Airspace

Imagine this: It’s 1936 and you’re taking a luxurious three day flight from Germany to the United States in the Hindenburg. But instead of landing in New Jersey as expected, you dock to the top of the tallest building in the world: the Empire State Building. This didn’t actual happen — turns out that’s a logistical and safety impossibility — but that didn’t stop the builders of the Empire State Building from using the potential of a mooring mast to advertise the building. After all, they had to really stick it to the Chrysler Building. Matt and Emily are joined by the Museum’s lighter-than-air flight curator to talk about airships, Zeppelins, mooring masts, and, a first for us, architecture! Sign up here for the monthly AirSpace newsletter AirSpace is made possible by the generous support of Olay.

Welcome to Animal Air! We invite all passengers to waddle, trot, sashay or mince aboard the aircraft as we prepare for takeoff. Make sure all tails and tail feathers are out of the aisle and remain inside the aircraft at all times. A duck in a hot air balloon. A cat in an airship. A lion cub in an airplane. Our animal companions have been up in human created aircraft even longer that we have. Since these stories do great on social media, we brought in our social media manager to help us tell five stories of animals taking flight. Sign up here for the monthly AirSpace newsletter! AirSpace is made possible by the generous support of Olay.

Thanks to GPS, ecologists today can track thousands of animals all the time with tracking devices that can be smaller than a quarter. But in 1970 there was just a weather satellite, a 23 pound collar, and an elk named Monique. Between spooky elk herds, inconsistent darts, a rowdy press gaggle, angry letters, an upside-down collar, and a couple of upsetting deaths, Monique’s tracking didn’t exactly go off without a hitch. Back then scientists really didn’t know where animals went, and tracking them on the ground, even with radio, was arduous and provided incomplete data. So even if it wasn’t perfect Monique’s tracking was a huge breakthrough. Today, ecologists like the ones at Smithsonian’s Movement of Life Initiative and the ICARUS project track animals from pole to pole and from the tops of mountains to deep under the sea. Insights from these trackers help with habitat conservation and breeding but might also be able to predict the next pandemic. On this episode of AirSpace, we talk to some of the scientist

The Juno spacecraft currently orbiting Jupiter almost didn’t have a camera, and boy would that have been a shame. Any time you launch something into space, weight is money. And when Juno was proposed and funded, a visible light camera wasn’t really needed to meet the mission’s science goals. But, thanks to the insistence of adamant Juno team members, Juno got JunoCam. And we’re so glad it did. On this episode of AirSpace, we unpack how JunoCam has contributed to science and completely changed the way we view this beautiful gas giant. Sign up here for the monthly AirSpace newsletter! AirSpace is made possible by the generous support of Olay.

In the fifties and sixties to get hired as a stewardess put you in a club that was akin to being a movie star. Around this time, a highly qualified woman, top of her training class, beautiful and poised, didn't understand why she wasn't being hired, until an instructor told her it was because she was Black. The lawsuit that followed opened the door to Black women being hired as stewardesses, but the result was less of a floodgate and more of a trickle. By the mid-1960s, most US airlines had hired their first Black flight attendant, but these women continued to face discrimination and their representation in the industry hardly mirrored the overall population. On today’s episode, we explore the history of Black women flight attendants by hearing directly from some of the first to serve. Sign up here for the monthly AirSpace newsletter! AirSpace is made possible by the generous support of Olay.

The pigeon – ubiquitous bird, oft city-dweller, and… war hero? You might even consider the humble pigeon to be the first military aviator. Before radio, homing pigeons were one of the most reliable forms of communications for sailors at sea and troops in trenches. The American use of these feathered aviators really took off during World War I when trench warfare made it dangerous for human runners to deliver messages from the front line. And these birds were not only integral to communications, some even rose to the level of heroism. On today’s episode, Emily and Matt take you through the history of this often overlooked military asset and tell the story of one hero bird, Cher Ami. Sign up here for the monthly AirSpace newsletter! AirSpace is made possible by the generous support of Olay.

