September 7, 2025 • 26 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's a weekend podcast, and Ramon says, I do too
long of an introduction to these things, So let me
just say this. You can always send me an email
through our website Michael Berryshow dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I do love to hear from.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
You The Michael Berry Show.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Our guest is doctor Travis Taylor. Now listen now, how
cool this is you talk? You talk about your true
renaissance man. Listen to this Doctor Travis Taylor, aka the
Ringleader Alabama, Alabama born and bred. Travis's work with the
Department of Defense and NASA for the last twenty five years,
(00:33):
but his oddest job was working in a chicken house.
He has above top secret clearance with the US government.
He holds five degrees in optical science and engineering, physics,
aerospace engineering, astronomy, and electrical engineering, and he's currently completing
a second PhD in aerospace engineering. He built his first
rocket at age six, and he's been a space geek
(00:54):
ever since. He's currently working on several advanced propulsion concepts,
very large space telescopes, space based beamed energy systems, high
energy lasers, and next generation space launch concepts. Taylor has
written more than twenty five technical papers fourteen science fiction
novels and two textbooks, and he has appeared in multiple
(01:15):
television documentaries, including National Geographics recently highly rated special Win
Aliens Attack. That's my idea of a redneck renaissance man,
Doctor Travis Taylor, thanks for being our guest.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Hey, thanks for having me call me Travis.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
All right, Travis, tell me about this cool new show
that I'm excited to watch tonight, Chad, I got to
tell you about how broad the appeal is. My producer
is Hawaiian born half Japanese, grew up or went to
school in Portland, Oregon, well actually in Eugene, Oregon, got
to Texas as fast as he can, and has been
(01:50):
just geeked up over watching this show tonight. So I
think the appeal is going to be widespread.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Well, I hope. So, you know, the whole reason for
us doing this show is we want to show people
that if you put your mind to it, you and
a few friends and family members can can get together
and solve some problems. They may not necessarily have to be,
you know, earth shattering problems, but they can be a
problem of some scale that you could solve. And that's
pretty much what we do each weekend, we pick a
(02:17):
problem and then we get together and put our heads
around it, and we figure out a solution, usually for
under a couple thousand dollars worth of stuff that we
can find in my dad's garager, in the junk yard
next door, or at the hardware store.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
I love the cast of characters. The show's called Rocket
City Rednecks. Roger Jones, I guess is your best friend
from elementary school.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Yeah, we met Roger and I his real name is Greg,
but we've always called him Roger for some reason. But
we met in the fifth grade in the Alabama Talented
and Gifted program. And Roger has got a super genius IQ.
I mean, like up in the high one sixties. And
there ain't a problem that he looks at that he
doesn't almost immediately know the answer to. But Roger never
(03:00):
wanted to go to school because he wasn't that disciplined
about such things. But he became a machinist and a
welder and a tinker and man, he can fix just
about anything. And he drinks a lot of beer.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Yeah, and he likes to shoot stuff. Now, I got
in my materials, it says one of the members, one
of the group of five lives in a trailer. Which
one is that?
Speaker 3 (03:19):
That's Roge okay?
Speaker 1 (03:21):
And then your dad, I guess Charles Taylor.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Yeah, Now, my dad, when he was twenty two years old,
he was a local Huntsville sharecroping farmer and he was
becoming a machinist at a local machine company here and
that's about the time the space program picked up and
he found himself as as one of Werner von Braun's machinists.
And my dad worked on the space program from the
(03:48):
early sixties off up until about nineteen seventy where he
built He was one of the machinists that put together
the prototype of one of the first satellites we launched
that's still in orbit today. And then he also built
and welded parts that were actually in the Saturn five
that took me into the Moon.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Then Michael Taylor, who is your nephew.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
And my nephew, Michael, he's twenty three, and he's the
only single one of the bunch, and all of us
kind of joking, we say that we're going to be
living Y Cashley through him, and he's a super genius
of putting things together. And since i've been getting the
legos since he was old enough to chew on whatever
you want to chew on. And at fourteen or fifteen,
(04:31):
he took a twenty horse power brigs and Stratton engine
and put it into a shopping cart and turned that
thing into a shopping cart that would go forty mile hour.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Wow, that's practical. Yeah, Pete Urbach Pistol. Pete, tell me
about him?
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Yeah. No, Pete and I met in graduate school studying
for our physics degrees, and he and I started hanging
out and studying and drinking together and shooting guns together,
and then we ended up marrying sisters.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Wow, and tell me how this project came about Rocket
City Rednecks.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Well, as you alluded to earlier. You know, I've written
some science fiction books, and there was this company of
production company out in Hollywood that was doing this other
documentary show and they were going to do an episode
of that show on space warfare, and they googled that
topic and my name came up. So they called me
and said, would you like to come out and do
a screen test for us? And I said sure, And
(05:28):
when I went out to do the screen test, they
ended up keeping me in Film two episodes of that
show that week and had me back for a bunch
of other episodes. But I told them, look, guys, these
documentary shows, these science shows, if you're not already a
science geek or enthusiast, you usually your eyes glaze over
about ten minutes in because most of everybody don't want
to see the ad nauseum detail of a quantum black hole.
(05:53):
We need a science show that'd be fun and exciting
and would be entertaining. People would watch and not realize
they're getting the science at the same time.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Right.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
They said, well, what kind of ideas you have? So
I told him. Nothing really happened for a little while.
