This episode takes a break from talking aviation and space history to have a conversation with someone making history right now. Bryné Hadnott, a science writer and founder of Space Out STEM. With a career that has ranged from hard space science to historical writing, Bryné is a rising star in the aerospace and science fields. Fortunately for The Museum of Flight, she’s also a mentor for the Michael P. Anderson program, a free education opportunity for students from underserved communities named in honor of Michael P. Anderson, an African-American astronaut who was killed Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. In our conversation, Bryné and I talked about her journey to study the stars through the maze of academia, the science fiction that inspires her, and the importance of community and resilience in the face of adversity.
See the full show notes by following this link: www.museumofflight.org/flightdeck

Squiggles in the Sky

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 the entire show notes: www.museumofflight.org/flightdeck

The Politics Of The Moon Landings Part I

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 the entire show notes: www.museumofflight.org/flightdeck

The Politics Of The Moon Landings Part II

What does it take to turn real-life war stories into a game? Jason Morningstar, Creative Director of Bully Pulpit Games, released the tabletop roleplaying game Night Witches in 2015 with the goal of connecting players with the history of Soviet women who flew night raids over the Nazis during World War II. In this episode of The Flight Deck, he and host Sean Mobley discuss the true stories and people who inspired the game, as well as the challenges game designers face adapting something as serious as wartime experiences into a fun, compelling, respectful game.

Check out the full show notes: www.museumofflight.org/flightdeck

Night Witches

Picture this: You’re a doctor on an aircraft carrier. You’re awoken and told of an emergency on the lowest decks of the ship. You rush down staircase after staircase and find a sailor, his legs crushed by an elevator that’s stuck. You need to amputate or he’ll likely die. You don’t have time to go get your full kit. All you have on you is a pocketknife. This was Hank Davis’ reality, as he shares in this second part of his conversation with host Sean Mobley. In honor of the new temporary exhibit at The Museum of Flight, Stranger Than Fiction: The Incredible Story of Aerospace Medicine, Hank shares this and other stories from his time aboard the USS Coral Sea.

Read the full shownotes here ---> https://blog.museumofflight.org/flightdeck/stranger-than-fiction-stories-from-a-flight-surgeon-part-ii

Stranger Than Fiction - Stories From A Flight Surgeon Part II

Flying fish from the Civil War era. Jetpacks with dolls. Planes in a bottle. As with any museum, only a fraction of The Museum of Flight’s collection is on display. In today’s episode, members of the Museum’s Collections team discuss some of the curios they’ve come across during their work, all of which are features on The Museum of Flight’s Collections Instagram.

Read the full shownotes (and find links to photos of the objects) here: https://bit.ly/3jCgI7v

Curios of the Collection

How do you build a rocket engine without blowing your factory up? Vern Estes took on this assignment as one of his first tasks in the family business of model rocket manufacturing. In today’s podcast episode, he recalls reaching the challenging goal of creating a machine that could quickly, and safely, pack model rocket engines to keep up with the voracious demand from a public eager to launch their own kits into the atmosphere.

Full Shownotes: https://bit.ly/3CpOlRE

How To Build A Rocket Engine

If you’ve shopped in the Museum’s store, Lynda Eck may have helped you with your purchase. Before she started working here at the Museum, however, Lynda had a 35-year career flying with United on aircraft like the classic 747, first as a stewardess, then as a flight attendant. She joins host Sean Mobley for a conversation about her career chock full of stories from the friendly skies. 

Full show notes -> https://bit.ly/3CDY5YX

Stories From A Stewardess

This episode comes out on the brink of a major anniversary here in Seattle. 50 years ago tomorrow, November 24, on the eve of Thanksgiving, a man known only as DB Cooper boarded a plane in Portland headed for Seattle. What followed is a tale of danger, extortion, and hundreds of thousands of missing dollars - over a million in today's money. Host Sean Mobley sat down with Museum of Flight docent Mike Burns to get the story.

