Here’s 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!