Media

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Tori Blackhart
Phone:617-678-2667
Email: torimedia@gmail.com
Website: MarthaLemasters.com

Martha Lemasters, Advocate for the Apollo Team, Featured at Book Signing for her Memoir, The Step: One Woman’s Journey to Finding her Own Happiness and Success During the Apollo Space Program

Vero Beach, FL… Martha Lemasters will be at The Vero Beach Book Center on Wednesday, April 6, 2016 at 4pm to sign copies of her recently released memoir, The Step. “It’s almost as if the Apollo Team, at least all the contractors that worked on Apollo, are the team that time has forgotten,” says first time author Martha Lemasters. Lemasters’ memoir, deals with her first-hand account of her years working for IBM at Kennedy Space Center as a PR writer on the Apollo program during the 60’s and 70’s. It is the first book written about the Apollo program from a woman’s perspective—and from the perspective of one of the contractors, not NASA. As a PR writer, Lemasters had a unique opportunity to pursue a story anywhere on the grounds of the Center, including the pad and throughout the VAB.

“I started the book in the 70’s in third-person dialog. When I resumed writing the book three years ago, I quickly realized I had to do it through my own eyes, as a memoir. I had to be totally honest and bring it to life. There just wasn’t anything in the bookstores about all the hard-working, contractor employees at the Cape.

“I believe the Apollo team was the greatest technological team ever assembled, achieving the most difficult challenge of all mankind to date,” says Lemasters. “I speak from experience, I wrote about these people. I know the sacrifices—the commitment was intense.”

As it states on the back cover of The Step: “It is the technical team, the engineers, programmers, and yes, even the secretaries and typists who kept the administrative side moving, who are portrayed in this book. This combined team, after achieving an unbelievable goal of putting men on the moon within the 10-year limit set by Kennedy, performed in an exemplary manner.”

The Step is also about Lemasters’ journey to finding her own success during these years. A divorced mother of three daughters, she spent years proving herself and prevailed over an entry-level job and related women’s issues in the workplace to finally realizing her dream of becoming a writer. Added to this story line is the very inspiring account of a woman gaining strength in her own sexuality and happiness.

“I recently took my cousin on a NASA bus tour through Kennedy Space Center, my old stomping grounds,” Lemasters explains. “There on display was the giant Saturn V vehicle, lying on its side, separated into stages, but nowhere were the names of the contractors displayed—it was as if NASA had done everything. The lack of recognition for the contractors doesn’t change history and the fact that there were many unsung heroes, brilliant engineers, analysts and programmers, doing things that had never been done before, toiling away behind the scenes, that made this momentous, game-changing feat happen.

“Now, NASA is constructing a new building, entitled ‘Heroes and Legends,’ again dedicated to the astronauts. When I was asked to write down my thoughts about the tour, I wrote: ‘If you really want to get the Visitor’s Center correct, the history has to be accurate. If it were me, I’d dedicate a whole wing to The Team, who achieved an unbelievable goal, made up of the very brightest and best that America had to offer—the team that time has forgotten.’”

What was it like to be a part of this history-making event of launching our astronauts to the moon? Fasten your seat belts and journey back to the 60’s through this remarkable book,The Step, for a front-row seat told by someone who experienced it all.

For an interview, contact Martha Lemasters, 772-231-4262, m.lemasters@icloud.com

For more background information: www.marthalemasters.com

ISBN Paperback 9781630477141

ISBN eBook 9781630477158

Release: 4/5/16

###

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MEDIA CONTACT:
Nickcole Watkins
Morgan James Publishing
516.900.5674

Nickcole@morganjamespublishing.com

Glimpse Behind the Scenes of the Apollo Launches

NEW YORK—February 22, 2016–Morgan James’s new release, The Step: One Woman’s Journey to Finding her Own Happiness and Success During the Apollo Space Program by Martha Lemasters, chronicles the author’s personal experience working in the space program, and the important contribution the IBM launch support team made to the historical launches.