Full shownotes --> https://bit.ly/3nKGtG7

The Missing Million: Part One

Welcome to Season 2 of The Flight Deck! From now on we’ll be presenting podcast episodes in themed seasons, letting us explore stories from aerospace in entirely new ways. This season is all about “Curator on the Loose!” The Museum of Flight’s hit webseries. With almost 4 million views, the show features our Senior Curator Matthew Burchette taking viewers into areas of the aviation industry they normally don’t get to explore. If you’ve seen the webseries, you probably enjoy the epic interviews Matthew’s scored with fascinating folks from across the country. But you probably don’t realize that those interviews are greatly condensed for the tv series. We’ll be sharing extended interviews, or conversations that were cut entirely for time!
Did you know that airports have their own specialized fire stations? In today’s episode, Matthew’s taking us to the Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting station here on Boeing Field. Learn the connection between the fire station and the Museum, and how the firefighters prepare to respond to an incident anywhere on the field within seconds.

Transcript/Full show notes ➡️ https://blog.museumofflight.org/flightdeck/fire-on-the-airfield

Fire on the Airfield! | Season 2

Thousands of satellites are zooming over your head right now, orbiting Earth and beaming down research data, images, phone calls and even Internet access. Did you know that many of those satellites were made within a few miles of The Museum of Flight? Join Geoff Nunn, our Adjunct Curator for Space History, and our Senior Curator Matthew Burchette for a conversation about these small orbiting wonders.

Get the full shownotes and transcript --> https://tmof.click/458yGFc

Tiny Space Objects | Season 2

What a century! We recently visited the National Museum of the Untied States Air Force to get a close-up look at the Century Series aircraft on display there (F-100, F-101, F-102, F-104, F-105, F-106 and F-107). As a delightful bonus to that trip, our Senior Curator Matthew Burchette got to interview Doug Lantry, Curator at the National Museum of the United States Air Force. Not only that, but he did it in one of the NMUSAF's storage hangars normally out-of-bounds for visitors.

This episode wraps up Season 2 of The Flight Deck. Stay tuned for Season 3, premiering in a few weeks!

Full show notes and transcript -> https://tmof.click/3szMLx8

Behind the Scenes at the National Museum of the United States Air Force | Season 2

Welcome to Season 3 of The Flight Deck! This season’s theme is LGBTQ+ aerospace history. We’ll be investigating the ways that LGBTQ+ people have been part of aviation and space exploration since the beginning, and also the ways the aerospace industry has shaped the LGBTQ+ community. We’ve got a fantastic lineup of conversations heading your way this season, and it’s starting off with X-15 historian, transgender activist, Air Force veteran and science educator Michelle Evans.

Michelle Evans spent most of her Air Force service here in Washington State and was even on base when Mount St. Helens erupted! In this interview, she shares stories from her time in the service, discusses ways her time in the Air Force intersected with her identity as a trans woman, and reflects on how her friendships helped her weather difficult moments on base. 

Full shownotes and transcript at https://tmof.click/46Iuahl

Michelle Evans - The Story of a Transgender Air Force Veteran | Season 3

Author, astrophysicist and science communicator Joalda Morancy wrote their young readers book “Aliens: Join the Scientists Searching Space for Extraterrestrial Life” while they were still a college student at the University of Chicago in 2021. They joined our host Sean Mobley for conversation about science, finding their people, and the reasons genuine representation in STEM helps make our own planet a better place for everyone.

Full shownotes at https://tmof.click/47lsYk1

Joalda Morancy: The Path to Space | Season 3

The history of the gay men who still make up an unusually large percentage of the flight attendant labor force is not well known. Associate Professor of History at Kansas State University Phil Tiemeyer covered this topic in his book “Plane Queer: Labor, Sexuality, and AIDS in the History of Male Flight Attendants.” While the book covers almost a century of history, Phil sat down for an interview that focused on the HIV/AIDS crisis, and the way two flight gay male attendants with Pacific Northwest connections left their mark on history.

Full shownotes at the link: https://tmof.click/47cWLvq

The Gay History of Male Flight Attendants | Season 3

Greg Sumner grew up fascinated by airplanes and managed to parlay that love of aviation into a career as a pilot, flying some of the most iconic aircraft out there for United Airlines. He also served as the co-chair of the National Gay Pilots Association, a worldwide organization dedicated to creating community for LGBTQ+ people across all aviation jobs, and fostering a more inclusive industry. He joined me to share some of his favorite pilot stories, to talk about a 9/11 hero who was a member of the National Gay Pilots Association, and explain why he feels diversity and inclusion aren’t just buzzwords, but a matter of life and death.