So I went and bought a video camera, put my
wife behind it, and we got the guys together and
we did a project one weekend and she filmed it
and I sent it back to that production company and
within a week they had a real production, real film
crew in Huntsville filming this. And we filmed a pilot
(06:21):
and sent it to that geo and the next day
after that geo saw it, they offered us a contract
for a series.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Doctor Travis Taylor is our guest. He's the star, along
with four other folks family and friends of a show
called Rocket What is it? Rocket City Rednecks, which premieres
tonight with four episodes on the National Geographic Channel. One
of the I Guess, I got two clips that they
sent along, and I just realized Chad just gave me.
I got I Guess your first episode. First two episodes
(06:50):
here on DVD's already, so I may not have to
watch it tonight. I'll take it home and watch as
soon as I'm through. But one of the things y'all
did was build your own submarine. Tell us about that.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Yeah, well, I tell people that we've only almost died
once while filming this series. This this first season, we
actually decided we wanted to practice doing some exploring and
exploring underwater and see what we could do with what
we had on hand. You know, there's a lot about
the ocean we don't know about, and rivers and so
(07:22):
on we haven't been to the bottom of. And if
we ever go to other planets, they're going to have
lakes and rivers and oceans. We want to be able
to observe them. So we put together submarine using what
we could fight, and we found a plastic container that
they had a farmer had next to my dad's house
that they put pasticides and stuff in. It's about four
foot by four foot by four foot box, and we
(07:43):
took it and mounted it to my dad's crappee boat trailer.
He didn't like that too much, but I talked him
into it, and then used about five or six beer
kegs for ballast mass and air tanks, and then we
put that thing in the water and it worked out
great for a while, and then we had had a
couple of failures occurred while me and my nephew were
(08:04):
in it down at depth, and it got a little
scary for a little while, but we managed to get
out of it all right.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Travis, despite all your educational accomplishments and your professional accomplishments,
reading about you and talking to you before the interview,
it strikes me how humble you are, but it is.
I hope it's not lost on you, and I hope
(08:31):
this turns out to be the case for my generation.
I'm forty when we went to law school. I was
in law school in the mid nineties, and there was
a study that had just come out before that as
to the reason people had gone to law school that
were my age. The number one reason was they had
watched To Kill a Mockingbird. If you stop and think
about you talked about exposing kids to science without and
(08:54):
they think they're just blowing stuff up, but it's actually
your exposing of science. This could have a profound impact
for young kids that never thought of the academic environment,
be in someplace they could excel, but awakening in them
a love for the natural world and engineering and mathematics
(09:15):
and science.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Well, you know what, that's part of one of our
goals for this thing is we all here in the
Rocket City are just absidanolutely embarrassed by the fact that
we have to rent a ride from the Russians go
to our own dead gum space station. And so we
want to get a generation of folks to understand that
(09:37):
you can do stuff, and that Americans can get off
the couch, put the game controllers down, get out of
the virtual world, go out in the garage, and start
putting things together and start making America a nation full
of doers again. And that's part of one of our plans,
is just to inspire people to do something.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Travis, can you hold with me for just a moment. Absolutely,
Originally they had said just to keep you for one segment,
but we talked earlier and you think you can hang
around a little while longer.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Yeah, I don't have another interview for another hour.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Oh good, Well, hold tight, my man, doctor Travis Taylor.
You're listening to Michael Berry Show. Travis Taylor, thanks for
being our guest.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
You know, I don't know if you could hear me
during the break, but I was saying one of the
things that I think you talked about, You're going to
expose science to people who think they're just watching stuff
being blown up, but kids could have in them awakened
a love of science, and future scientists who you know,
have been tinkering in the garage and realized, wait a second,
(10:35):
I found my calling. This could be this could be
what I do. I wonder to what extent National Geographic
because of the mission they have, to what extent they
saw that.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
You know, that's a good question. I've actually had conversations
with the president of the channel and all that about this,
and I've told him that this is my goal, you
other than you know, to have a hit show. Of course,
so I could just do the show if I want
to do but no, my goal is really to get
people excited about this, get them interested in us doing
some bigger projects as a country, as a people, as
(11:10):
a culture, and let's just keep moving forward at being great,
which is what Americans have done historically, has been great.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Just got an email from a guy in Portland, Oregon,
and he says, Michael in Portland, Oregon writes, I'm listening
to your interview with Travis Taylor, the Rocket City Redneck.
I'm forty four years old, and I am inspired. I
want to go home and make something. I just had
a son and I've been wondering how to inspire him
to do things like them like this. I want him
(11:40):
to be inspired by people like this. I just got
their website on the National Geographic Page and their article
on space dot com. I may have to break down
and buy a cable just so I can watch this
guy show. How nice is that?
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Wow? That's amazing.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Have you been surprised by how interested people have been
in your scientific undertakings? You know, the previous show you did.
You've been surprised by how interested people are in that
sort of stuff?
Speaker 3 (12:11):
You know? I kind of am I am, and I'm
not because I know how much I love it, and
I know how much it excites me and the people
that are my friends around me. I mean, that's what
we talk about when we set around drinking beer. We
occasionally talk about football and hunting, but we usually end
up talking about rockets and quantum physics. But it's one
of those things that everybody is curious about, you know,
(12:32):
why are we here? What's the universe all about? And what?
Well how do things work? And so I think it's
in everybody. It's just we've just had a real bad
way of showing it to people for a long time now.
