Inside the National Air and Space Museum with Margaret Weitekamp

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Welcome to AMSEcast, coming to you from Oak Ridge, Tennessee,

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a global leader in science, technology, and innovation.

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My name is Alan Lowe, director of the American Museum

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of Science and Energy, and the K-25 History Center.

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Each episode of AMSEcast presents world-renowned authors,

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scientists, historians, policymakers, and everyone in between,

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sharing their insights on a variety of fascinating topics.

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Welcome to AMSEcast.

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As we prepare for America’s upcoming semiquincentennial, we’re continuing our

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series on 250 years of American innovation, and one story that we must tell

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is that of America’s leadership in flight and in the exploration of space.

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So, it’s my pleasure to welcome as our guest in this

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episode Dr. Margaret Weitekamp, the curator and department

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chair at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

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Margaret earned a BA from the University of

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Pittsburgh, and her MA and PhD in history from Cornell.

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She was a Mellon fellow in the humanities and spent a year

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at the NASA Headquarters history office in Washington as the

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American Historical Association NASA Aerospace History Fellow.

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She began her service at the Air and Space Museum in 2004

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becoming department chair of the space history department in 2019.

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She has been widely published, and is the author of books like

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Spaceships: An Illustrated History of the Real and the Imagined,

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written with Matthew Shindell, and Space Craze, America’s

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Enduring Fascination With Real and Imagined Space Flight.

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Margaret, thanks so much for joining us on AMSEcast.

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Oh, I’m delighted to be here.

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I love your museum.

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I’m just going to start with that.

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You’re supposed to be kind of unbiased in these things

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[laugh] but no, I love the National Air and Space Museum.

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I was saying before we started today, that when I

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worked in Washington, it was a go-to destination.

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Certainly anyone that visited us in DC that was part of the tour, always.

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I recently was there starting these interviews with some folks

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at the National Academies of Engineering, and visited Air and

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Space and saw that the renovation is making great progress.

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Can you tell us, as we start, what are the goals of the

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renovation and when do you think it’s going to be completed?

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Yeah, I will say it’s a great privilege to get to work

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at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

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It’s one of my favorite museums, even from being a kid.

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I remember coming in and going through the Skylab, and

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just, you know, getting to have that whole experience.

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And so—that would be back in the early-1980s—and now we are

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really working on this renovation that is designed to transform

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the whole museum, to really bring us into the 21st century.

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It’s in fact, a process that we’re calling internally ‘Transformation,’

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so we’re thinking both about the revitalization of the building on

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the National Mall, but also the transformation of all of the exhibits.

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I’ll tell you that when they came to the curator some years ago and said,

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“We’re going to need to do this massive renovation of the physical building,”

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the question was, if we had to take everything out in order to do that

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construction and put it all back, would we put it all back the same way,

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and the answer, of course, if we’re any good at what we do, should be no.

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New stories to tell, new objects to show you, new

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technologies to use to tell those stories, and really just

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some new science, as well as all of that other newness.

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And so, when visitors come to the museum, we are aiming for the

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250th birthday of the nation, which is also the 50th birthday of this

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building, and so we are aiming to have those renovations done in 2026.

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And what visitors will find is that we have really renovated

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all of the spaces and revisited all of our content.

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So, even though, you know, all of the old favorites should still

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be there, but in new environments, telling slightly new stories.

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So, for instance, we have our Exploring the Planets gallery.

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And that is something that, you know, we’ve always had a planets gallery.

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We have a department of planetary geologists on board here at the museum,

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in addition to our two history departments, and you usually tell that story

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kind of from the sun out, right, the way that we think of our solar system.

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And what this exploring the planets gallery does is ask you to think about

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what would our solar system look like if you encountered it flying in from

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outside our solar system, so that you would encounter first from the outside in.

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How does that change what we think about, what we know,

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how we compare our solar system to other solar systems that

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we now know exist throughout the galaxy and the universe.

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So, that’s just one example of the ways that we’re really trying to think in

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fresh, new ways about the stories that we’re telling, and allow people, in

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that case, there’s literally a walking on other worlds immersive experience

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that is at the center of the gallery, and you can walk or wheel your way into

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that, and the latest science has been translated into video that, on walls,

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surrounds you, and you can imagine yourself standing on the moon or standing

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on Mars, or standing on an asteroid or on an icy moon around another planet.

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And so, I love that combination of being able to tell the story with artifacts,

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with art, with labels, with stories of the people doing the work, and then also

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using the technologies to literally immerse you in the middle of that story.