Content note: At about 28:40, Greg shares a derogatory term for a gay man that was used to describe him by another pilot.

Greg Sumner: Airline Pilot | Season 3

Dr. Marques Redd and Mikael Owunna are Black, queer Pittsburgh-based multidisciplinary artists who weave indigenous African cosmic stories into their work. A recent film they directed, The Primordial House is an example of this, referencing everything from modern pictures of deep space phenomenon to the connections the Igbo people have had to the Sirius star system since ancient times to the celestial stylings of Black jazz artist Sun Ra. They join host Sean Mobley for a conversation about their work and the ways sky stories and space exploration have shaped African storytelling for millennia.

In Season 3 of The Flight Deck, we’re sharing stories of LGBTQ+ people in aerospace.

Full shownotes -> https://tmof.click/41eXhHr

Cosmic Storytellers | Season 3

Museums are places where history is presented and interpreted, and presenting and interpreting the stories of LGBTQ+ people in aerospace brings with it unique challenges for the people doing the interpreting. Isaac Fellman and Tony Pankuch, two thinkers in the museum and archives world whose focus is on LGBTQ+ stories, join host Sean Mobley to consider people like Sally Ride, Amelia Earhart, Josephine Baker and others from aviation and space history whose stories have much more to say than what typically gets recorded on museum walls.

Full shownotes -> https://tmof.click/3NeI3vU

Beyond Labels | Season 3

LGBTQ+ people have been part of aviation and space science for centuries. Today’s episode is a bit of a departure from our normal format. Special guest Joalda Morancy rejoins host Sean Mobley to spotlight 10 individuals in aerospace past and present who are part of the LGBTQ+ umbrella.

This list of 10 people is not meant to be comprehensive. If you were making your own list, who would you include? Let us know! Contact us via email at podcast at museumofflight dot org. We’d love to hear your opinions!

In Season 3 of The Flight Deck, we’re sharing stories of LGBTQ+ people in aerospace.

Full shownotes at www.museumofflight.org/podcast

10 LGBTQ+ People In Aerospace You Should Know

Wendy Lawrence is a retired NASA astronaut and pilot for the United States Navy. She joined host Sean Mobley for a frank and honest conversation about resilience, finding community, and reflecting on her time in the Navy and at NASA through an LGBTQ+ lens.

In Season 3 of The Flight Deck, we’re sharing stories of LGBTQ+ people in aerospace.

Full shownotes at www.museumofflight.org/podcast

Ad Astra With Wendy Lawrence

Space is trying to kill you. How can you make it feel like home? Sana Sharma is a co-founder and the Chief Design Officer for the Aurelia Institute, where she focuses on creating habitats in outer space that go beyond basic survival. She joins host Sean Mobley to design a cozy place in outer space.

Full Shownotes https://tmof.click/4fPD9m8

Your Home in Space with Sana Sharma

Sandwiches hit different at zero gravity. While at NASA, Vickie Kloeris managed the food systems for the Space Shuttle and later the International Space Station. She joins host Sean Mobley to chat about the weirdness and wonderfulness of making a menu for astronauts.

Full shownotes: https://blog.museumofflight.org/flightdeck/space-food-with-vickie-kloeris

Space Food! with Vickie Kloeris

The Mass Effect series set a new standard for science fiction storytelling. Part of its appeal was a grounding in real science. Mac Walters is the CEO of Worlds Untold, but before founding his own company he was a writer on Mass Effect, a lead writer on Mass Effect 2 and 3, creative director of Mass Effect: Andromeda, and project director for the Mass Effect Legendary Edition. He joined host Sean Mobley and The Museum of Flight's Curator of Spaceflight and Contemporary Aerospace Geoff Nunn for a conversation about the ways science and fiction intersected in Bioware's legendary video game series.

Full shownotes: https://blog.museumofflight.org/flightdeck/the-science-of-mass-effect-with-mac-walters

Image: Bioware

The Science of Mass Effect with Mac Walters

Yeah, dreaming of a thriving community in space is all fine and dandy. But have we really thought this through? Kelly Weinersmith is a biologist and popular science writer. She co-authored the book A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through? with her husband Zach Weinersmith. In this conversation with host Sean Mobley, she brings a critical eye to the concept of space settlements, and wonders if we’re putting the cart before the horse when it comes to long-term habitation on another planet.

