AirSpace

Can 650 episodes of a tv show fix society’s deepest, ugliest ills? Maybe not, but it turns out that it’s a pretty good place to start a conversation. We’re all fans of something —movies, tv shows, video games, comic books, sports teams, you name it!—and that can help us connect with new people with shared interests and frames of reference. In this episode, we’re talking about how and why fan commu...

We're back with the third installment of our literary mixtape, Voyages to Mars! Humans aren't yet able to go to Mars ourselves, so we’re reliant on the help of rovers and landers to be our eyes and ears on the surface - our mechanical “boots on the ground.” This episode is our ode to ROBOTS! Our two stories today come from a time before the word “robot” had even entered our vocabulary. L. Frank Ba...

There have been great movies about military aviation for almost as long as there have been movies and airplanes—seriously, the very first Best Picture Oscar went to a WWI aero-epic called  Wings  (and if you ever win bar trivia with that, buy us a drink). Eventually, the US military realized that high adventure onscreen could boost their recruiting efforts, and began to officially cooperate with f...

About 82,000 American service members are listed as Missing in Action – 72,000 from World War II alone. Many of these MIAs were lost at sea when their aircraft were shot down over open water. Recent technologies like robotic submersibles, advanced sonar, and DNA matching are making it easier for recovery operations to find the downed airplanes, and identify the remains of service members. In this...

We’re back this month with the second installment of our side project, Voyages to Mars! Leaving Earth on your way to Mars, the first pit stop you might make is the Moon’s orbit. In this episode, we follow three Mars-bound space travelers from Mark Wicks’ novel, “To Mars via the Moon.” We see the Moon through the eyes of two Englishmen and a Scotsman as they explore the lunar surface with a combina...

If you’re a Broadway fan (or have been ANYWHERE near a theater in the last couple years), you’ve likely heard about Come From Away —the Tony-award-winning smash hit musical with a story firmly rooted in generations of aviation history. On September 11, 2001, 38 commercial airliners were diverted out of US air space to a small town with a big airport called Gander, Newfoundland. Come From Away puts...

If you had $500 MILLION dollars to spend going anywhere in the solar system (rocket not included), where would YOU go? That’s exactly what NASA asks scientists in its Discovery Program – a (relatively) low budget, but influential, class of missions designed to increase our understanding of our stellar neighborhood through creative concepts that don’t quite fit anywhere else.  Think of them as the...

And now for something a little different. On July 30, 2020 NASA’s Perseverance rover launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida to Jezero crater, Mars. To accompany Percy on its seven-month journey, we’re compiling a literary mixtape of Martian-themed sci-fi set to music by DJ Kid Koala. In this first installment of Voyages to Mars, we hear launch stories from two famous science fiction novels written...

With everyone quarantining, it’s like spring cleaning never ended this year—and as important as cleanliness is here on Earth, it’s really, really important when you’re headed for outer space.  We’ve talked about planetary protection on the pod before, but it’s never felt closer to home than now, so we’re digging a little deeper into what it takes to keep our planet safe from space germs and keep s...

At least someone's big summer trip isn't cancelled—NASA is sending another rover to Mars! The shiny new robot Perseverance (who looks like a lot its cousin Curiosity) is headed for Jezero Crater—the location of an ancient Martian lake—to search for signs of microbial life. Emily, Matt, and Nick (who'd rather be lakeside themselves—j/k, they've never been outdoorsy types) will break down all the de...

Welcome to Season 3! Today we’re talking about secret space shuttles--seriously! The Soviet space program (and its Russian successor) is rightfully known for significant achievements like the first man and woman in space, the first spacewalk, and the longest spaceflight…but space shuttles? Not as well known as these other milestones is the Soviet shuttle program, or “Buran” (which is Russian for ‘...

We’re back for one last installment of the AirSpace Movie Club!  Today we’re talking about Sully, the movie based on the real-life emergency water landing of US Airways flight 1549 which ditched in the Hudson River in January 2009. Emily, Matt, and Nick break down how the portrayal in the film compares to the real-life “Miracle on the Hudson” and how the experience of the crew and pilots like Capt...