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I can tell you during my visit there recently, my wife Leanne

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pretty much had to drag me out of that specific section because

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that is really cool, and a very amazing way to approach that.

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And again, I know the renovation is set to be done in 2026, but what

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you have now is phenomenal, so I hope everyone goes and sees it.

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We have the first half of the building open since October of

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2022, and if you come in, we’ve taken down our construction

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wall in the middle of the building, so you can literally see

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across that on all of the places that we are still building.

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But we have eight brand-new exhibits that are already open and available, free

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to anyone who wants to come in our doors, as long as they have a timed ticket.

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And that’s our one new thing is because we only have half the

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building open, we’re trying to make sure everybody has a good

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experience, and so we are asking people to make sure that

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they have a free timed ticket in order to be in the space.

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And again, you’re pros at that.

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We did that.

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We were in a line, but it went so quickly, and we had a great experience.

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You know one thing, as much as I’m a fan of air and space, I

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never got out to the Udvar-Hazy Center before I moved out of DC.

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I need to go there.

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What do visitors see at Udvar-Hazy [hay-zee] ? Am

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I saying that correctly, first of all?

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It’s the Udvar-Hazy [hah-zee] center.

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Hazy [hah-zee] . Okay, I got the—I was worried about

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the Udvar part, and I got the Hazy wrong [laugh]

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.
[laugh]

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.
Okay.

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So, Udvar-Hazy.

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Okay.

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Yes.

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So, the Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy Center is a wonderful addition to the museum

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that we’ve had open since 2003, and so we are really one museum with two sites.

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And being able to have a facility that is adjacent to a major international

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airport is a real boon for an Aviation and Space Flight Museum.

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It means that we can fly big things in and out, and also

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just gives us a wonderful place to put, literally, some of

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the largest things from the collection on public display.

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So, it’s about 45 minutes travel from downtown DC to get to the Udvar-Hazy

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Center, which is literally next door to Dulles International Airport.

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And you will see there an SR-71 Blackbird, the Space Shuttle Discovery,

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a flown Space Shuttle Orbiter, but also the Enola Gay, a Concorde.

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It just really gives us a chance to bring out some of the largest parts

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of the collection and allow people to walk amongst them and really get

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a sense of that scale, which I think is hard to do downtown for the

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size of the galleries that we have, in terms of some of the biggest

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things that we have in the collection, but also allows you just a great

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experience of getting right up, almost nose-to-nose with these aircraft.

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I’m definitely going there.

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Next visit to Washington, I’m going out there for sure.

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Before we dive in—or should O say, fly up—to some of the topics we’re

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going to talk about today, can you tell me just a bit about what you do?

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I know, obviously awesome exhibits, but in terms of

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programming and your education, what does the museum do?

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So, what the museum really does, in some ways, our

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core function is we’re an object library, right?

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So, the thing that we do that is that we try to collect judiciously.

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We can’t have one of everything, but the curator really is trying to help

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guide the museum in making studied, scholarly choices about objects that we

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can bring into the collection, to which the Smithsonian commits in perpetuity

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that we will take care of these things for the nation and the world.

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And we are, at heart, in that way, a research institution, so the curators

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are also publishing scholars who are doing research on these objects

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and with these objects, and telling that history of the importance

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of aviation and space flight, again, for America and the world.

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And then, at some level, the whole most visited museum of the

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world thing is a bit of a side gig, that we get to put these

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things on public display, provide that interpretation for them,

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and then have a wonderful staff that does our education outreach.

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We have a podcast that’s done out of the museum.

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We have a television show that’s done out of the museum that’s

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aimed specifically at middle schoolers and timed so that

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it can be of a length that’s really useful in a classroom.

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So, we’re thinking a lot about different ages and

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different learning styles and how people come to things.

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So, in a gallery, we hope that you’ll encounter things that you can touch, as

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well as just see, as well as interpretive things that give you some context.

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And then in our public offerings through our website, most people

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visit the National Air and Space Museum through our website, and

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from that, they get to encounter the objects, they get to read

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essays written by our educators and our curators, and they really can

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then explore broadly into the history of aviation and space flight.

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Really neat.

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So, many great things you do.

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I’m just thinking about, again, the history of American

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innovation, and how many things have happened so recently.

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When I first moved to Washington, DC, it was in ’92, and I remember

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getting my first email system and wondering, what do I do with this, right?

