and that is astronaut leland melvin. and, mr. melvin, you write that your book is called "chasing space," and you write that it had all begun with a dropped pass. >> guest: exactly. a dropped pass. so i was a wide receiver on a running team, and that means that i block a lot versus catching passes. we were at a homecoming game, i was running down the sideline, the ball was perfectly thrown io my hand, and i drop a touchdown pass in my hands. and the thing is, a scout wasro there from the university of richmond looking to see if i could play football for the team. he walked out of the stadium. my coach, jimmy green, believed in me. get back out there, run the same play. that one catch resulted in a $180,000 scholarship to the university of richmond becauseep the coach said he didn't give up, he kept going. so that was the grit and the perseverance and the second chance. >> host: how did you get from playing for the university of retch monday spiders to -- richmond spiders to two space shuttle missions? >> guest: i think turning a season from 0-10 around to 3-8 to 85 in playoffs brought thele college scouts and pro scouts down, and then all of that hardt work and dedication and t discipline, i went to work for nasa.ine a friend of mine gave me an application and said you'd be a great astronaut.na i'm just like, yeah, right. but that same year can -- i dide fill the application out, someone else did, and he got in. and i said to myself, well, if that guy got in, i can do that. so that competition and believing i could do the same thing, and i applied and got into the astronaut corps. >> host: this is a call-in segment. leland melvin has been in space twice, worked for nasa for 20-some years. your chance to talk to an astronaut. 202 is the area code, 748-8200 in the east and central time zones, 748-82013 for those of you -- 8201 for those in the mountain and pacific time zones. what were you doing that you were able to apply to nasa? because a lot of people, i'm sure, would hike to apply -- would like to a apply to nasa. >> guest: right. after leaving the dallas cowboys with a pulled hamstring, i got my master's degree in science engineering, and this woman said, hey, you should come work for nasa. i'm like, i'm going to work for dupont or dow, they make more money there. but she was tenacious.s. she said we need people like you at nasa. and i applied and ended up getting the job to work at nasa langley as a research assistant -- as a research engineer. >> host: in what field? >> guest: so i was a material science engineer, but we were working in an area called nondestructive evaluation sciences. so we were building systems for measuring damage in the space shuttle tiles or aerospace vehicles using different types of sensors, optical fibers, lasers and thermal systems for measuring damage. >> host: now, you threw something in there about the dallas cowboys. what was that? [laughter] >> guest: well, i got drafted by the lions, pulled my hamstring, started grad school, then wenta to train with the dallasas cowboys. so by day i'm catching footballs for america's team, at night i'm watching material science engineering vhs videotapes. and when danny white and i went out one day, i ended up pulling my hamstring again, that was the end of my football career, but i just went back to uva and got my masters in material science. t >> host: is from the day you applied to nasa to the day you took off in atlantis, how many years was that? >> guest: i applied in 1997, got into the corps in 1998, ten years later it took me to fly in space. >> host: is that ten call? >> guest: it's not typical. most people fly within maybe two to three years, with the shuttle mission maybe three to four years if it's a long durationn space station mission, but i had a little problem. >> host: what was it? >> guest: i lost all my hearing in a training accident. i went completely deaf. i still have hearing impairmentm in my left ear, but they forgot to put this little pad in my helmet that allows you to clear your ears.ad so they said i would never fly in space. >> host: it was a diving accident, correct? >> guest: it was training in the white eva suits. so there's a six million gallon pool laboratory, and we're in our space-walking suit, but in the suit there is an actual pad that you use to press your nose against to clear your ears, and mine wasn't in there. so at 20 feet i told the test director to turn the volume up. they took me out, they realized blood was coming out of my ears. >> host: and? >> guest: and they said emergency surgery, theyey operated, they looked around, couldn't find anything. they medically disqualified me to fly in space, but -- and that's when -- and my hearing came back about three weeks later, and i ended up going to work in d.c. in this educator astronaut program to bring teachers in to be astronauts. and when i was in that program,n we lost space shuttle columbia.d and i was there for the families. and we were flying around the country going to the different memorial services to help get the families through this. and the chief flight surgeon, rich williams, was on each one of those flights taking notes as we took off and landed, and he watched me clear my ears. so he believed me that i could actually fly in space, not get back in the pool, not fly in the jets, not to get back in those