Tag Archives: NASA

Archive Seasons 11-15, Guest, Season 13, Theory and Technique

13.52: Working Dad is a Spaceman

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Your Hosts: Howard, Mary, and Dan, with NASA astronaut Thomas Marshburn.

Last week’s episode may have sounded like the last one for 2018, but that’s an artifact of December having five Sundays rather than four. Fifth Sundays are our “wildcards,” and something wild seems like a nice way to round out the year.

Tom Marshburn, who is both spaceman and parent, talks to us about what it’s like to be both.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Ben Hewett, and mastered by Alex Jackson

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The 3D sense of space’s blackness meets Type I, Type II, and Type III fun

A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts, by Andrew Chaikin

Archive Seasons 11-15, Career and Lifestyle, Guest, Season 13, Theory and Technique

13.42: Writing Excuses Talks to an Astronaut, with Special Guest Kjell Lindgren

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Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Dan, and Howard, with special space-guest Kjell Lindgren

Kjell Lindgren, flight surgeon, Expedition 44/45, joined us for an episode that perhaps should have been called “we ask the space-man all of the things.” We asked him stuff that we wanted to know more about, and came away richer for the experience.

If there’s just one technical term worth bringing home from this episode, it’s “expeditionary behavior.” It’s the sort of thing that can make us all richer for the experience.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Benjamin Hewett at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, and mastered by Alex Jackson at Writing Excuses Mission Control in Chicago.

BONUS: NASA invited us back to be on THEIR show, Houston We Have a Podcast, and that episode went live about three days before this did. More Kjell Lindgren!

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“I’m doing the Zero Gravity Giraffe” — Howard Tayler (Howard would like to point out that this is not the technical term you should bring home from this episode.)

R is for Rocket, by Ray Bradbury

Archive Seasons 11-15, Guest, Project in Depth, Season 13, Theory and Technique

13.30: Project in Depth, THE CALCULATING STARS, with Kjell Lindgren

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Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, and Dan, with Kjell Lindgren

Spoiler Alert! If you haven’t yet read The Calculating Stars: A Lady Astronaut Novel, by Mary Robinette Kowal, you may wish to rectify that prior to listening.

In this episode we go into great depth on Mary’s novel with the expert technical help of NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren, who was one of Mary’s consulting readers. Like most of our project-in-depth episodes this one runs long. Longer still because we were at JSC in Houston, which was incredibly cool for all of us, so nobody was watching the clock.

Liner Notes: The reference to “Type 2” fun comes from an as-yet-unpublished episode. Type 1 fun is fun in the moment. Type 2 fun is fun to talk about later. Maybe much, much later.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Benjamin Hewett, and mastered by Alex Jackson

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Take something you’ve already written, and write a prequel set forty years or so earlier.

Riding Rockets: The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut, by Mike Mullane