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This is later with Lee Matthews the
Lee Matthews Podcast More what you Hear weekday

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afternoons on the Drive. Leland Meldon
is an astronaut for NASA and executive producer

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of The Space Race. He has
joined with co director Diego or Tondo de

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Mendoza of a national geographic. It's
a new documentary out The Space Race,

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which is available everywhere you get your
documentaries. It's the untold story of the

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first black astronauts. Leland, let's
start with you. This is taking what

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we already know and attacking it from
a different point of view. Yeah,

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Lee, this is such an incredible
journey about you know, the first,

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the first to be black astronaut,
and how he didn't make it because of

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what was going on at the time
of the civil rights and Jim Crow laws

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and all these things. But it
shows his indomitable spirit to not just get

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depressed and said and go away.
He turned into a world renowned artist who

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tells stories through his one hundred and
thirty two sculptures all around the country and

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the world. And so that spirit
that Ed Dwight had was infused into all

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of us and Guy Blueford and Charlie
Bolden and Mae Jimmis and all these black

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astronauts that were using the foundation that
edits it to rise and do incredible things

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in space. And it lets kids
and young kids and old kids alike see

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this history that was hidden to us. It was hidden to me. I

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never knew about Eddwayite until later when
I was at NASA, And it's just

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so important that we all know our
history. I mean, what I know

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about Ed White was the Apollo disaster
that he perished in correct, No,

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that was Ed White. This is
Ed dwighte oh Dwight. I'm sorry.

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Okay, Okay, now I understand, Okay, see that that's you're teaching

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me something I didn't know. And
that's what this documentary gets to the heart

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of Diego Hertando de ro Mendoza.
You are a cinematographer and co director of

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this and producer and director. What
attracted you about this story? Well,

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I mean, this story is just
absolutely incredible. Is when you when you

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look at the history of space exploration, I think most most people will think

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they've seen it all, they've heard
it all. You know, there's hundreds

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of books and movies and documentaries that
tell this incredible story. But in this

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film, they're going to discover,
uh, you know, a group of

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incredible men and women they might have
never heard about. And and there's these

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incredible hidden figures that contributed to the
program but disappeared from that history. And

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we've seen, you know, when
we've shown these film at festivals, we've

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you know, audiences come after the
film and and ask it like how I

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thought I knew everything about the space
program and I'd never heard about any of

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this. And I think it makes
people wonder what other aspects of reality they

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are like this where you know,
incredible contributions done by minorities were just literally

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erased or omitted from from the history. Went out Leland Melvin is with us

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Diego Hetaldo del Mendoza, then Astra
geographic documentary The Space Race out now Leland.

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Was it more difficult for Black Americans
to get into space exploration because it

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was more difficult for them to get
the education necessary to get there. It's

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a very good question. I mean, one of the things that you know,

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we we hit on in this this
movie is how do we get these

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young black kids into these academies so
that they can you know, get the

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education and the and the right stuff
required to to have the credentials to be

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into these types of things in aerospace. And so that's a that's a very

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important point that that we we touched
in the movie when We're when President Kennedy

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wants to get to black vote and
and there was a gentleman who wants,

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uh, the president to make him
a black astronaut so he can utilize these

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pathways to get more kids into stem
field science, psychology, engineering, and

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math. And and it's you know, it's interesting to me because you know,

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we in Oklahoma have Langston University.
There was Tuskegee Institute in Alabama,

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but but I don't know of any
other specific universities that were that that had

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the capability of getting some of these
students to the to the science and math

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that they needed. Now, sure, we had the Tuskegee Airmen, and

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we certainly had pilots who knew what
they were doing up in the sky,

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but it was I guess it was
the other the theory that had to be

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worked out mathematically first. Well,
you know, guy Blueford went to Penn

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State. He got his okay,
he got his uh his A degree at

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Penn State. But he was in
his aerospace engineering class. He was the

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only one. He was only black
person in that class. And so you

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did have people going into the major
universities, but was in ones and twos,

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and a lot of these kids didn't
know that that was even possible.

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Guy Blueford's father was an electrical engineer, so for him it was normal to

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in that family that they were you
know, scientists and engineers and things,

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and that was a possibility, but
so many kids never knew about that.

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This is Leland Melvin who was the
executive producer and co director Diego Artando del

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Mendoza of National Geographics documentary The Space
Race. Diego, did you have to

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pour over a lot of video to
edit this down? We had the help

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of NASA, who was instrumental in
which was instrumental in getting us access to

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the phenomenal archive the space program.
But it's being thoroughly documented, so we

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had hundreds and hundreds of hours.
We had a phenomenal team at the Kennedy

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Marshall, the production company that we
worked with, who helped us calm through

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these tremendous amount of footage. And
I think it's a visual treat I mean,

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space is something that's so thought provoking
for all of us that haven't had

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that experience, and so in the
film, I think people will will see

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space, We'll see it through a
different lens. They'll see it through the

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eyes of these men and women who
went through so much to get to accomplish

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their dreams and their mission. And
I think that it's a universal story that

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will inspire everyone. Leland Melvin's with
US executive producer along with co director Diego

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Hertadlo del Mendoza of the National Geographic
documentary The Space Race, and and Leland

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eventually, Oh okay, I'm sorry, I just had one more quick question,

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but Leland, when when we finally
did get Black Americans in space,

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was it considered a victory or was
it considered par for the course for NASA?

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I mean, I think it was, Uh, it was both.

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It was. It was the victory, but once we uh, once guy

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was in space, you know,
we had more people to go. So

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it wasn't a one time thing.
It was it was a continuous journey for

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Black Americans and then also for women
and other minorities to get a chance to

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find space. Leland Melvin, along
with Diego Diego Heart Miss Mendoza of the

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Space Race, available with the National
Geographic anywhere you get your natural geographic products

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and gentlemen, thank you for joining
us and for the film. Thank you

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so much. Thank you. Thanks
for listening to Later with Lee Matthews,

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the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember
to listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons

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from five to seven and iHeartMedia presentation