pressure situations, but i could fly in space and do a job in space to help advance our civilization. >> host: the photo on the cover of your book, "chasing space,"," this is an official nasa photo -- >> guest: it is official. >> host: that's got to be theon best astronaut photo ever. >> guest: well, when you sneak your dogs into nasa and get the picture with them -- if you look on the picture on the front, all of our hands are connected. two paws and a hand are combined together in solidarity as a family trying to get to space. [laughter] >> host: leland melvin is ourel guest.e he's flown twice.wi atlantis in 2008, and the second time was atlantis as well? >> guest: 2009, uh-huh. >> host: to the international space station. how long were you there? >> guest: the first mission was 12 days and the second 14 or vice versa, i think. >> host: if we were still flying the shuttle, would you go? >> guest: i would go. i would go again. >> host: should the shuttle missions ended, have ended? >> guest: the shuttle was the workhorse to get the heavy lift pieces up to build the space station and deploy satellites. we have other ways to deploy satellites. we completed the space station buildout. we have spacex and other people delivering cargo. with the cost of the space shuttle program, we would not be able to build a new rocket system and the orion vehicle. the shuttle was regulated to low-earth orr obit. so we want to go past that and maybe assist lunar space station that will help us get to mars, so it was the right thing to do. >> host: let's hear from our callers. this is jane first, and jane's in creston, iowa. you're on with author and astronaut leland mel vin. >> caller: hey, leland, i was just going to ask about the girl from iowa, the astronaut that's been up there for 665 days. what do you think about that? >> guest: so peggy whitson, who was this iowan, she was my commander in 2008 on the space station. she applied 13 times to become an astronaut, was rejected 12 times. so she is one of my heroes. she is one of these people that i hold up like katherine johnson as a hero. she's an amazing person, and i love her to death. >> host: and peggy whitson is featured in "chasing space." who was or is katherine johnson? >> guest: katherine johnson is the 99-year-old mathematician that calculated the trajectories to get john glenn orr obitting the -- orbiting the planet. and she was a hidden figure. margo shetterly, who's here, talked about her writing the book. and, actually, margo is the daughter of bob lee who was an engineer who worked at nasa with me, and so it's like a family affair. katherine, like i said, celebrated her 99th birthday in white sulfur springs, virginia, population 800. no matter what you do, with grit, determination and perseverance, you can do anything you put your mind to. >> host: aubrey, bronx, new york. good afternoon. >> caller: yes. i know -- [inaudible] >> host: i apologize, we're going to have to hang up. i don't think either of us could understand, and i apologize, aubrey, for that. but let's hear from kevin in princeton, new jersey. kevin, we are listening. you're on with astronaut and author leland melvin. >> caller: thank you for taking my call, mr. melvin. question: how soon might a young person begin training academically for a mission in space? and exactly -- or not exactly, but relatively speaking how much mathematics does that program entail? >> guest: so training to become an astronaut starts, i think -- i mean, i think training to be a scientist or an engineer starts at a very early age. i mean, i started building things with my hands when i was in middle school. and i think the main thing about the training is to get people, to get kids looking up in the night sky and seeing the space station going overhead, to have them building and creating and knowing that they can do or be anything. and what was your second question? >> host: s.t.e.m.. >> guest: s.t.e.m.. >> host: how much emphasis should be put on s.t.e.m. in schools. >> guest: i think emphasis should be put on s.t.e.a.m., science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics, because all of the creativity is part of s.t.e.m. education. and so having people building, creating, music lessons, all these different things are what i had and prepare me for me getting to pace and working with other people. -- to spate.e and languages -- to space. languages is part of the a, working with our russian colleagues were all part of that training to get me ready for a space flight. >> host: darnell in business mark, north dakota, you're on with leland melvin. >> caller: it's so great to seeg you, leland, i was just flipping through the channels, it's a fantastic story. my question is where have you been and why haven't we heard this story before? thank you. >> guest: well, darnell, i thine about katherine johnson who is a 99-year-old mathematician that helped john glenn get around the planet, so a lot of us have been hidden figures for quite a while. i got this book out there so that we can get more kids, especially from different zip codes and kids that look like me to know that you can play in the nfl, you can be an astronaut, and you can be an educator. you can do anything if you have people that have your back and that you believe in yourself and you work hard. >> host: want to show a