In this addition of our at-home movie club, we explore the world of the sci-fi thriller Snowpiercer. This French graphic novel, turned Korean action film, and now TV series is set in a post-apocalyptic world where all that is left of humanity is endlessly circling the globe in a train. Emily, Matt, and Nick break down this distopian future, geoengineering gone wrong, and how learning to survive in...

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's... well, you know the rest. Emily, Matt and Nick talk about the Man of Steel in his appearance in this 1978 classic. From stellar evolution, to the radiation power that makes Clark Kent super, and rocks not doing accurate rock things, the AirSpace hosts dive into the science (some of it accurate, but mostly not) behind Superman: The Movie.

AirSpace goes to the movies! But not really because we're all stuck at home just like you. In the first episode of this mini-series hosts Matt, Nick, and Emily talk about the movie Troop Zero and the real history behind the voices on the Voyager Golden Record. Spoiler: they weren't actually the voices of Birdie Scouts from rural Georgia. 

They say that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, particularly when you’re looking for signs of extraterrestrial life. Is that a Martian bacterium you just found, or is it an Earth bug accidentally along for the ride? An Israeli spacecraft recently crashed on the Moon, unintentionally spilling a payload of adorable, microscopic extremophiles called tardigrades (aka water bears or...

There are more than a dozen Earth-born satellites orbiting Mars. Why send another? Today’s episode highlights a movie with answers…Science to be done! Engineering challenges to overcome! National prestige! Personal Moonshots! Because it’s there!  Based on India’s 2014 Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), the new Hindi-language film Mission Mangal has all of this and more, plus all the energy and charm of a...

Today on the show, we tackle the meaning of life. Well… not really. But definitely matters of consequence. We are talking about the beloved children’s book that taught us the meaning of friendship and the value of a child-like perspective – The Little Prince. Odds are you’ve read the book – but do you know the story behind the parable? Nick sits down with biographer Stacey Schiff and journalist Ma...

Alt title: ADAM SAVAGE IS IN THIS EPISODE! Today we’re talking about a really cool project that brought together one former-Mythbuster, a couple of Smithsonian units, and makers across the country to reimagine an incredible piece of Apollo engineering.  The hatch (aka door) on the Apollo 11 Command Module Columbia is SUPER complex and basically irresistible if you’re into solving mechanical puzzle...

Today (tonight?) we’re talking about a chilling chapter from flight history— Night Bomber Regiment 588. They were a group of about 80 Soviet women who flew combat missions during World War II. Led by famous Russian pilot Marina Raskova, these fearless aviatrixes would fly across German lines under cover of darkness and drop bombs from their WWII bi-planes, striking targets on the ground and terror...

Next week is the 50th anniversary of our first steps on the Moon! In our last exciting episode, we explored all the science the Apollo astronauts performed on the lunar surface. In part two, we’re talking about the important science still happening with Apollo Moon rocks here on Earth a half-century later. Of all the 842 pounds of lunar material the astronauts collected up there, three samples wer...

50 years ago this July, humans set foot on the Moon for the first time. You probably know the highlights – Kennedy’s moonshot challenge, Armstrong’s first small steps, three astronauts returned safely to Earth – but there was more to the Apollo program than getting there and back. When we landed Americans on the Moon, there was a lot we didn’t know about our nearest celestial neighbor. Would the a...

What music would you take along on a quarter-million mile road trip? For the crew of Apollo 11, it was a little bit country, a little bit rock and roll, and a little bit of… theremin?! In this episode, Emily, Matt, and Nick discuss the music of the cosmos, or at least what makes a good lunar soundtrack. Matt interviews one of his childhood heroes—Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull—who breaks down his son...

Some of the world’s best pilots are the ones you hope never to see. They fly into places too dangerous for others to navigate, braving extremes to save human lives. In this episode, we’re talking about air rescue. Nick speaks to Chris Kilgore, a Coast Guard search and rescue pilot who evacuated survivors from an oil tanker collision in Galveston Bay. And we hear from AirSpace listener and air ambu...

Space exploration is a geocentric endeavor. Everywhere we look in the solar system, we learn something new about Earth. Scientists believe our planet has a metallic inner core, but we can’t exactly crack it open and check. Instead, NASA is sending a mission to an asteroid named Psyche, which appears to be a nickel-iron planetary core a lot like the one at the center of the Earth. Heavy metal fans...