Airspace

Today we’re tackling something we’ve wanted to talk about for a long time (which is relative, because time and space lose all meaning there). They’re incredibly dense, super cool, and mind-bendingly-mysterious -- BLACK HOLES! But how do you imagine – let alone study—the unseeable? And seriously—what happened at the end of “Interstellar?” The concept of black holes isn’t new—scientists first theorized their existence in the early 20th century. But in the last few years our knowledge of black holes has expanded – from confirmation of a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way (it really ties the galaxy together) to the first-ever image of a black hole captured by the Event Horizon Telescope. We’re now making direct observations that prove their existence. And just yesterday(!) scientists released an image of a black hole in polarized light, with signs of magnetic fields around the event horizon. And if you don’t understand what that means, you’re not alone!! We’re all on this magic school bus of

Did you hear they found water on the Moon? Or was it Mars? No wait, Mercury? An asteroid? It seems like every time there’s big news from outer space, it’s that we found water some place—as traces of ice or wisps of vapor, embedded in rocks or bound up in dry-as-dirt-regolith. What’s so special about a few molecules of H20 trapped in the ground millions of miles away? How do we even spot that from Earth? Today, Matt, Nick, and Emily explore how we search for wet spots in the solar system, what they can tell us about our home planet, and why they’re the key to making our way in the universe. Today on AirSpace: Water—where is it and why we care?

We’ll admit that we’re getting a little nostalgic about even the most mundane aspects of air travel – like how many times the pre-flight safety video reminds you that smoking is NOT permitted onboard. But that got us thinking – that wasn’t always the case. So what changed? It took decades of research, lobbying, and litigation to prove the dangers of secondhand smoke, and a lot of that work happened at cruising altitude. In this episode, we’ll hear how flight attendants were instrumental in the fight to get smoking OUT of the skies, and how the lawsuit they brought against the tobacco companies had huge ripple effects in the smoke-free public places we enjoy today. Did you know AirSpace has a newsletter?!? Get on the list HERE.

This week the Perseverance Rover will touch down on the surface of Mars, bringing an end to its seven-month journey AND this mixtape. Once it lands, Percy will send back thousands of images, giving us Earthlings a close-up view of the Martian terrain. In 1897 author H.G. Wells imagined a different way to see Mars in his short shorty, “The Crystal Egg.” Writing around the same time as his famous novel, “War of the Worlds,” he introduces us to two humans who discover a mysterious egg-shaped crystal that allows them to view the surface of Mars – and the strange creatures that inhabit it. About Voyages to Mars: On July 30, 2020 NASA’s Perseverance Rover launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida to Jezero Crater, Mars. To accompany Percy on seven-month journey, we’re compiling a literary mixtape of Martian-themed sci-fi set to music by DJ Kid Koala. Voyages to Mars is made possible by the support of the Secretary of the Smithsonian and the Smithsonian Orlando Regional Council.

Welcome to Season 4 of AirSpace! Right now COVID-19 vaccines are traveling across the country and around the world – and air travel is a critical component of this supply chain. These vaccines were not only developed in record time (shout out to SCIENCE!) but some of them also have to be kept at record cold temperatures. To meet this challenge, distributors are relying on the cold chain – a supply line that keeps things cold (and sometimes super cold) from ‘source to sink’ (and hopefully soon, into your arm). On today’s episode we’re breaking down the history of the cold chain and how air safety plays a part (particularly with all that dry ice). And Emily has the best analogy of a lipid bilayer that you’ve ever heard.

Over the summer we collaborated with the artist Diplo on a companion album to his new record MMXX. It’s called Under Ancient Skies and it’s available wherever you stream music. But we also created an audio tour of the night sky for a series of small, outdoor concerts Diplo performed. It’s ethereal, it’s relaxing, and it’s just what we need to get us through the winter doldrums. Lie back, listen, and pretend it’s summer – we certainly are.

We’re only ONE month away from the Perseverance Rover touching down on Mars! The search for life is a pillar of Mars exploration. But our search isn’t only confined to the planets of our solar system. Radio telescopes search for signals of intelligent life from far away planets, orbiting other stars. One such telescope, the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, collapsed on December 1, 2020. In his story, “The Great Silence,” science fiction author Ted Chiang features the telescope as he considers the significance of the animal life that surrounds it. About Voyages to Mars: On July 30, 2020 NASA’s Perseverance Rover launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida to Jezero Crater, Mars. To accompany Percy on seven-month journey, we’re compiling a literary mixtape of Martian-themed sci-fi set to music by DJ Kid Koala. Voyages to Mars is made possible by the support of the Secretary of the Smithsonian and the Smithsonian Orlando Regional Council.

Season four of AirSpace is just around the corner, but we have a special bonus drop for you today! Our friends at the PBS podcast NOVA Now have been giving us a behind-the- scenes look at the work of scientists, engineers, technologists, and more who are using their work to address the most pressing questions of our time. Listen to this episode where host Alok Patel explores how satellites have shaped our understanding of the modern world, and what lies ahead at the intersection of justice and space. Look for NOVA Now wherever you get your podcasts or visit them at https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/podcast/.