Ever since we sort of stopped with the space program,
we haven't had a big national thing that was so
awesome for everybody to get behind. And I want to
(12:54):
see people get that enthusiasm back.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
A note here that you failed a class in college?
Speaker 3 (13:00):
What was it? I only ever failed one class in
my life, and it was the third electromagnetics class as
a senior or junior senior level class in electrical engineering.
But it was really more of an attitude me against
this particular professor. I disagreed with a young professor in
(13:20):
class and argued with him to a fault where I
had no choice but either eat, grow or fail. And
I was too stubborn at the time, and so I
had to learn my lesson and take the class. Oh
we're to get ahead in at the second time.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Travis Taylor with the show Rocket City, Rednecks as our guests,
where do you think we went wrong in this country
in the pursuit of science in school?
Speaker 3 (13:46):
Well, you know where we went wrong was given the
kids a preconceived notion or preconceived answer when they'd start
to do things. We never should tell them what the
answer is when you're doing the science. Let them figure
out what the answer is. We don't start telling them
things about the world coming to an end. Are this
is how it's gonna work, and this is how it's
gonna work. What we do if we show them how
(14:07):
to set up the experiment and let them find out
for themselves what the solution is, what's going to happen,
Make it exciting, make it an adventure. If it's something
that they have to learn through memorization or whatever, then
you know who wants to do that.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
I'm looking at the at the different episodes bomb Proof,
My Pickup, Moonshine, Rocket Fuel, and Junkyard iron Man, and
I note in some of the materials that you built
an Iron Man suit. What is your fascination with Iron Man?
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Well, let me tell you my own personal hero, and
Michael's daddy, my nephew who's in the show, his daddy
and my big brother is an E nine in the
United States Air Force, and he's been to Iraq and
Afghanistan for long periods of time, about three or four
times now. And they have to wear all this armor,
carry all this stuff around. They got so much gear
(15:01):
on them that it seems to me like it makes
them almost bogged down to where they can't be as
effective it had protected themselves from getting shot at. And
I've all been a long fan of a long time
fan of the idea of powered armor that if they
could wear the armor and the armor enhance their strength
instead of sap their strength, then it would go a
(15:22):
long way to help them do their mission a lot better,
and it would help protect them and give them a
better chance coming home safe. So I got the guys
together and I told them said, you know, we're not
gonna be able to build one that look works like
the perfect Iron Man in the movies. But let's build
what we can build and show that with some ingenuities,
some junk yard parts and you know, maybe a thousand
(15:44):
dollars worth of stuff from the hardware store, that we
can build a bulletproof suit from head to toe that
will enhance your strength and give you some extra sensors,
and maybe show people that it can be done on
the cheap and in a weekend. And then imagine what
we could do if we did a real program to
build the suits to give to our troops.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
What's the project you wanted to do for Rocket City
Rednecks that National Geographic or the production company said, no,
that's just too dangerous.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
Well, the only thing they've turned me down on had
to do with the Iron Man suit. We invented a
way to lay fiberglass and sheet metal and plywood together
in different layers to make it bulletproof. And we literally
we tested it and shot it with several different types
of rifle bullets and proved that it was completely bulletproof.
(16:32):
And I wanted at the end of the show. I
wanted Pete to come by with a pistol and unload
on my chest. And I told him I'd even want
a bulletproof vest underneath the armor while they were filming
it just for safety, and we were completely confident that
another one happened, but the legal people wouldn't let us
do it.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Were you confident Pete was a good enough shot? Oh?
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Yeah, I watched Pete, Pete or my daddy, either one
could do. But my dad wouldn't do it. And when
he found out that me and Pete were hatching this idea,
he went through the roof on us.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Well why don't you just do it with a home
camera and then give them the footage.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Oh. We talked about that, and I asked the production
company and they said there's no way that the legal
would clear them every showing that. So I'm not going
to do something that's gonna make anybody upset or mad
because this is such an opportunity for us to show
these types of experiments to the world that I don't
want to take a chance of stopping that capability.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Travis Taylor, thanks for staying with us so long. A
couple of quick questions based on I'm gonna synthesize all
the emails I'm getting and ask them rapid fire role
models for you, role models for.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
Me, Alan Shephard, Chuck Jaeger, Story, Musgrave, all those are
big astronauts. Fictional wise, it would be Jim Kirk, then
writers like Mark Twain and Robert Heinlein, and then of
course my dad and my big brother.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
You had to throw Hindlin in there. How awesome are you?
You just get more interesting the more I ask you
as a child, books or movies or TV shows that
inspired you and are some part of who you are now.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
Absolutely, I would start off with the first science fiction
book that I ever read, and that was Have Spacesuit
Will Travel by Robert Heinlein, no wonderful young adult science
fiction novel.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
I'm a huge Highline fan, so I'm happy to hear
that I'm a huge Hindhline fan.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
Yeah awesome. And then TV, of course I grew up
watching the Star Trek reruns and the movies. You know,
the first time I saw Star Wars, I was I
was hooked, and I wanted to be going to the
new places and seeing new things, and that kind of
led me into where I got to today.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Several fathers sending in and saying I want to get
my my son interested in science, whether they pursue the
field or not, I want them interested in the natural
world and and machinery and science. What's a good starter
project for a young child?