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But also as websites developed later, I guess, that decade, if I’m

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remembering correctly, and a lot of people saying, “Well, why in the

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world would we do this?” And now it’s so central to what we do here at

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AMSE, and certainly what you do, as well as is social media of all types.

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I realized when I looked at these questions, Margaret, that I was unfair to you.

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I had so many—I was like a kid in a candy store thinking about

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what to ask you, that the first one about flight was way too broad.

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So essentially, the question to you is, if you look at the Wright

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brothers, and you go up to the supersonic, hypersonic jets that we’re

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looking at, we have, or we’re looking at for the future, what would

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you say are the key American innovations that you document and talk

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about at the museum, Wright Brothers up to today, that you would say

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those are kind of seminal moments of American innovation in flight?

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I’ll be challenged to hit all of the right ones, right?

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So, why don’t I give you—I’ll give you a couple, I can give you a few.

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And because we’re a museum, I’ll give them to you connected to objects.

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So, we have the original 1903 Wright Flyer, which is that very first airplane.

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And what the Wright brothers did was not only

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invent an airplane, but really invent aviation.

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They tested.

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They started with designs, they sketched, they built a wind

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tunnel and they put models in it, they built kites that

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were the shape of their aircraft, and they flew the kites.

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They had gliders so that they had the shape and the

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function of the aircraft before they had it powered.

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So, being able to innovate in that way was iterative.

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They had real points where they got to a point in the process

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where they weren’t sure they were going to be able to crack it.

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They weren’t sure that you could do a sustained, powered

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flight, which is really what they are credited for, right?

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So, not the hot air balloons or hydrogen balloons, or things like that

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just allow you to fly, or a glider that allows you to kind of jump off

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a cliff and land, hopefully on a beach or someplace soft, but starting

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from a point that would be at equal altitude to where you want to.

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And so, the Wright Brothers, I think, were really not, I think the

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as they are often depicted in the popular imagination, as kind of

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tinkerers and bicycle makers who found this thing, they were really

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engineers who were developing what we would now consider aeronautic

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engineering, just testing and wind tunnels and data and writing to

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places like the Smithsonian to try to get the best information that

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they could about what was happening in terms of that innovation.

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So, I would start with the Wright brothers and their 1903 flyer.

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The next place that I might go, and it’s a hop, skip and a jump, we

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have a wind tunnel fan assembly on the wall of the Boeing Milestones

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of Flight Hall that was a part of the Langley Research Center.

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That was when it was the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics.

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So, that’s the NACA, which is a precursor to NASA.

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It’s the organization that gets grabbed in the late-1950s,

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out of which they’ve built NASA administratively.

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But that wind tunnel was so large that you could put whole aircraft in it.

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So, it wasn’t for testing models; it was for physically testing aircraft.

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And one of the things that I would point out as a kind of great

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American innovation in terms of aviation is streamlining, really just

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thinking about how you make aircraft more efficient, more powerful.

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And so, to say, you know, during the Second World War, there

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were all kinds of tests of new aircraft, of existing aircraft,

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that were done in that Langley full-scale tunnel, which does not

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still exist, in that wind tunnel fan assembly, which is immense.

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People always want to know, you know, what airplane is that from because it

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looks like a giant airplane propeller, but it’s in fact, for a wind tunnel.

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And what they did was put whole aircraft into that full-scale tunnel,

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and then really think about streamlining, about efficiency, about

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pockets of air, about making things be able to go faster, go better.

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Some years ago, for an anniversary of the end of the Second World War,

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they did a big flyover in Washington, DC, and the pace of change during

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that war in terms of aviation, was so visibly, viscerally apparent.

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You start with these little biplanes, Stearman biplanes,

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that are kind of putt-putt-putting along and those were the

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initial trainers that existed at the beginning of the war.

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And by the end of the war, you not only have trainers and

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pursuits and fighters, but then you have these big four-engine

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bombers that kind of flew down in Washington, DC, as a part of

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this illustration of what had been done in the Second World War.

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And you could hear them coming before

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they—you know, just the growl of those motors.

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And the way that, even as massive as those machines are,

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they’re moving, compared to what you could do with these

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little putt-putt biplane trainers when you started.

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And so, I would talk about that general infusion of knowledge and expertise

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that went into a complete transformation of aviation in the Second World War.

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It is really something that I think is distinctive, drew on so many areas of

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American society, and I love that we have that wind tunnel fan assembly as

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one way of beginning to tell that very, very big story through one object.