photo from the book to our viewers. what is this a photo of? >> guest: dr. bobby thatcher who was a ph.d. in chemical engineering from mit as well as a medical doctor. and it's the first time that two african-american men were in space at the same time. thom joyner interview ised us in space -- interviewed us in space. that one picture and that interview were listened to by a million people, and now kids come up to me and tell me they heard that interview, and they want to be astronauts. they just wanted to be ball players, and there's nothing wrong with being a ball player. i was a ball player. but the key is you can do so much more than just one thing. >> host: this photo, where were you when this was taken? >> guest: this was -- we had undocked from the international space station in 2009, and we were floating in the mid deck of the space shuttle atlantis on sps-129. >> host: tyler, marietta, georgia. good afternoon, please go ahead. >> caller: good afternoon. at nasa do they discuss why there's so many conspiracy theories about the moon landing? and my second question is do you think we really landed on thee moon? >> host: tyler, do you think we landed on the moon? >> guest: no, i do not. >> host: why? >> caller: if you go on youtube, you can see so many videos where it kind of looks like there's strings in the background holding up the t astronauts. also another thing i heard which is really good too is aren't there different radiation belts and how were the astronauts able to pass through those radiation belts when they were headed towards the moon?tr >> host: thank you, sir. >> guest: tyler, my friends have given their lives for exploration. apollo 1, we lost people in a fire. john young, who is not a liar, he's a friend of mine who interviewed me to become an astronaut, walked on the moon. i believe in this man. he's an honest, honorable person. i believe in the space program. and i know that we have walked on the moon because of the efforts to help advance our civilization than listen to these conspiracy theorists. some who don't believe that the earth is round. i've seen the earth from space.r the earth is round. so you can't buy into some of this stuff that you see how on youtube. we need more scientists and people that have analytical minds that can discern these different things and understand that these things are real. >> host: leland melvin, you tals about the twang. [laughter]e what is the twang? >> guest: the twang is when you're sitting in the shuttle, and the three main engines come on, and the three main engines are off from the stack, we call it, the solid rocket boosters in the shuttle. so they light, and the entire shuttle rotates forward. and then when we come back, peter, the main engines light, there are eight bolts that have explosive charges in them that are ignited, and they blow away, and we're off. and it's a amazing. -- amazing. like the twang on a screen door that you open and it twapgs?t that's how we come back up, butp we take off right after that. >> host: a lot of people have ridden roller coasters, feel the pressure on their chest. is it like that? >> guest: you're feeling three times the weight on your chest. we pull about 3gs as we're going up, so you start to labor to breathe a little bit, it feels heavy, you know, to take really deep breaths.e but after the solid rocket boosters are jettisoned, thea ride smooths out. you're doing this for a little while, for about two and a half minutes, and then it gets a much smoother flight. six and a half minutes later you're in space. >> host: and when you are in space, is it just very smooth? >> guest: main engine cutoff you see things start floating around you, things that you dropped are now floating or dust particles. and you're under your seat belt. you push off with your back, and now you're floating towards the front seat. you bounce back like a ping-pong ball., you get out of your seat and look out the window, and you see the most incredible light show. the colors of the caribbean, a sunrise and a sunset every 45 minutes as you go around the minute -- around the planet every 90 minutes. and you're doing this to help advance our civilization. that's the american story. >> host: did you ever run intog space junk or satellites? could you see them? were you above them? below them? >> guest: i didn't want see any space junk, but lots of times when we come back home there are pits in the window from small particles that have actually hit the window. and my second mission we opened up the payload bay doors of the shuttle, and we saw this thing that looked organic and translucent, it was starting to float out of the payload bay, and i grabbed and i was about to say, houston, we have a problem. i didn't say that because the hair on their necks would have raised up. but it was a piece of ice that had broken off from these hoses that are on part of the freonve loops, but it looked kind of like a body floating out. and like the aliens on the movie contact when they're coming across the sand at the end of the movie, that's what it looked like to me. and one of my colleagues, randy, who's in space right now, he looked at me -- and he was a rookie, leland, what is that? you've been to space, what is that? [laughter] >> host: let's hear from tamara in port orange, florida. hi, tamara. >> caller: hi