We’ve all seen the breathtaking Hubble and JWST images of our universe, but have you ever wondered how these pictures are made? If you were to travel to the “Cosmic Cliffs” of the Carina Nebula or the “Pillars of Creation” of the Eagle Nebula, your eyes wouldn’t see the beautiful colors and patterns displayed in these popular images. But, that doesn’t make these pictures any less real.  In today’s episode we explain how image processors take invisible (to us) light and data from space telescopes and translate it into something that's better than what our naked eyes can see. And we discuss how these images are made even more accessible through detailed alt-text, 3D printing, and sonification. Sign up here for the monthly AirSpace newsletter! AirSpace is made possible by the generous support of Olay.

At the turn of the 20th century, astronomy got a serious glow-up. An influx of money and scientific advancements led to building bigger, better telescopes at newly-founded observatories across the country. Astronomers could see farther than ever before, and this led to a debate about exactly what they were seeing. Were these nebulous, fuzzy-looking discs in the sky part of the Milky Way? How big is our universe? On today’s episode, we’re telling the story of how the work of many astronomers contributed to a complete redesign of how big we know our universe to be and what we think it looks like. Sign up here for the monthly AirSpace newsletter! AirSpace is made possible by the generous support of Olay.

Welcome to Season 7 of AirSpace! We’re kicking off with an episode that really gets to the core of what AirSpace is all about – drilling down to unpack scientifically questionable movies we love... or at least love to hate. At its crust, this episode’s pick has all the makings of an epic disaster flick — an all-star cast (hello, Stanley Tucci), an epic Space Shuttle scene, and a fictional element called “unobtainium.” But trust us – despite a lot of questionable science, The Core isn’t the pits. In fact, it’s one of Emily’s favorite movies! Join us, as we journey to the center of the Earth. Sign up here for the monthly AirSpace newsletter! AirSpace is made possible by the generous support of Olay.

Season 7 of AirSpace will be in your feeds starting December 8th! AirSpace is made possible by the generous support of Olay.

Just two more weeks until a brand new season of AirSpace! But today, we’re excited to bring you a special bonus drop from our friends at the National Portrait Gallery’s podcast PORTRAITS. George Takei went boldly where no man had gone before when he broke racial stereotypes to play Mr. Sulu on Star Trek. But he's also lent his celebrity to a stack of social causes. George traces his activism to a single, searing injustice-- his internment, along with thousands of other Japanese-Americans, during WWII. He was five years old. Look for more episodes of PORTRAITS wherever you get your podcasts!

Season 7 of AirSpace is just around the corner, but today we have a special bonus drop from our friends at the Sidedoor podcast! You’ve likely seen recent awe-inspiring images from the James Webb Space Telescope, but this episode focuses on its predecessor: the Hubble Space Telescope. Sidedoor explores how America's first large space telescope went from a "billion-dollar blunder" to one of history's most important scientific instruments. Look for more episodes of Sidedoor wherever you get your podcasts!

Picture this: it’s Halloween eve, 1938, and you’re gathered with your family around the radio to listen to the evening programs. All of a sudden, the broadcast is interrupted by a breaking news bulletin. First, a report of explosions on Mars, then news of a meteorite landing in New Jersey, and suddenly a correspondent is attacked live on air by a Martian heat ray! Obvious spoiler: there was no Martian attack that night. But there was a radio play — a performance of Orson Welles’ adaptation of “War of the Worlds” by H.G. Wells. If you’ve heard of this production before, it’s likely due to the widespread panic it supposedly caused — radio listeners running out of their homes, jamming the interstates, and tying up the phone lines all in a frenzy about what they presumed to be a real Martian attack on Earth. But… is that really what happened? Learn what really went down on today’s episode of AirSpace! Did you know AirSpace has a monthly newsletter? Sign up here! AirSpace is made possible by the generous suppor

On October 4, 1957 the Soviet Union successfully launched the first artificial Earth satellite, Sputnik. This early Space Race milestone sparked a lot of reaction – it was unsettling for some, but for others it inspired an interest in rocketry and brought many scientists into the space industry. One of those people was Homer Hickam, a high schooler in a small West Virginia mining town who would go on to work for NASA, write a memoir, and inspire a movie. On today’s episode we unpack that film – October Sky. If you went to high school in the last 20 years, there’s a chance you saw it in a chemistry or physics class. But, turns out, that wasn’t the case for Matt, Emily, or Nick! It’s rare for these three to unpack a space movie after all seeing it for the very first time. Tune in to hear their initial impressions, what was mispronounced, and what could have been better! Did you know AirSpace has a monthly newsletter? Sign up here! AirSpace is made possible by the generous support of Olay.