Speaker 3 (19:12):
It depends on how old they are. But let me
tell you, I don't care who you are and how
old old you are. To see a rocket get launched
right there that you actually put your hands on and built,
that's something. And so what I'd recommend is go to
your local hobby shop and spend ten bucks on a
rocket kit, follow the instructions and safety instructions carefully and
(19:33):
do that. And then once you've done one by the
by the kit, find some stuff around the house and
build your own rocket, following the kind of same principles
that you learned from from building a kit and uh
and use use one of the kit engines and see
what it does, and see if you can make one
that flies just as good or better. And then put
an egg in it, and see if you can bring
(19:54):
an egg home safely. Because think about we had to
figure out a way to bring our astronauts on them safely.
And if you could do something in your in your
kitchen or your garage that is similar to that that
you did with your own hands, it everybody just smiles
when that happens.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
You have a gift for storytelling. A magazine uh that
you that you subscribe to, that you would recommend to others, Well,
you know, growing.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
Up, Uh, it was always Scientific American and Popular Science.
And I and not not really plugging that because I
didn't plan this, but National Geographic, of course. And but
that was probably because I had pictures of topless women
and right, that's.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Why I watched it as a kid.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
I read it as a kid, and I used to
we used to every Sunday night the family would get
together and watch a mutual of Omaha's Animal Kingdom. Uh.
You know, uh Wild Kingdoms.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Yeah, Jim will now wrestle the alligator. Inventors, Uh, your
advice to inventors, A lot of listeners have inventions on
their mind, things they're working to do you have a
website or a source or some guidance for people that
are inventors by nature?
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Well, my first guidance is something that we tell each
other all the time on the show, and we use
it and it's one of the things that is about
being stubborn that I've been. When I would fail, maybe
the first time, and keep moving, keep at it. We
always tell each other to stay with it. And as
the first and foremost advice I give anybody by anything,
it is a goal of theirs. No matter how much
(21:27):
it looks like you're not going to get it for
some reason, just focus that you've got it and stay
with it.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Travis Taylor is our guest. He is one of the
stars of Rocket City Rednecks, which airs tonight on National Geographic.
What thing would you most like to invent that has
not yet been invented?
Speaker 3 (21:43):
A warp drive? I want to be able to take
humanity to other star systems at some point in my life.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Does it bother you when you see Southerners or Rednecks
whatever you want to say, portrayed in movie, he's in
television on the evening news as not as smart as
people with different dialects or accents.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Well there's two sides of that too. It bothers me
a bit. But what bothers me is that people think
that smart people in general have to be like the
folks on this comedy show, Big Bang Theory. You know,
it's a great funny show, don't get me wrong, and
I'm not trying to plug or low rate the show,
but people think that if you're really smart, you have
to be ineffective and ridiculously reilly and stupid like these guys.
(22:32):
They don't have enough common sense to walk through an
open door. And I tell people that part of being
a rocket scientist is knowing the big picture and how
to put it all together and make it work. We
give you a perfect example. Werner von Bryn was losing
political favor and knew that he would lose funding during
the early part of the rocket program, so he got
in a plane, flew to Orlando, Florida, and talked Walt
(22:54):
Disney into helping him out, and walk Disney started making
little cartoons about rockets and putting them on before his
big movie aired in the movie theaters. Wow, that's part
of the big picture.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
What person have you been most excited about meeting that
you have met in your life?
Speaker 3 (23:11):
Wow? Uh, it had to it would have to be
Neil Armstrong. I actually met him at a conference. I
was signing autograph for one of my books and one
of his handlers came up to get an autograph of
my book and they told me to make it out
to Neil and uh, and I was like, Neil, how
do you spell that? And he said, just like the
character in your book who was named after Neil Armstrong.
And so I signed it. And I looked up and
(23:32):
I realized that it was Neil Armstrong's you know, entourage,
and so I signed it, uh, you know to Neil Armstrong. UH.
When I turned one year old, you were splashing down
in UH in the ocean. So it was a great
way for you to celebrate my birthday and was an
autographed to him.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
How awesome was it to know that somebody for whom
you had been a fan was now a fan of
your work.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
I couldn't believe it. I immediately got off the UH,
pulled out my phone, called my wife and she said,
what did you get his autograph? And then, of course
my heart's sunk because they were already gone and I
had not asked for his autograph.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
I'm betting if you dropped him a note, he would
love to meet you. Last question, what person have you
not met that is alive that you would most like
to meet?
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Wow? That that is still alive that I would most
like to meet? Guy. You know, one of my biggest
things in life was I never was old enough to
vote for Roun Regan. I always thought he was an
awesome dude. So right now, a guy that's still alive,
I'd like to meet. I've never met Story Musgrave or
Chuck Jaeger. I'd like to meet either one of those
two guys.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Okay, who's the greatest scientist? If you have to pick
one of all time? Oh?
Speaker 3 (24:40):
Wow, that I have to pick one of all time?
I have to, I have to pick one.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
You know.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Of course the obviously answer everybody would say Einstein because
he had so many theories and stuff. But I really
I have to, says Werner von Braun, because he look
what he brought to us.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
Taylor, I got a run, and I'm sorry. I'm up
against a break.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
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(25:47):
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It's a weekend podcast, and Ramon says, I do too
long of an introduction to these things, So let me
just say this. You can always send me an email
through our website Michael Berryshow dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I do love to hear from.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
You The Michael Berry Show.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Our guest is doctor Travis Taylor. Now listen now, how
cool this is you talk? You talk about your true
renaissance man. Listen to this Doctor Travis Taylor, aka the
Ringleader Alabama, Alabama born and bred. Travis's work with the
Department of Defense and NASA for the last twenty five years,
(00:33):
but his oddest job was working in a chicken house.
