sponsored by the El Segundo Public Library)

Rod Pyle is a space author, jounalist and historian. He has authored eleven books on space history, exploration and development for major publishers that have been published in seven languagaes. His frequent articles have appeared in Space.com, LiveScience, Futurity, Huffington Post and WIRED. He has written extensively for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech, and authored the Apollo Executive Leadership Program for the Johnson Space Center with The Conference Board. His most recent book release is "Mars: Making Contatct." Rod is currently writing Space 2.0: The New Space Age" in association with the National Space Society, and "Technology Highlights" for NASA/JPL. He appears frequently on national radio and television, with regular slots on KFI/Los Angeles, and WGN/Chicago. He was recently featured on PBS's "Between the Lines" and C-SPAN's "Book TV." Rod holds an MA from Stanford University and a BFA from the Art Center College of Design, and lives in Pasadena, CA.

Aldo Spadoni is an MIT graduate with an aerospace engineering career spanning over 35 years. He has made significant technical contributions to numerous advanced aircraft, missile, and spacecraft programs for NASA, DARPA, and the U.S. Armed Services. He began his engineering career at Hughes Space & Communications Group as a spacecraft configuration design engineer working on the Galileo Jupiter spacecraft. Later, he joined TRW Defense & Space Systems as a navigation systems engineering specialist working on ICBMs and spacecraft programs. Aldo joined Northrop in 1985, supporting the advanced design team in the area of advanced avionics system integration and project management. He created and managed an award-winning creative simulation team at Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems. Aldo is a recipient of NASA’s 2004 Turning Goals Into Reality team award for Reusable Launch Vehicle Development. He is an accomplished self-taught artist and concept designer with four U.S. patents to his credit. He is a Fellow of the International Association of Astronomical Artists (IAAA) and is currently serving on its Board of Trustees. Aldo’s consulting company, Aerospace Imagineering, specializes in the conceptual design, visualization and prototyping of advanced technology products and concepts. His visualizations have appeared in numerous magazines and television documentaries.  He has worked closely with hard science fiction authors such as Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle to bring their technological visions to life. As an aerospace concept designer and technology consultant to the entertainment industry, he supported the production of APOLLO 13, SUPERNOVA, STEALTH, IRON MAN 1 & 2, and other movie projects. He helped produce the 2009 National Geographic Channel documentary called HITLER’S STEALTH FIGHTER. Aldo’s personal goals are to promote STEAM education and create compelling visions of humanity’s spacefaring future.

Rick Sternbach has been a space and science fiction artist since the early 1970s, often combining both interests in a project. His clients include NASA, Sky & Telescope, Data Products, Random House, Smithsonian, Analog, Astronomy, The Planetary Society, and Time-Life Books. He is a founding member and Fellow of the International Associationof Astronomical Artists (IAAA), which was formed in 1981. He has written and illustrated articles on orbital transfer vehicles and interstellar flight for Science Digest. Beginning in the late 1970s Rick added film and television illustration and special effects to his repertoire, with productions like Star Trek: The Motion Picture, The Last Starfighter, Future Flight, and Cosmos, for which he and other members of the astronomical art team received an Emmy award, the first for visual effects. Rick also twice received the coveted Hugo award for best professional science fiction artist, in 1977 and 1978. In 2006, after fifteen years with the Star Trek franchise, Rick produced physical terrains and globes of Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Saturn’s moon Iapetus for the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, for their Gunther Depths of Space exhibit. Digital renderings of the Cosmos 1 solar sail were done for the Planetary Society, along with composited images of a sixteen square foot scale model of their revised Lightsail 1. He has also built a scale model of a proposed asteroid retrieval spacecraft for the Keck Institute for Space Studies. Most recently, Rick was included as a member of the special committee overseeing the restoration of the original U.S.S. Enterprise eleven foot filming miniature by the National Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C.