KANSAS CITY -- Word of warning: If you’re going to ask Royals manager Ned Yost about space exploration or moon landings, you better not do so casually.

As Saturday’s 50th anniversary of the moon landing by Apollo 11 approaches, Yost was asked by reporters about his recollection. That set off two straight days of lectures on the difficulties of space travel and lunar landings.

In between the lectures, Yost conceded he got hooked on the topic when he was 15 years old as Neil Armstrong stepped on the Moon.

“I loved it,” Yost said. “I remember sitting up in my mom’s bedroom and watching those snowy, grainy pictures. I’ve been very interested in space exploration for as long as I can remember.

“You could barely make them out when they were coming down [the ladder]. It was unbelievable. They didn’t know what would happen at that time. I was old enough to understand what was going on. It was really an event. First man on the Moon.”

Since then, Yost has been fascinated with space travel.

So when the topic came up on Tuesday, Yost playfully snapped, “Do you even know what a 1202 Program Alarm is? Then you don’t know anything about the space landing. I know just about everything there is to know about it. I loved it. I’ve studied it. If I could go [into space], I’d go tomorrow.”

Yost went on to explain how when the LEM from Apollo 11 separated from the spacecraft to descend to the Moon, a mysterious alarm (the 1202) went off, startling the astronauts and those in Mission Control. The astronauts had not experienced that alarm at all during simulated training.

The astronauts feared the worst, having to abort the mission just moments from landing on the Moon.

But after a short while, someone at Mission Control determined it was somewhat of a data overload on the computer of the LEM, and there was no need to abort.

“Someone in the back [at Mission Control] said that, ‘It’s still a go!’” Yost said.

Yost also was fascinated by Apollo 15.

“It landed in the Hedley Rille,” Yost said, “which was right between two mountains that were about 20,000 feet high. They had to land right on the Hedley Rille, which was almost comparable to our Grand Canyon. And they landed right on the original moon crust.”

On Wednesday, Yost was back lecturing.

“Do you know what a P63 is?” Yost asked.

Yost then explained the challenges faced by the Apollo 11 crew members as they initiated their powered descent to the Moon.

“They hit their engines and burn and drop into orbit,” Yost said. “It was a nine-minute burn until they get within 20-25,000 feet or so. They’re flying windows down [P63]. Then P64 kicks in and they go upright. When they land, you get to P66.

“But Neil Armstrong saw they were going to land in a football-stadium sized crater full of boulders. He knew at that point that he had four options: Veer left, veer right, cut back short or hit the gas and go long. So he hit the gas and it burned valuable fuel. So they have a thing called “Quantity Light.” When that comes on you have 60 seconds of fuel. Mandatory abort. But they didn’t stop. When they hit the ground, they had 23 seconds of fuel left. But they never panicked.”

Yost paused, then added, “The coolest part for me at the time was you could walk outside and look at the Moon and know there were men on it. There were people on it.”