Full shownotes: https://blog.museumofflight.org/flightdeck/are-space-stations-maybe-a-bad-idea

Are Space Stations Maybe a Bad Idea? with Kelly Weinersmith

If someone’s murdered on the International Space Station, what happens? Dr. Saadia Pekkanen is the founding director of the Space Law, Data, and Policy Program at the University of Washington, and is one of the global experts on the rules and diplomacy of outer space policy. She joins host Sean Mobley answer a deceptively simple question: as humans extend our reach into outer space, how do we know what rules to follow?

Full Shownotes: https://blog.museumofflight.org/flightdeck/space-law-order

Space Law & Order with Dr. Saadia Pekkanen

The idea of living and working in space has acted as inspiration for stories for thousands of years. Dr. Margaret Weitekamp is a curator and chair of the space history department at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. She joins host Sean Mobley to explore the many ways culture draws from the stars.

The Museum of Flight is a proud Smithsonian Affiliate.

Full shownotes and transcript: https://blog.museumofflight.org/flightdeck/the-pop-culture-of-space

Cover image: National Air and Space Museum

The Pop Culture of Space with Dr. Margaret Weitekamp

Episode 3: Galactic Mixtape Vol. 1

What’s on the cassette tape that can be found at the end of our Apollo (http://www.museumofflight.org/Exhibits/Apollo) exhibit? We chat with exhibit developer Peder Nelson to learn more about this mysterious aerospace artifact. The mix tape belongs to the widow of Pete Conrad, who brought it with him on Skylab 1. As it turns out, Conrad was a huge country music fan! In order to uncover the playlist, Nelson had to pay a visit to GT Recording, who was able to access the recording without damaging the cassette. According to Nelson, the joy of listening to the cassette, which has since been digitized and can be heard at the Museum, includes imagining “what it was like to float around the Earth, staring down and listening to Loretta Lynn.” 

Want to see what it’s like to train like an astronaut? Check out our Shuttle Trainer tours(http://www.museumofflight.org/Plan-Your-Visit/Tours-and-Experiences/Shuttle-Trainer-Tours)!

 
Host: Sean Mobley
Producer: Justin Braegelmann
Webmaster: Layne Benofsky
Content Marketing Manager: Irene Jagla

More Information: https://www.museumofflight.org/podcast
Contact us: podcast@museumofflight.org

Galactic Mix Tape Vol. I

Episode 4: A Brief History of Legroom

Has your airplane seat felt a little tight lately? It’s not just you—it’s the evolution of legroom on passenger planes, and it’s not getting any roomier. We talk to Marva Semet to discuss how this battle for inches came about. Semet finds that spaces weren’t always so tight on in the early days of aviation, when flying itself was a luxury for the very few. During the 1940s, airlines realized that “the more people they could fit into an aircraft, the better.” Nowadays, airlines consider pitch (the space between a point on one seat and the same point on the seat in front of it) and width in passenger configurations when purchasing planes, and these numbers can be the difference between a comfortable journey and a torturous trek. 

Step inside our famous passenger planes: the Boeing Model 80-A(http://www.museumofflight.org/aircraft/boeing-80a-1), the first Boeing 747(http://www.museumofflight.org/aircraft/boeing-747-121) and the Boeing 787(http://www.museumofflight.org/aircraft/boeing-787-dreamliner) Dreamliner.

 
Host: Sean Mobley
Producer: Justin Braegelmann
Webmaster: Layne Benofsky
Content Marketing Manager: Irene Jagla

More Information: https://www.museumofflight.org/podcast
Contact us: podcast@museumofflight.org

A Brief History Of Legroom

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.

Youngest

“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!

The Space Toilet Episode

We think of history in terms of grand, sweeping events and often forget that actual humans are at the center of it. Today’s episode reminds us that people drive history, everyday people like you and me who are swept up or have to react to these larger events. The discussion centers around Mike Caputo, a World War II B-24 Navigator, and his daughter Yvonne, the woman who helped him open up about the wartime experiences he’d hidden deep inside. While helping her father document his story in his own voice, she forged a stronger connection with him that she carries even today after he’s passed away.

A Family Story

Diverse, thought-provoking stories from the world aviation and space exploration. Presented by The Museum of Flight.

Popular tracks by The Museum of Flight