The world came almost never saw this video of Neil Armstrong’s first step on the moon on July 20, 1969. No, it was not top-secret! Engineers could transmit sound from the moon to the earth. However, the technology to send video recordings through space was not available as astronauts prepared to walk out onto the surface of the moon. Shortly before the great event Charles H. House invented an electronic device that made it possible for the world to see those first steps for mankind.

Today, instead of Neil Armstrong, I have the privilege of introducing you to Chuck House, the innovative engineer whose work inspired many young people to become scientists after they saw the historic first steps on the moon.

Chuck grew up voraciously reading and writing. His literature as a child was a borrowed set of Britannica Encyclopedias, which he read volume by volume. As an engineer he wrote engineering textbooks. After thirty years of working in the field, he decided that someone ought to record the history of Hewlett-Packard, the leading electronics company in the world at the time. In this first video, he talks about the process of publishing a book with a University Press.

You might be publishing your doctorate, or writing to gain tenure to a university. Listen as he describes the publishing experience made him consider other avenues of publication for the sequels that his fans wanted him to write.

Today it has almost been 47 years since that historic walk on the moon. Technologies stemming from that event have altered our lives in more ways than we can count. Publishing a book is one of them. In the next post you will see the second part of the interview. In Video #2 you will learn how and why Chuck self-published his next books.