You can’t fly really fast without a big boom. In 1964 continual sonic booms spelled a tremendous headache for the residents of Oklahoma City. For six months the US Air Force flew an airplane at supersonic speeds over the annoyed midwestern metropolis, often multiple times a day, in a series of tests called Project Bongo. The tests were part of the United States’ research into developing supersonic transport (civilian passenger aircraft that go faster than the speed of sound). Huge spoiler – things did NOT go well. Think: damages, lawsuits, and a general disturbance of the peace. Ultimately, Project Bongo was one of the reasons the US never developed supersonic transport like Britain and France’s Concorde. The story of how and why the tests happened is a wild ride, and we’re breaking it down for you today on AirSpace. Did you know AirSpace has a monthly newsletter? Sign up here! AirSpace is made possible by the generous support of Olay.

Sleeping in space goes back almost as far as there have been people in space (specifically, a cosmonaut who caught some shuteye in 1961). Astronauts have slept in capsules, shuttles, space stations, and even on the Moon. Sleep is an important part of an astronaut’s health, particularly for longer duration missions. But from noisy crewmates to spaceship sounds and even the sheer excitement of it all, sleeping in space hasn’t always been easy. To find out what it’s really like we speak with former astronaut Mike Massimino who relates his shuttle sleeping experience to a big slumber party.  We’re catching Zs in zero-G, today on AirSpace. Did you know AirSpace has a monthly newsletter? Sign up here! AirSpace is made possible by the generous support of Olay.

In 1971 an Apollo 14 astronaut took about 500 tree seeds into orbit around the Moon. When he got back, those seeds were distributed, germinated, and planted all around the United States. And then… they were mostly forgotten about, even by NASA. That is, until the mid-1990s when a teacher at a Girl Scout camp in Indiana wondered what was up with this “Moon Tree” at her local camp. On this episode, we speak with the NASA planetary scientist who received her question, and as a result, started a database to track down the Moon Tree locations. Today, there are 67 known, living, first generation Moon Trees all over the United States – maybe even in your town! AND JUST THIS WEEK NASA announced more tree seeds will fly with the Artemis 1 mission, continuing the Moon Tree legacy started in the Apollo era. We’re giving lunar Johnny Appleseed vibes, this week on AirSpace. Did you know AirSpace has a monthly newsletter? Sign up here! AirSpace is made possible by the generous support of Olay.

Skywriting is something you might witness at the beach, or a sporting event, or an outdoor concert. A popular form of aerial advertising and even the occasional marriage proposal, skywritten messages can have a BIG impact (and with letters approximately 1500 feet tall… we mean that quite literally).  But maybe you didn’t know that it originated with the military and dates wayyy back to the early days of aviation in 1910. This episode will be your exhaustive look into everything you’d want to know about skywriting – how it works, who does it, the most popular examples, and even its code of conduct. And to learn all about it, we speak to a skywriting pilot whose family has been in the business since nearly the beginning. Did you know AirSpace has a monthly newsletter? Sign up here! AirSpace is made possible by the generous support of Olay.

Every day, satellites orbit Earth taking pictures. These images are used for everything from intelligence to weather prediction and even today’s topic – archeology. When you hear the term “space archeology” you might envision a khaki-clad astronaut excavating the Moon.  But, space archeologists are actually Earth-bound researchers who use satellite and other aerial imagery to assist in archeological applications right here on our home planet. This imagery is used to find new archeological sites, track changes on already discovered ones, and even helps fight looting. On today’s episode, we hear from a researcher using this technology in Central America to see below the trees and assess where ancient structures may have been. And we talk to a Smithsonian scholar who uses satellite data for cultural heritage preservation. Did you know AirSpace has a monthly newsletter? Sign up here! AirSpace is made possible by the generous support of Olay.

It’s been nearly 50 years (!) since humans last walked on the Moon.  But NASA’s upcoming Artemis missions will soon return astronauts to the lunar surface. Artemis isn’t just about going back – it’s about science! So to answer all of our burning questions about what Artemis astronauts will do, where they will go, and what makes this all different from Apollo, we spoke to the Artemis science lead, Dr. Sarah Noble. Did you know AirSpace has a monthly newsletter? Sign up here! AirSpace is made possible by the generous support of Olay.