there. we're coming up on an exciting milestone with the commercial crew program. and i was wondering what yourrc thoughts are on commercial crew and if you will be involved in the commercial crew program. thank you so much. >> host: now, tamara, you seem to know what you're talking about. what's your background? [laughter]vo >> caller: well, i used to be a counselor at space camp, and i've been a space flight educator in challenger learning center, and i was a research historian for nasa at johnson space center. [laughter] and now i'm a stay-at-home mom. >> guest: tam rah, i'm all for commercial crew. i believe the more people that have an opportunity to go to space and experience the overview effect or this orbital perspective will help us advance our civilization even more, butt it'll also help us come together as a civilization. and so whoever wants to go to space, however we want to do it whether it's nasa, elon musk, virgin galactic, i embrace all of it because it can only help us advance as a civilization. >> host: what are you doing today? >> guest: today i had a chance to talk to a lot of people at the national book festival near d.c. all these wonderful authors unspiring people, motivating people. id had a chance to sign the book, and also the young readers' edition which has s.t.e.m. experiments in the back, or s.t.e.a.m. experiments in the back. paper clips, paper, scissors, you can build rockets, do all these exciting things, and theer key is to help get our nexthi generation of explorers inspired to take my place, take our place, right? and share these messages of hope and inspiration and future. >> host: are you still with nasa in any capacity? >> guest: i retired from nasa, but i still help out in certain aspects when there are launches and missions and things. i still am an advocate and supporter of helping our space program. >> host: how's your 90-acre a serenity farm in lynchburg?m. >> guest: twaicialg it got sold. i sold the farm. but i'm still looking to do other things involving kids and getting outdoors and believing in themselves. >> host: here's the cover of the book, it's called chasing space." the author and our guest is leland melvin. >> booktv is on twitter and facebook, and we want to hear from you. tweet us, twitter.com/booktv, or post a comment on our facebook page, facebook.com booktv. >> there's one proposal that's ignored. i mean, you see a mention of it now and then. it's pretty simple proposal. remember, the goal is to get north korea to freeze its weapons systems, weapons and missile systems. so one proposal is to accept their offer to do that. sounds simple. they've made a proposal, china and north korea propose to freeze the north korean missile and nuclear weapon systems, and the u.s. instantly rejected it. and you can't blame that on trump. obama did the same thing a couple of years ago, same offer was presented, i think it was 2015. the obama administration inch instantly rejected it -- instantly rejected it. and the reason is it calls for a quid pro quo. it says in return the united states should put an end to threatening military maneuvers on north korea's borders which happen to include under trump sending of nuclear-capable b-52s flying right near the border. maybe americans don't remember very well, but north koreans have a memory of not too long ago when north korea was absolutely flattened literally by american bombing. there was literally no targets left. and i really urge people who haven't done it to read the official american military histories, the air quarterly review, the military histories describing this. they describe it very vividly and accurately. they say there just weren't any targets left, so what could we do? well, we decided to attack the dams, the huge dams. major war crime. people were hanged for it at nuremberg, but put that aside. and then comes an ecstatic, gleeful description of the bombing of the dams and the huge flow of water which was wiping out valleys and destroying the rice crop on which asians depend for survival. lots of racist comment. but all with exaltation and glee. you really have to read it to appreciate it. the north koreans don't have to bother reading it, they lived it. so when nuclear-capable b-52s are flying on their border along with other threatening military maneuvers, they're kind of upset about it. strange people. [laughter] they continue to develop what they see as a potential deterrent that might protect the regime from -- and the country, in fact, from destruction. this has nothing at all to do with what you think about the government. so maybe it's the worst government in human history, okay. but these are still the facts that exist. so why is the united states unwilling to end an agreement -- to accept an agreement which would end the immediate threats of destruction against north korea and in return freeze the weapons and missile systems? well, i leave that to you. and remember, that's bipartisan in this case. could negotiations go -- the usual argument is, well, you can't trust them and so on and so so forth. but there is a history, and there's no time to run through the history. it's quite interesting. begins in 1993 when the clinton, under clinton the north koreans made a deal with israel to terminate north korean missile shipments to the middle east which is a great, serious