Welcome to the
Flight Deck Podcast

Listen to all of the Museum’s best aviation and aerospace stories on the Flight Deck Podcast, a podcast that makes history personal. Episodes released every other Tuesday. We hope you enjoy it!!

Alone Among the Stars

October 19, 2021 / Space, Storytelling, SpaceTravel, Games, STEM

What’s it like to drift from planet to planet, exploring the universe? In today’s episode of The Flight Deck, you get to do just that. Host Sean Mobley invites you to take a break from the hustle and bustle for a few minutes as he leads you through a game of Alone Among the Stars, a journaling game where you play an intergalactic explorer chronicling their adventures through a series of writing prompts. Imagination is at the core of science, so remember to practice imagining from time to time! You never know what discoveries it will lead to.

Read More

Astronaut Wendy Lawrence

August 24, 2021 / NASA, astronaut, Women, SpaceTravel

Former NASA Astronaut Wendy Lawrence is a veteran both of the Untied States Navy and four NASA Space Shuttle missions – including the Return to Flight mission following the Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster. In today’s episode, she talks about how she had to stop thinking of Russians as Cold War enemy and start thinking of them as space-bound allies, how she mapped out her future into space as a teen, and the perspective that astronauts gain when they’re out there among the stars.

Read More

The Politics Of The Moon Landings Part II

June 1, 2021 / Podcast, FlightDeck, History, Space, NASA, Apollo, Storytelling, SpaceTravel, Apollo 11, Exhibits, aerospace

Teasel Muir-Harmony, Curator of the Apollo program at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, once again joins host Sean Mobley in this conclusion to the two-episode series on the political history of the Apollo program. In this episode, she talks about the classic 1962 Seattle World’s Fair and its place in Apollo political history, how domestic and international perceptions of the Apollo program varied quite significantly, and what role museums have in helping people deconstruct their understandings of history when new research challenges long-held ideas previously accepted as fact. We highly recommend listening to the previous episode before this one. 

Read More

The Politics Of The Moon Landings Part I

May 18, 2021 / Podcast, FlightDeck, History, Space, NASA, Apollo, Storytelling, SpaceTravel, Apollo 11, Exhibits, aerospace

Returning guest Teasel Muir-Harmony, Curator of the Apollo program at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, joins host Sean Mobley for a Q&A about her book Operation Moonglow: A Political History of Project Apollo. In this first of a two-part series, Teasel sets the stage and talks about the wider global context within which the US space program operated. We discussed the American politicians who encouraged and shaped panic around Sputnik and the space race, the importance of symbolism in a lot of the images and actions the astronauts took both on the moon and here on Earth, and how racism was a national security risk which the space program was partially designed to counter. 

Read More

Soyeon Yi, Part II: When a Wedding Singer Becomes an Astronaut

October 16, 2018 / astronaut, SpaceTravel, Korea, Soeyon Yi

Sometime between her third and fourth year of her PhD program, Yi’s research ground to a halt. Her experiments were failing, she wasn’t acquiring good data, and even her friends were asking whether or not she could, or should, continue.

Read More

SoYeon Yi, Part I: An Astronaut Education

September 18, 2018 / Engineering, astronaut, SpaceTravel, Korea

Did you have trouble figuring out your major when you were in college? If so, you already have one thing in common with the world’s first Korean astronaut, Soyeon Yi.

Read More

Surviving the Final Frontier

May 29, 2018 / Space, NASA, astronaut, SpaceTravel

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.

Read More
TMOF_FlightDeckPodcast_600x400.jpg
    Subscribe on iTunes!
    Support the Podcast

    Don't Miss New Episodes!

    Recent Episodes