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Really interesting.

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And you’re reminding me, when I was there, it was my wife’s first

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visit to Air and Space Museum, and she does not come from a science

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background, and she said, explain to me how you went from the

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Wright Brothers plane that looks almost like a toy, to that, to

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the Blackbird, whatever that is, in that short amount of time?

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And it is a pretty phenomenal story.

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It’s a really amazing story, and I love—we’ve got a wonderful new gallery

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on early flight, and really shows you, I think—they’ve got tons of models in

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that gallery, and part of the point of that was to show you, in a way that you

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couldn’t do if you’re putting full-size craft in, even if they still existed,

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how much experimentation was happening in those early years of aviation.

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You know, if a biplane is more stable than a monoplane, what about a triplane?

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Can you go as many as five wings?

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What is the best shape for a propeller?

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What is the best way to construct an aircraft motor?

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You know, how do you end up with the kind of V-motors versus a rotary engine?

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Being able to really just think about all of the kinds of

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experimentation that were happening in those early years.

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And then we have a wonderful hall, America by Air, right in the middle

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of the building, and as it is open now, and it really starts to tell that

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story of, how do you go from that early, early flight to airlines, right?

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To something where, if you can get yourself to an airport,

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and there’s pretty much an airport connected to almost—even a

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small airstrip—connected to almost every city in this country.

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You can be anywhere in the world in about 24 hours.

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And that’s an extraordinary story to be able to tell

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of, you know, how does that become a commercial concern?

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How does that go from being something that only the elites could do

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to almost anyone you meet has been on an airplane, and most children

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anymore have been flown someplace to see a relative, to go on a vacation.

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So, it has really transformed how we live, what our expectations are.

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And those kinds of stories we tend to chop up into a

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period and be able to tell a little bit about that.

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So, the interwar between World War I and World War II, that period where

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you really have barnstorming and, you know, record-setting flights, and a

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lot of the streamlining that starts to be done starts in the 1920s, 1930s.

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And you see that in the aircraft, and you see that in

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designs for toasters, you know, that people [laugh] were

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experimenting with that streamlined modern esthetic.

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I’m very excited about that gallery, which is going

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to be one of the first to open in our series of new

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galleries that’ll be coming by the end of this year, 2025.

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Wonderful.

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Let’s perhaps take the same approach with the lunar program.

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The one or two items that you—artifacts that you have, that

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you display or you have in your collection that help tell

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that story of us, American innovation, getting us to the moon.

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The new Destination Moon gallery is really the story of how did Americans

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get to the moon in the 1960s, and kind of, what’s happening there now.

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And not only the what, but the why and the how of

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getting to the moon with the Apollo program in the 1960s.

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So, we start with the whole wall that’s about the

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cultural history of understanding the moon as a place.

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Before you can go there, you have to even envision that that spot in

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the sky is a place, like, the kind of place that we could stand on.

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And that story goes back to the 1600s and the invention of the telescope,

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and beginning to imagine, as early as the 1630s, that the moon was a place,

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the way that the Earth is a place, and that you could potentially stand

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on it, and that you can imagine these fictional stories of going there.

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And then from there, we really jumped through the 1960s with the political

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decision by Kennedy before the joint session of Congress in May of 1961,

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“We are going to the moon,” and as the astronauts always point out,

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the important part of that phrase was to, “Send men to the moon by the

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end of the decade and return him safely to the earth.” And then, you

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know, what are all of the technologies that needed to happen for that?

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So, we are fortunate enough to have Neil Armstrong’s lunar spacesuit

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on display in front of the Columbia command module that brought Neil

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Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin and Mike Collins to the moon and back in 1969.

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And then, just reminding people also that it wasn’t a one-off flight.

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There were flights through to Apollo 17—including 13 that didn’t land.

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But you go back to starting with Apollo 9, Apollo 10, Apollo

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8, all of these other earlier missions that set the stage.

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I think I’m always pleased with the ability to tell those stories not only

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through artifacts—so the space suit, the command module, we have training

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model of a Lunar Roving Vehicle, which was what was used on the moon in 15,

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16, 17, in order for the astronauts to be able to go a little more quickly.

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They didn’t actually go farther; they went more quickly to where they

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wanted to go because they wouldn’t ever drive farther than they could

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walk back, which, if you think about it, is a good mission plan.

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And then we have Gene Cernan’s Apollo 17 boots, his over shoes that

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were the last human boots to stand on the moon in December of 1972.