threat to israel and the world. and in return israel would recognize north korea. the clinton administration wouldn't accept that. they pressured israel which has to do what they're told to withdraw frit, and north korea -- from it, and north korea responded by firing their first intermediate-range missiles. i won't go on with the rest. it's a very interesting story. there was, actually, an agreement in 2005 that north korea would completely dismantle its nuclear weapons and missile systems, end them, finish, kiss mantle them -- dismantle them in return for a nonaggression pact from the united states, an end to threats, provision by the west, that means by the united states, or a light water reactor which can't produce nuclear weapons but could produce, be used for peaceful purposes. research, medical, other purposes. that was basically the agreement, 2005. didn't last very long. the bush administration instantly undermined it. it dismantled the consortium that was supposed to provide the reactor, and it immediately imposed pressure, and when the u.s. pressures, that means it happens, banks to block north korean financial transactions including perfectly legitimate trade. so the crazy north koreans started producing missiles and nuclear weapons again. and that's been the kind of record all the way through. so, yeah, maybe the most horrible regime in human history, but the fact of the matter is the regime does want to survive, and it even wants to carry out economic development. there's pretty general agreement about this. which it cannot do at any significant way when it's pouring resources, very scarce resources into weapons and missile production. so they have considerable incentive, including survival, to perhaps continue this process of reacting in a kind of tit for tat fashion to u.s. actions. when the u.s. lowers tensions, they do. when we raise them, they go on with the plans. how about that as a possibility? i mean, it is -- if you look at the press, it's occasionally mentioned. there was not a bad article in "the washington post" about it recently by a u.s. professor to to who teaches in -- who teaches in south korea. so occasionally it's this strange possibility of letting the north koreans do exactly what we want them to do. sometimes this is mentioned, but it's pretty much dismissed. we can't cothat sort of thing. -- do that sort of thing. there are similar questions to raise about iran. so iran is, you know, again, the adults in the room like mattis and so on say it's the greatest threat to peace, you know, the greatest respond p sor or terrorism -- sponsor of terrorism, on and on. how is it a sponsor or terrorism? well, we could go through that. so, for example, in yemen it's claimed that they are providing some aid to rebel tribesmen, houthi tribesmen in yemen. okay, maybe they are. what is the united states doing in yemen? it's providing a huge flood of arms to its saudi arabian ally who are destroying the country. they've created a huge humanitarian crisis. huge numbers of people killed, massive or starvation -- massive starvation, they're threatening now to bomb a port which is the only source of aid for surviving people. but iran is the major source of terrorism. and if you look around the world, there's many questions like this. i don't want to go on too long, but very strikingly -- and this, there's one lesson that you discover when you carefully look at the historical record. what i just describe about north korea is pretty typical. over and over again, there are possibilities of diplomacy and negotiation which might not succeed, you can't be sure if you don't try them, but which look pretty promising, which are abandoned, dismissed literally without comment in favor of increased force and violence. in fact, that's also the background for the 1953 moment when the clock moved to two minutes to midnight, and the u.s. faced the first serious threat to its security. that, in fact, since probably the war of 1812. could have been avoided. there's pretty good evidence that it could have been avoided. but it was the, the possibility was literally not even considered. and case after case is like this. it's worth looking at the historical record from that perspective to ask whether that general comment has some validity. i think if you do, you'll find that it has considerable merit. >> you're watching booktv on c-span2, television for serious readers. here's our prime time lineup. at 7:30 p.m. p eastern, paul hold ander talks -- hollander talks about western intellectuals who have supported dictators over the last century. susie hanson reflects on her travels abroad and reports on the world view of america's power and influence. and at ten, hillary clinton gives her personal account of the 2016 presidential campaign and election. we wrap up our prime time programming at 11:30 p.m. eastern with biographer mark elliot on the life of actor charlton heston. that all happens tonight on c-span2's booktv. and beginning now, author paul hollander on the influence of political dictators on western intellectuals. [inaudible conversations] >> well, good morning, and welcome to the cato institute. i'm a senior policy analyst, and i run a web site called human progress.org. during the 20th century and during the 21st centubl

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