The Space Above Us

What do you get when you mix four frogs, one hundred and eighty hornets, two carp, and a crew of seven astronauts? STS-47, the 50th Space Shuttle mission!

Space Shuttle Atlantis has 20 kilometers of tether in the backseat.. but does it know how to use it?

Columbia is hauling the US Microgravity Laboratory for almost two weeks, and Commander Richards wishes his wife left her cell phone on.

Space Shuttle Endeavour flies for the first time. But if we're going to capture this satellite, we're going to need all hands on deck. Or on payload bay.

Before diving into the next mission, we take a quick detour to introduce a bunch of spacefarers, including one who will fly twenty-five times. We'll also learn a bit about why the next mission was necessary in the first place.

Atlantis is getting ready to fire photon torpedoes at Planet Earth! Well.. sort of.

Space Shuttle Discovery is packed with so much science it's practically bursting at the seams, but don't forget to take some time to look out the window!

For a simple IUS-based deploy mission, I sure found a lot to say about this mission! We've got nuclear bombs, caterpillar men, pranks, and multiple near-collisions in the air and in space.

Discovery has the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite in the payload bay, and it's ready to learn all about the stratosphere and mesosphere! This episode was originally going to have a story about the mission commander trying to ski in space but I ran out of time!

TDRS-E needs a ride to space, John Blaha is in command, and the middeck is full of science experiments.

It seems like this human spaceflight thing might be here to stay, so we better do some life sciences experiments and learn more about the impact of microgravity on the human body. Also, Space Shuttle Columbia carries more jellyfish into space than it ever has before.

Discovery has a payload bay full of multi-spectral instruments and is ready to perform an orbital ballet.

Atlantis has one heavy satellite to deploy, and the EVA crew has to evaluate some strange exercise devices in the payload bay. Sort of.

Columbia has a tricky time getting off the launchpad, but once it does, it performs some fancy astronomy that can only be done in space!

STS-38 seems to be a run of the mill classified mission at first.. until someone discovers something flashing in GEO.

Ulysses has a long journey ahead of it, and it all starts on Space Shuttle Discovery and STS-41!

The Hubble Space Telescope is finally here and it's about to rewrite the textbooks. If we can just get it to clear the payload bay in one piece.

Atlantis has something in its payload bay.. what it could be is anyone's guess!

The Long Duration Exposure Facility has been waiting for its ride home for a while. Let's go catch it before it becomes the Short Duration Exposure to Reentry Conditions Facility.

We end up with a shorter episode thanks to another classified flight. But if you need a sweet new PC, I think Huey can hook you up.

Atlantis is back on the launchpad and has another interplanetary mission in its payload bay! Galileo is headed to Jupiter! Please set aside 110 days to download this episode.

Columbia is back in the flight rotation with a mysterious spacecraft in the payload bay and a mysterious experiment in the middeck!

The Space Above Us has reached 100 episodes! Let's take a break from space, spaceflight history, NASA, Project Mercury, the X-15, Project Gemini, the Apollo Program, Skylab, and the Space Shuttle, and answer some audience questions! That previous sentence definitely wasn't crafted to make the show more discoverable to space nerds.

After nearly ten years, NASA is launching another interplanetary probe! Magellan is headed to Venus and it's catching a ride with Space Shuttle Atlantis

Yes, we went from STS-27 right to STS-29. Discovery is flying again with a TDRS to deploy, some pipes to shake up, and a John Blaha to defend.