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And then we really are telling that story about, you know, what

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are we planning now with Artemis, with this return to the moon?

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So, I love that as a whole series of innovations that are told,

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not only through the artifacts and the technology, but also

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through a sense of what was the culture at the time, who were the

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people who were making these decisions, who were doing this work?

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It’s a wonderfully rich gallery.

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Frankly, it’s a little hard to tour people through because there’s

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about 78 places where I want to stop and tell a long story.

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Yes, I understand that.

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On a smaller scale here at AMSE, I fully understand that.

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Let’s go to the Space Shuttle Program.

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I remember, I was in high school—I’m dating myself—when the

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first shuttle went up, we all stopped everything and rolled

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the TVs out—those were those days—and watched it go up.

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You have a space shuttle.

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How do you present that at Udvar-Hazy?

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And then, how would you summarize the impact of the

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shuttle on our understanding of Earth and of space?

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Well, the museum is extraordinarily proud to

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have the flown space shuttle orbiter Discovery.

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Tragically the Challenger, and then later the Columbia

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space shuttles, of the five orbiters that were created,

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those two were lost in tragic accidents in 1986 and in 2003.

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And so, what we have is really a part of a nationwide strategy

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of how you explain the capabilities of the space shuttle.

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And so, if you go down to Florida, NASA’s visitor center

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there at the Kennedy Space Center, has the space shuttle

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Atlantis, and it is posed really as if it’s in orbit.

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It has its payload bay doors open, which was necessary to dissipate

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heat when you were in orbit on the orbiter, and it is tilted up

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at an angle that makes it look very dynamic as if it’s in space.

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We’ve got colleagues who are out at the California Science Center, out in

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Los Angeles, who are in the process of completing the construction of—they’ve

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taken the Space Shuttle Endeavor, another flown orbiter, and stood it up,

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and they are displaying it as if it’s in launch configuration, which is

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with two solid rocket boosters and an external tank, and the engineering

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required to show off that capability of the shuttle that it launched like

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a rocket is a really extraordinary thing, especially in an earthquake zone.

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So, they have it seismically isolated.

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I have seen pictures, and I’ve had colleagues go out and take a look

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at how that construction is going, and that’s going to be magnificent.

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For our part then, what we have is the most intact, most accurate

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representation of what an orbiter looked like when it finished a mission.

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As close as we could get to, it just stopped flying, it lands like an

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airplane, put the chocks around the wheels, and as close as we could get to

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that fully intact orbiter is really what our curators’ goal was at the time.

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So, I think you can really, by being that close to the vehicle, see the scorch

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marks on those tiles that were a part of the heat system, and I think you

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can get then that sense of the life of the vehicle, right, that something

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that would launch like a rocket, be in orbit, and have this capacity of

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being a lab base and a launch base for satellites and for repair, for all

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different kinds of versatile missions with multiple people in orbit at the

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same time, and then coming back, bringing that whole thing back to Earth.

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So, the shuttle had a remarkable capacity for not only launching, but what

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we would now call down mass, right, being able to bring things back to Earth.

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So, you had that ability to put a laboratory module in

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the payload bay, fly it in space, and bring it back down.

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To be able to bring multiple people up to space, eventually to the

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International Space Station, and then rotate people, and bring them back down.

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00:25:36,720 --> 00:25:41,530
That ability to come back from space with quite so much

401
00:25:41,559 --> 00:25:46,710
cargo and as big a crew compliment was really a distinctive

402
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thing about the space shuttle orbiter’s program, and a rather

403
00:25:49,700 --> 00:25:55,160
remarkable capacity for the US to run between 1981 and 2011.

404
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Truly spectacular what they were able to accomplish.

405
00:25:58,240 --> 00:26:02,479
You reminded me, talking about your space shuttle, and amazing to

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00:26:02,480 --> 00:26:05,670
say, “I have a space shuttle in my collection,” but for ongoing

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00:26:05,670 --> 00:26:08,650
programs. So, when we go back to the moon, those types of things, how

408
00:26:08,650 --> 00:26:12,200
do you do that collection with NASA? Is that something you say right

409
00:26:12,200 --> 00:26:15,010
up front, “Hey, we would like to have this,” or how does that work?

410
00:26:15,240 --> 00:26:19,100
NASA always has their operational needs that are first and foremost

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for what they are doing, but they have been remarkably cooperative.

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NASA has itself a wonderful history program

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to preserve and write its own history.