He has above top secret clearance with the US government.
He holds five degrees in optical science and engineering, physics,
aerospace engineering, astronomy, and electrical engineering, and he's currently completing
a second PhD in aerospace engineering. He built his first
rocket at age six, and he's been a space geek
(00:54):
ever since. He's currently working on several advanced propulsion concepts,
very large space telescopes, space based beamed energy systems, high
energy lasers, and next generation space launch concepts. Taylor has
written more than twenty five technical papers fourteen science fiction
novels and two textbooks, and he has appeared in multiple
(01:15):
television documentaries, including National Geographics recently highly rated special Win
Aliens Attack. That's my idea of a redneck renaissance man,
Doctor Travis Taylor, thanks for being our guest.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Hey, thanks for having me call me Travis.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
All right, Travis, tell me about this cool new show
that I'm excited to watch tonight, Chad, I got to
tell you about how broad the appeal is. My producer
is Hawaiian born half Japanese, grew up or went to
school in Portland, Oregon, well actually in Eugene, Oregon, got
to Texas as fast as he can, and has been
(01:50):
just geeked up over watching this show tonight. So I
think the appeal is going to be widespread.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Well, I hope. So, you know, the whole reason for
us doing this show is we want to show people
that if you put your mind to it, you and
a few friends and family members can can get together
and solve some problems. They may not necessarily have to be,
you know, earth shattering problems, but they can be a
problem of some scale that you could solve. And that's
pretty much what we do each weekend, we pick a
(02:17):
problem and then we get together and put our heads
around it, and we figure out a solution, usually for
under a couple thousand dollars worth of stuff that we
can find in my dad's garager, in the junk yard
next door, or at the hardware store.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
I love the cast of characters. The show's called Rocket
City Rednecks. Roger Jones, I guess is your best friend
from elementary school.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Yeah, we met Roger and I his real name is Greg,
but we've always called him Roger for some reason. But
we met in the fifth grade in the Alabama Talented
and Gifted program. And Roger has got a super genius IQ.
I mean, like up in the high one sixties. And
there ain't a problem that he looks at that he
doesn't almost immediately know the answer to. But Roger never
(03:00):
wanted to go to school because he wasn't that disciplined
about such things. But he became a machinist and a
welder and a tinker and man, he can fix just
about anything. And he drinks a lot of beer.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Yeah, and he likes to shoot stuff. Now, I got
in my materials, it says one of the members, one
of the group of five lives in a trailer. Which
one is that?
Speaker 3 (03:19):
That's Roge okay?
Speaker 1 (03:21):
And then your dad, I guess Charles Taylor.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Yeah, Now, my dad, when he was twenty two years old,
he was a local Huntsville sharecroping farmer and he was
becoming a machinist at a local machine company here and
that's about the time the space program picked up and
he found himself as as one of Werner von Braun's machinists.
And my dad worked on the space program from the
(03:48):
early sixties off up until about nineteen seventy where he
built He was one of the machinists that put together
the prototype of one of the first satellites we launched
that's still in orbit today. And then he also built
and welded parts that were actually in the Saturn five
that took me into the Moon.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Then Michael Taylor, who is your nephew.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
And my nephew, Michael, he's twenty three, and he's the
only single one of the bunch, and all of us
kind of joking, we say that we're going to be
living Y Cashley through him, and he's a super genius
of putting things together. And since i've been getting the
legos since he was old enough to chew on whatever
you want to chew on. And at fourteen or fifteen,
(04:31):
he took a twenty horse power brigs and Stratton engine
and put it into a shopping cart and turned that
thing into a shopping cart that would go forty mile hour.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Wow, that's practical. Yeah, Pete Urbach Pistol. Pete, tell me
about him?
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Yeah. No, Pete and I met in graduate school studying
for our physics degrees, and he and I started hanging
out and studying and drinking together and shooting guns together,
and then we ended up marrying sisters.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Wow, and tell me how this project came about Rocket
City Rednecks.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Well, as you alluded to earlier. You know, I've written
some science fiction books, and there was this company of
production company out in Hollywood that was doing this other
documentary show and they were going to do an episode
of that show on space warfare, and they googled that
topic and my name came up. So they called me
and said, would you like to come out and do
a screen test for us? And I said sure, And
(05:28):
when I went out to do the screen test, they
ended up keeping me in Film two episodes of that
show that week and had me back for a bunch
of other episodes. But I told them, look, guys, these
documentary shows, these science shows, if you're not already a
science geek or enthusiast, you usually your eyes glaze over
about ten minutes in because most of everybody don't want
to see the ad nauseum detail of a quantum black hole.
(05:53):
We need a science show that'd be fun and exciting
and would be entertaining. People would watch and not realize
they're getting the science at the same time.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Right.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
They said, well, what kind of ideas you have? So
I told him. Nothing really happened for a little while.
So I went and bought a video camera, put my
wife behind it, and we got the guys together and
we did a project one weekend and she filmed it
and I sent it back to that production company and
within a week they had a real production, real film
crew in Huntsville filming this. And we filmed a pilot
(06:21):
and sent it to that geo and the next day
after that geo saw it, they offered us a contract
for a series.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Doctor Travis Taylor is our guest. He's the star, along
with four other folks family and friends of a show
called Rocket What is it? Rocket City Rednecks, which premieres
tonight with four episodes on the National Geographic Channel. One
of the I Guess, I got two clips that they
sent along, and I just realized Chad just gave me.
