“How do astronauts go to the bathroom in space?” This is a question we hear often at the Museum, asked by people young and old from all around the world. Host Sean Mobley enlisted Museum of Flight expert Brenda Mandt, one of the masterminds behind the Museum’s NASA Space Shuttle Full Fuselage Trainer Tours, to investigate how humans carry out this universal body function in space. In this first of two episodes, Brenda shares about the early tests and solutions developed for the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions. They were messy and uncomfortable!
Located in the Charles Simonyi Space Gallery, an exhibit space dedicated to modern space exploration, you’ll find the youngest artifact in our collection: An American flag flown to space on the historic Blue Origin New Shepard NS-3 Launch. In today’s episode of the Flight Deck, we’ll take a look at the flag and it’s story, and also learn why stories are at the heart of any museum…and how the stories told in museums have changed over time.
As we continue to prepare for the Museum’s re-opening, and as we simultaneously ramp-up our digital education offerings for students, our podcast team is sad to announce a delay in our “Collections” miniseries, but thrilled to share this interview with retired NASA Astronaut Mike Mullane instead.
Undoubtedly one of the greatest achievements of man has been stepping foot on the Moon. In 1969, the famous Apollo 11 mission fulfilled this dream. Fast forward to 2013, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos commences an expedition to find the powerful Saturn V F-1 rocket engines that propelled Neil Armstrong into space for the imperative Moon landing. The expedition presented many challenges, for example: with the remains from the other eight other Apollo missions in the same area, how do you know what part corresponds to which mission?
Apollo 12 Astronaut Pete Conrad has a lot to live up to. NASA’s idea of the astronaut image meant that the astronauts needed to conform to specific ideas of the ideal American.
After the Apollo 11 astronauts landed on the Moon, they embarked on an equally fascinating journey: a global goodwill press tour in Air Force One. Dr. Teasel Muir-Harmony explains the importance of the tour and how the astronauts’ lives changed post-Moon landing.
Buzz Aldrin, the second human to set foot on the Moon, recalls the Apollo 11 mission and how one felt tip pen helped the astronauts successfully return to Earth.
Jerrie Cobb and the women behind the Women in Space program unsuccessfully lobbied Congress in 1962 to include women in astronaut training, but they still led the way for women’s inclusion in the aerospace industry.
When the United States was lagging behind the Soviet Union in the race to space, the Soviet space agency announced plans to send women into space, which spurred American astronaut trainers to consider what might happen if they did the same.
Our interview with NASA astronaut Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger, part of our series titled Failure is Not an Option, asks crowd sourced questions to reveal what life is like in space and how Dottie, as a woman astronaut, continues to inspire young women to pursue careers in STEM.
As the first installment of our “Failure Is Not An Option” summer series—an ode to people who have pushed the boundaries of space exploration, our interview with Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger includes questions that our listeners shared with us on social media and revealing answers from Dottie about astronaut bands, sw
