Welcome to the
Flight Deck Podcast

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

This special holiday podcast features an interview with NASA historian Bill Barry who explains how the Apollo 8 mission showed how the pursuit of space can be a unifying force in a divided world.

As SpaceX and Blue Origin continue to make history by building rockets that will take future space vacationers to the Moon or Mars, the Museum is thinking about how to preserve the history of these private companies. Back in the 1960’s and up until now, it was easy for historians to access public records at NASA that documented the space race; and that’s not the case now. According to our Adjunct Curator for Space History, Geoff Nunn, “corporate archives are becoming ever more important, but private records don’t automatically make their way through the public record trail like NASA documents did.” Geoff and other space historians now have to ask themselves, “How do you archive a Slack thread?” and “What happens when YouTube goes under and we no longer have videos of launches?”

Did you know that for every month you spend in space, you lose about 2% BMI? Neither did we until we talked to Tommy Gantz, one of our volunteers and resident space experts.

Dick Gordon passed away in November 2017, and author and volunteer Jake Schultz had the honor of recording Gordon’s oral history few months prior to learn about his experiences as an astronaut.

How did a bunch of Houston high school students help President Kennedy drive the United States towards putting a man on the Moon?

Episode 3:

What’s on the cassette tape that can be found at the end of our Apollo exhibit? We chat with exhibit developer Peder Nelson to learn more about this mysterious aerospace artifact.

Episode 1:

What’s it like repairing a billion-dollar solar panel while hurtling 4.67 miles per second through space?