I got I Guess your first episode. First two episodes
(06:50):
here on DVD's already, so I may not have to
watch it tonight. I'll take it home and watch as
soon as I'm through. But one of the things y'all
did was build your own submarine. Tell us about that.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Yeah, well, I tell people that we've only almost died
once while filming this series. This this first season, we
actually decided we wanted to practice doing some exploring and
exploring underwater and see what we could do with what
we had on hand. You know, there's a lot about
the ocean we don't know about, and rivers and so
(07:22):
on we haven't been to the bottom of. And if
we ever go to other planets, they're going to have
lakes and rivers and oceans. We want to be able
to observe them. So we put together submarine using what
we could fight, and we found a plastic container that
they had a farmer had next to my dad's house
that they put pasticides and stuff in. It's about four
foot by four foot by four foot box, and we
(07:43):
took it and mounted it to my dad's crappee boat trailer.
He didn't like that too much, but I talked him
into it, and then used about five or six beer
kegs for ballast mass and air tanks, and then we
put that thing in the water and it worked out
great for a while, and then we had had a
couple of failures occurred while me and my nephew were
(08:04):
in it down at depth, and it got a little
scary for a little while, but we managed to get
out of it all right.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Travis, despite all your educational accomplishments and your professional accomplishments,
reading about you and talking to you before the interview,
it strikes me how humble you are, but it is.
I hope it's not lost on you, and I hope
(08:31):
this turns out to be the case for my generation.
I'm forty when we went to law school. I was
in law school in the mid nineties, and there was
a study that had just come out before that as
to the reason people had gone to law school that
were my age. The number one reason was they had
watched To Kill a Mockingbird. If you stop and think
about you talked about exposing kids to science without and
(08:54):
they think they're just blowing stuff up, but it's actually
your exposing of science. This could have a profound impact
for young kids that never thought of the academic environment,
be in someplace they could excel, but awakening in them
a love for the natural world and engineering and mathematics
(09:15):
and science.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Well, you know what, that's part of one of our
goals for this thing is we all here in the
Rocket City are just absidanolutely embarrassed by the fact that
we have to rent a ride from the Russians go
to our own dead gum space station. And so we
want to get a generation of folks to understand that
(09:37):
you can do stuff, and that Americans can get off
the couch, put the game controllers down, get out of
the virtual world, go out in the garage, and start
putting things together and start making America a nation full
of doers again. And that's part of one of our plans,
is just to inspire people to do something.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Travis, can you hold with me for just a moment. Absolutely,
Originally they had said just to keep you for one segment,
but we talked earlier and you think you can hang
around a little while longer.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Yeah, I don't have another interview for another hour.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Oh good, Well, hold tight, my man, doctor Travis Taylor.
You're listening to Michael Berry Show. Travis Taylor, thanks for
being our guest.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
You know, I don't know if you could hear me
during the break, but I was saying one of the
things that I think you talked about, You're going to
expose science to people who think they're just watching stuff
being blown up, but kids could have in them awakened
a love of science, and future scientists who you know,
have been tinkering in the garage and realized, wait a second,
(10:35):
I found my calling. This could be this could be
what I do. I wonder to what extent National Geographic
because of the mission they have, to what extent they
saw that.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
You know, that's a good question. I've actually had conversations
with the president of the channel and all that about this,
and I've told him that this is my goal, you
other than you know, to have a hit show. Of course,
so I could just do the show if I want
to do but no, my goal is really to get
people excited about this, get them interested in us doing
some bigger projects as a country, as a people, as
(11:10):
a culture, and let's just keep moving forward at being great,
which is what Americans have done historically, has been great.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Just got an email from a guy in Portland, Oregon,
and he says, Michael in Portland, Oregon writes, I'm listening
to your interview with Travis Taylor, the Rocket City Redneck.
I'm forty four years old, and I am inspired. I
want to go home and make something. I just had
a son and I've been wondering how to inspire him
to do things like them like this. I want him
(11:40):
to be inspired by people like this. I just got
their website on the National Geographic Page and their article
on space dot com. I may have to break down
and buy a cable just so I can watch this
guy show. How nice is that?
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Wow? That's amazing.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Have you been surprised by how interested people have been
in your scientific undertakings? You know, the previous show you did.
You've been surprised by how interested people are in that
sort of stuff?
Speaker 3 (12:11):
You know? I kind of am I am, and I'm
not because I know how much I love it, and
I know how much it excites me and the people
that are my friends around me. I mean, that's what
we talk about when we set around drinking beer. We
occasionally talk about football and hunting, but we usually end
up talking about rockets and quantum physics. But it's one
of those things that everybody is curious about, you know,
(12:32):
why are we here? What's the universe all about? And what?
Well how do things work? And so I think it's
in everybody. It's just we've just had a real bad
way of showing it to people for a long time now.
Ever since we sort of stopped with the space program,
we haven't had a big national thing that was so
awesome for everybody to get behind. And I want to
(12:54):
see people get that enthusiasm back.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
A note here that you failed a class in college?
Speaker 3 (13:00):
What was it? I only ever failed one class in
my life, and it was the third electromagnetics class as
a senior or junior senior level class in electrical engineering.
But it was really more of an attitude me against
this particular professor. I disagreed with a young professor in
(13:20):
class and argued with him to a fault where I
had no choice but either eat, grow or fail. And
I was too stubborn at the time, and so I
had to learn my lesson and take the class. Oh
we're to get ahead in at the second time.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Travis Taylor with the show Rocket City, Rednecks as our guests,
where do you think we went wrong in this country
in the pursuit of science in school?