“The Eagle has landed”… Those four words instantly bring to mind the Apollo 11 moon mission. In grade school students are taught the details of the famous moon landing. Almost every American could tell you the year American first landed a man on the moon, the names of the astronauts and the famous phrases they uttered. What often gets overlooked are the countless hours and dedication of the contractor teams who labored behind the scenes to make those historical landings happen.

In The Step: One Woman’s Journey to Finding her Own Happiness and Success During the Apollo Space Program, one woman who witnessed it all tells the story that didn’t make the history books. Martha Lemasters worked as a member of the launch support team for the entire Apollo Program including Skylab and Apollo/Soyuz. In a time when women were deemed a liability by their very existence around the vehicle, this single mother overcame monumental obstacles to work in a male dominated field. In this exciting new memoir, she shares her struggles, triumphs, and determined spirit.

This glimpse into the past provides readers with a comprehensive look at the team that helped make history. From engineers to analysts, secretaries to astronauts, Lemasters shows the integral part played by IBM’s launch support team. Enlightening and inspiring, The Step: One Woman’s Journey to Finding her Own Happiness and Success During the Apollo Space Program provides new perspective to these well-known events.

If you would like more information about this topic, or to schedule an interview with Martha Lemasters, please call Nickcole Watkins at 516.900.5674.

About the Author:

Martha Lemasters spent almost ten years working as a PR writer at Cape Kennedy as a member of the IBM’s team on NASA’s Apollo Program in the sixties and seventies. As a member of the launch support team, these years saw success in seven Apollo launches and six moon landings. Later, the moon landings gave way to the Skylab and Apollo/Soyuz programs with additional launches. As a single mother with three daughters, she worked her way up the ladder from secretary to a respected writer and managed to find her own happiness along the way.

More About This Title:

The Step: One Woman’s Journey to Finding her Own Happiness and Success During the Apollo Space Program by Martha Lemasters will be released by Morgan James Publishing on April 5, 2016. The Step—ISBN 978-1630477141—has 282 pages and is being sold as a trade paperback for $17.95.

About Morgan James Publishing: Morgan James Publishing (www.MorganJamesPublishing.com) provides entrepreneurs with the vital information, inspiration, and guidance they need to be successful. Morgan James Publishing, The Entrepreneurial Publisher™, has been recognized by Publisher’s Weekly for four years on their fast growing press list and is reported as being the future of publishing.

 

# # #

 

For Immediate Release

July 15, 2019 – When We Were Apollo, a Documentary Film Featuring Local Author Martha Lemasters is Being Broadcast Across the Country on PBS Stations

Vero Beach, FL… When We Were Apollo offers a behind-the-scenes look at the Apollo Space Program through the lives and experiences of the remarkable men and women who spent close to a decade working to send man to the moon.

When director and producer Zachary Weil of Contact Light Films approached local author Martha Lemasters to ask if she would be included in the film she was thrilled to participate. Zach was soon on a plane from Los Angeles to Vero Beach to conduct a series of interviews with Lemasters. He even accompanied her on one of her book tour stops. A friendship formed based upon a shared mission: to bring attention to the brilliant minds, the engineers, technicians, builders and contractors, (not just the astronauts), who made Apollo possible.

Lemasters, worked at the Kennedy Space Center in the 1960’s during the great Space Race. In 2016 she published The Step, based upon her experiences as a divorced mother of three working on the Apollo program. Now in her early eighties, Lemasters has been working tirelessly to spread the word about Apollo, giving almost forty book talks, including addressing the Mensa’s National Convention in 2017. A screenplay to adapt her memoir into a major motion picture is currently in the works.

Showing Now

When We Were Apollo is now being shown across the country on PBS stations. Florida showings include:

U.S. Public Television: WLRN South Florida

July 15th, 8PM EDT and July 16th, 10PM EDT

U.S. Public Television: WUCF Orlando, Florida

July 15th, 10PM EDT and July 20th, 5PM EDT

For more dates and times please visit https://whenwewereapollo.com/watch-the-film

For more information about Martha Lemasters, or her memoir The Step, visit marthalemasters.com

Martha Lemasters is available for interviews. Please contact bethany@nestmediaco.com
for more information.

###