What a year it has been (alt: Ugh, what a year!). Back in April, we launched our AirSpace Movie Club—and critiquing our favorite air-and-space-films was a fun way to stay in touch remotely until we could get back into the studio for Season 3. Well, 16 episodes and eight months later, we’re still recording from home, so we thought we’d end season 3 back where we started: at the movies! It’s safe to say that the AirSpace pod loves Galaxy Quest, but doesn’t everyone!? It has it all: sci-fi, action, and comedy, an underdog who saves the day, and feel good story with space aliens! For the Trekkies among us, it’s an unswerving love letter to the importance of fans in any successful franchise. In the final episode of season 3, Emily, Matt, and Nick discuss why this is the movie to watch with your family this holiday season. Also! We’ll be baaaaack! This is the end of season 3, but we won’t be gone for long! We have a few tricks up our sleeve in January (and Voyages to Mars continues!). And then, we’ll be back befo

Interplanetary road trips take a WHILE. So for this episode of Voyages to Mars, while we cruise onward towards the Red Planet, we’re listening to some poetry that pays tribute to long duration space travel. Our selections in this episode come from Orrery, a brand-new collection from author Donna Kane that pays homage to the Pioneer 10 space probe launched by NASA in 1972. Kane was inspired by Pioneer 10 to explore themes of consciousness, materiality, and transformation. About Voyages to Mars: On July 30, 2020 NASA’s Perseverance Rover launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida to Jezero Crater, Mars. To accompany Percy on seven-month journey, we’re compiling a literary mixtape of Martian-themed sci-fi set to music by DJ Kid Koala. Voyages to Mars is made possible by the support of the Secretary of the Smithsonian and the Smithsonian Orlando Regional Council.

Did you learn the constellations as a child? Odds are, if you lived in a city, you saw more stars in the classroom—or a planetarium if you were lucky—than by looking at the night sky (and if not, we’re jealous). Fact is, most of us live in places that give us a less than ideal view of the stars because of light pollution from our cities and suburbs. But keeping our skies dark is important for so many reasons – for nocturnal animals, for science and astronomy, and for cultural traditions around the world. In this episode, we’re shining a light on the cultural importance of the night sky for native Hawaiians. Turn down the lights and enjoy!  

This month marks the 20th birthday of the International Space Station! That’s 240 straight months—which is exactly how long 2020 feels so far. We all need a little self-care these days, so in honor of the ISS anniversary, we’ll tell you about what astronaut life is like when they aren’t doing the extraordinary science, essential maintenance, and extraterrestrial chores necessary to sustain our home in space. Believe it or not, astronauts get days off too! Find out how they spend their downtime on this episode of AirSpace.

We’re back with the fourth installment of our literary mixtape, Voyages to Mars! The Perseverance Rover is on its way to the Red Planet and space agencies around the world hope that someday in the not too distant future, humans will join it. Mars is a popular destination for humans in sci-fi literature. Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles, published a few years before the world’s first satellite was even launched (!), remains one of the most influential stories of human settlement on Mars ever published. In two selections from the Chronicles  – “The Settlers” and “The Green Morning” – Bradbury considers what the motivation for settling Mars might be, what those first human settlers might be like, and how they might transform Mars into something more in line with life as we know it on Earth. About Voyages to Mars: On July 30, 2020 NASA’s Perseverance Rover launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida to Jezero Crater, Mars. To accompany Percy on seven-month journey, we’re compiling a literary mixtape of Martian-th

On this episode of AirSpace we’re spotlighting the heroic service and enduring legacy of the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASP. More than 1000 of these fearless women flew as civilians for the Army Air Forces during World War II. These skilled pilots performed jobs on the home front – ferrying planes, towing targets, transporting personnel – flying almost every type of military aircraft. Yet despite filling a crucial wartime role, these women weren’t recognized as veterans for more than 30 years. And their campaign to be permitted burial in Arlington National Cemetery lasted even longer.  In this episode, we’re welcoming our first ever guest host, historian and author Dr. Katherine Sharp Landdeck. And we’ll hear firsthand from three women connected to the WASP legacy, including a WASP herself, Nell “Mickey” Bright.

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 communities form, and what happens when the barrier to entry turns toxic and targeted. “Fandoms” aren’t new—they stretch back at least a century in their modern form—but the internet provided a new kind of platform for geeking out, and unfortunately, for airing underlying and overt biases. Misogyny, racism, agism, ableism—all of the problems we struggle with as a society at large happen in fan spaces, but fandoms also create opportunities to connect across divisions. We’ll talk to Blerdcon co-founder Hilton George about creating a dedicated space for the Black nerd experience, and journalist and This American Life producer

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 Baum (of Wizard of Oz fame) introduces us to a wind-up man named Tik-Tok in Ozma of Oz. And in The Steam Man of the Prairies, author Edward Ellis sets his steam powered man against the backdrop of the industrialization of the American West. About Voyages to Mars: 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. Voyages to Mars is made possible by the support of the Secretary of the Smithsonian and the Smithsonian Orlando Regio

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 films featuring flying service members. In this episode, we’ll look at two movies staring iconic aviators—Top Gun and Captain Marvel—and discuss how the military leans into their role as supporting players on the silver screen.

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 episode, Emily, Matt, and Nick tell the story of one of those service members, from an aerial battle in the Pacific in 1944, to recovery and repatriation more than 70 years later. And we hear from the head of one of these recovery organizations who describes the herculean effort and coordination that goes into each recovery operation, all with the goal of providing an honorable homecoming to the fallen.

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 combination of stretched scientific speculation and science fiction imaginings.   About Voyages to Mars: 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. Voyages to Mars is made possible by the support of the Secretary of the Smithsonian and the Smithsonian Orlando Regional Council.

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 a spotlight on Beverley Bass, American Airlines’ first woman Captain who commanded one of the aircraft. Nick sits down with Beverley to hear the story of her incredible career firsthand, and Emily talks to Come from Away’s writers, Irene Sankoff and David Hein, to learn how they were inspired to write an entire musical about the biggest aviation hub you’ve likely never heard of. Early aviation history, pioneering pilots, and one community’s story of unity on a day of infamy—there’s a lot going on in this episode (but still no intermission).