Speaker 3 (13:46):
Well, you know where we went wrong was given the
kids a preconceived notion or preconceived answer when they'd start
to do things. We never should tell them what the
answer is when you're doing the science. Let them figure
out what the answer is. We don't start telling them
things about the world coming to an end. Are this
is how it's gonna work, and this is how it's
gonna work. What we do if we show them how
(14:07):
to set up the experiment and let them find out
for themselves what the solution is, what's going to happen,
Make it exciting, make it an adventure. If it's something
that they have to learn through memorization or whatever, then
you know who wants to do that.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
I'm looking at the at the different episodes bomb Proof,
My Pickup, Moonshine, Rocket Fuel, and Junkyard iron Man, and
I note in some of the materials that you built
an Iron Man suit. What is your fascination with Iron Man?
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Well, let me tell you my own personal hero, and
Michael's daddy, my nephew who's in the show, his daddy
and my big brother is an E nine in the
United States Air Force, and he's been to Iraq and
Afghanistan for long periods of time, about three or four
times now. And they have to wear all this armor,
carry all this stuff around. They got so much gear
(15:01):
on them that it seems to me like it makes
them almost bogged down to where they can't be as
effective it had protected themselves from getting shot at. And
I've all been a long fan of a long time
fan of the idea of powered armor that if they
could wear the armor and the armor enhance their strength
instead of sap their strength, then it would go a
(15:22):
long way to help them do their mission a lot better,
and it would help protect them and give them a
better chance coming home safe. So I got the guys
together and I told them said, you know, we're not
gonna be able to build one that look works like
the perfect Iron Man in the movies. But let's build
what we can build and show that with some ingenuities,
some junk yard parts and you know, maybe a thousand
(15:44):
dollars worth of stuff from the hardware store, that we
can build a bulletproof suit from head to toe that
will enhance your strength and give you some extra sensors,
and maybe show people that it can be done on
the cheap and in a weekend. And then imagine what
we could do if we did a real program to
build the suits to give to our troops.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
What's the project you wanted to do for Rocket City
Rednecks that National Geographic or the production company said, no,
that's just too dangerous.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
Well, the only thing they've turned me down on had
to do with the Iron Man suit. We invented a
way to lay fiberglass and sheet metal and plywood together
in different layers to make it bulletproof. And we literally
we tested it and shot it with several different types
of rifle bullets and proved that it was completely bulletproof.
(16:32):
And I wanted at the end of the show. I
wanted Pete to come by with a pistol and unload
on my chest. And I told him I'd even want
a bulletproof vest underneath the armor while they were filming
it just for safety, and we were completely confident that
another one happened, but the legal people wouldn't let us
do it.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Were you confident Pete was a good enough shot? Oh?
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Yeah, I watched Pete, Pete or my daddy, either one
could do. But my dad wouldn't do it. And when
he found out that me and Pete were hatching this idea,
he went through the roof on us.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Well why don't you just do it with a home
camera and then give them the footage.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Oh. We talked about that, and I asked the production
company and they said there's no way that the legal
would clear them every showing that. So I'm not going
to do something that's gonna make anybody upset or mad
because this is such an opportunity for us to show
these types of experiments to the world that I don't
want to take a chance of stopping that capability.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Travis Taylor, thanks for staying with us so long. A
couple of quick questions based on I'm gonna synthesize all
the emails I'm getting and ask them rapid fire role
models for you, role models for.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
Me, Alan Shephard, Chuck Jaeger, Story, Musgrave, all those are
big astronauts. Fictional wise, it would be Jim Kirk, then
writers like Mark Twain and Robert Heinlein, and then of
course my dad and my big brother.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
You had to throw Hindlin in there. How awesome are you?
You just get more interesting the more I ask you
as a child, books or movies or TV shows that
inspired you and are some part of who you are now.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
Absolutely, I would start off with the first science fiction
book that I ever read, and that was Have Spacesuit
Will Travel by Robert Heinlein, no wonderful young adult science
fiction novel.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
I'm a huge Highline fan, so I'm happy to hear
that I'm a huge Hindhline fan.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
Yeah awesome. And then TV, of course I grew up
watching the Star Trek reruns and the movies. You know,
the first time I saw Star Wars, I was I
was hooked, and I wanted to be going to the
new places and seeing new things, and that kind of
led me into where I got to today.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Several fathers sending in and saying I want to get
my my son interested in science, whether they pursue the
field or not, I want them interested in the natural
world and and machinery and science. What's a good starter
project for a young child?
Speaker 3 (19:12):
It depends on how old they are. But let me
tell you, I don't care who you are and how
old old you are. To see a rocket get launched
right there that you actually put your hands on and built,
that's something. And so what I'd recommend is go to
your local hobby shop and spend ten bucks on a
rocket kit, follow the instructions and safety instructions carefully and
(19:33):
do that. And then once you've done one by the
by the kit, find some stuff around the house and
build your own rocket, following the kind of same principles
that you learned from from building a kit and uh
and use use one of the kit engines and see
what it does, and see if you can make one
that flies just as good or better. And then put
an egg in it, and see if you can bring
(19:54):
an egg home safely. Because think about we had to
figure out a way to bring our astronauts on them safely.
And if you could do something in your in your
kitchen or your garage that is similar to that that
you did with your own hands, it everybody just smiles
when that happens.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
You have a gift for storytelling. A magazine uh that
you that you subscribe to, that you would recommend to others, Well,
you know, growing.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
Up, Uh, it was always Scientific American and Popular Science.
And I and not not really plugging that because I
didn't plan this, but National Geographic, of course. And but
that was probably because I had pictures of topless women
and right, that's.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Why I watched it as a kid.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
I read it as a kid, and I used to
we used to every Sunday night the family would get
together and watch a mutual of Omaha's Animal Kingdom. Uh.
You know, uh Wild Kingdoms.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Yeah, Jim will now wrestle the alligator. Inventors, Uh, your
advice to inventors, A lot of listeners have inventions on
their mind, things they're working to do you have a
website or a source or some guidance for people that
are inventors by nature?
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Well, my first guidance is something that we tell each
other all the time on the show, and we use
it and it's one of the things that is about
being stubborn that I've been. When I would fail, maybe
the first time, and keep moving, keep at it. We
always tell each other to stay with it. And as
the first and foremost advice I give anybody by anything,
it is a goal of theirs. No matter how much
(21:27):
it looks like you're not going to get it for
some reason, just focus that you've got it and stay
with it.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Travis Taylor is our guest. He is one of the
stars of Rocket City Rednecks, which airs tonight on National Geographic.
What thing would you most like to invent that has
not yet been invented?
Speaker 3 (21:43):
A warp drive? I want to be able to take
humanity to other star systems at some point in my life.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Does it bother you when you see Southerners or Rednecks
whatever you want to say, portrayed in movie, he's in
television on the evening news as not as smart as
people with different dialects or accents.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Well there's two sides of that too. It bothers me
a bit. But what bothers me is that people think
that smart people in general have to be like the
folks on this comedy show, Big Bang Theory. You know,
it's a great funny show, don't get me wrong, and
I'm not trying to plug or low rate the show,
but people think that if you're really smart, you have
to be ineffective and ridiculously reilly and stupid like these guys.
(22:32):
They don't have enough common sense to walk through an
open door. And I tell people that part of being
a rocket scientist is knowing the big picture and how
to put it all together and make it work. We
give you a perfect example. Werner von Bryn was losing
political favor and knew that he would lose funding during
the early part of the rocket program, so he got
in a plane, flew to Orlando, Florida, and talked Walt
(22:54):
Disney into helping him out, and walk Disney started making
little cartoons about rockets and putting them on before his
big movie aired in the movie theaters. Wow, that's part
of the big picture.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
What person have you been most excited about meeting that
you have met in your life?
Speaker 3 (23:11):
Wow? Uh, it had to it would have to be
Neil Armstrong. I actually met him at a conference. I
was signing autograph for one of my books and one
of his handlers came up to get an autograph of
my book and they told me to make it out
to Neil and uh, and I was like, Neil, how
do you spell that? And he said, just like the
character in your book who was named after Neil Armstrong.
And so I signed it. And I looked up and
(23:32):
I realized that it was Neil Armstrong's you know, entourage,
and so I signed it, uh, you know to Neil Armstrong. UH.
When I turned one year old, you were splashing down
in UH in the ocean. So it was a great
way for you to celebrate my birthday and was an
autographed to him.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
How awesome was it to know that somebody for whom
you had been a fan was now a fan of
your work.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
I couldn't believe it. I immediately got off the UH,
pulled out my phone, called my wife and she said,
what did you get his autograph? And then, of course
my heart's sunk because they were already gone and I
had not asked for his autograph.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
I'm betting if you dropped him a note, he would
love to meet you. Last question, what person have you
not met that is alive that you would most like
to meet?
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Wow? That that is still alive that I would most
like to meet? Guy. You know, one of my biggest
things in life was I never was old enough to
vote for Roun Regan. I always thought he was an
awesome dude. So right now, a guy that's still alive,
I'd like to meet. I've never met Story Musgrave or
Chuck Jaeger. I'd like to meet either one of those
two guys.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Okay, who's the greatest scientist? If you have to pick
one of all time? Oh?
Speaker 3 (24:40):
Wow, that I have to pick one of all time?
I have to, I have to pick one.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
You know.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Of course the obviously answer everybody would say Einstein because
he had so many theories and stuff. But I really
I have to, says Werner von Braun, because he look
what he brought to us.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
Taylor, I got a run, and I'm sorry. I'm up
against a break.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
If you like the Michael Berry Show and Podcast, please
tell one friend, and if you're so inclined, write a
nice review of our podcast. Comments, suggestions, questions, and interest
in being a corporate sponsor and partner can be communicated
directly to the show at our email address, Michael at
(25:22):
Michael Berryshow dot com, or simply by clicking on our website,
Michael Berryshow dot com. The Michael Berry Show and Podcast
is produced by Ramon Roebliss, The King of Ding. Executive
producer is Chad Nakanishi. Jim Mudd is the creative director.
(25:47):
Voices Jingles, Tomfoolery and Shenanigans are provided by Chance McLain.
Director of Research is Sandy Peterson.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Emily bull Is, Our assistants and superfan contributions are appreciated
and often incorporated into our production. Where possible, we give credit,
Where not, we take all the credit for ourselves. God
bless the memory of Rush Limbaugh. Long live Elvis, be
(26:18):
a simple man like Leonard Skinnard told you, and God
bless America. Finally, if you know a veteran suffering from PTSD,
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PTSD and a combat veteran will answer the phone to
(26:38):
provide free counseling.
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com