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But they have not necessarily held an

415
00:26:32,969 --> 00:26:37,509
internal agency capacity for artifacts, right?

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When they’re working with things, it’s because they’re

417
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launching them, they’re flying them, they’re doing the doing.

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And so, they have their visitor centers, which are remarkable places

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to be able to tell these stories, and then they also have a robust

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system of working with museums across the country and around the

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world in terms of thinking about where excess property should go.

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00:26:57,850 --> 00:27:03,889
So, we tend to start our object-based exhibits at the museum with the things.

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We want to be able to show it, not tell it, so one of the things that people

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00:27:07,830 --> 00:27:11,710
often ask is, you know, “Well, why don’t you just kind of put up pictures

425
00:27:11,710 --> 00:27:16,830
or to do movies or things like that?” And because part of what makes the

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00:27:16,830 --> 00:27:21,000
National Air and Space Museum special is you get to come and see the real

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00:27:21,000 --> 00:27:27,200
things, and we are as close to the real as we can be. For instance, I’ve got

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00:27:27,210 --> 00:27:32,060
a colleague will always point out that the Mars rovers that we have on display

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00:27:32,420 --> 00:27:37,580
in the Exploring the Planets gallery are not models; those are Mars rovers.

430
00:27:37,610 --> 00:27:39,780
They’re just not on Mars, right?

431
00:27:39,780 --> 00:27:43,790
So, to the extent that we can get a flight spare, something that otherwise could

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have flown, but it wasn’t the one chosen to fly, it’s the one kept on Earth

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00:27:48,309 --> 00:27:53,159
for testing or as a flight spare duplicate, then that’s a place where we’re

434
00:27:53,160 --> 00:27:58,900
looking at trying to get the most authentic object to be able to fit those dual

435
00:27:58,900 --> 00:28:04,220
needs of not only exhibit and display in education, but also research, right?

436
00:28:04,220 --> 00:28:08,480
That we should be an object library such that, years from now,

437
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if people have questions about how something was done, they can

438
00:28:13,530 --> 00:28:18,290
come back and actually look at the objects that we’ve collected.

439
00:28:18,720 --> 00:28:23,979
So, for instance, various NASA scientists and engineers over the years

440
00:28:23,990 --> 00:28:29,520
have come to look at our spacesuits, and to see how the lunar regolith,

441
00:28:29,549 --> 00:28:34,030
how that lunar dust, worked its way into the fibers of the Apollo

442
00:28:34,030 --> 00:28:37,949
spacesuits, and then thinking about that when they’re trying to build a

443
00:28:37,950 --> 00:28:42,189
next generation spacesuit that would be going back to the lunar surface.

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Or they come and they want to see the heat shields that were used—the

445
00:28:46,660 --> 00:28:51,070
ablative burning off heat shields that were a part of the Mercury, Gemini, and

446
00:28:51,070 --> 00:28:56,000
Apollo spacecraft, and then thinking about that next generation heat shield.

447
00:28:56,120 --> 00:29:01,319
It’s one thing to have Julia Child’s cookbook and the instructions for

448
00:29:01,320 --> 00:29:04,300
how to do the thing, and it’s another thing, if somebody had a pot of

449
00:29:04,300 --> 00:29:08,210
her beef bourguignon, and you could come and taste it and kind of poke

450
00:29:08,210 --> 00:29:11,810
around and take a look at, you know exactly how was it put together?

451
00:29:11,920 --> 00:29:16,010
We, then, as a research institution, are keeping these objects,

452
00:29:16,020 --> 00:29:20,130
not only for their power to preserve this history and to educate

453
00:29:20,130 --> 00:29:23,750
people by putting them out on display, but also because the research

454
00:29:23,750 --> 00:29:28,020
pieces that we know that people in the future may need to come

455
00:29:28,030 --> 00:29:31,940
back to fully understand the history of aviation and spaceflight.

456
00:29:31,960 --> 00:29:34,210
You mentioned the International Space Station.

457
00:29:34,960 --> 00:29:39,270
I wondered, from your research, your experience at Air and Space Museum, we

458
00:29:39,309 --> 00:29:42,800
obviously had a great deal of international competition in the race to the moon.

459
00:29:43,580 --> 00:29:46,919
And I hear people now saying, well, we have to do this because

460
00:29:46,920 --> 00:29:49,590
the Chinese may go to the moon or to Mars, that type of thing.

461
00:29:50,020 --> 00:29:51,910
What have you seen as the role of international

462
00:29:51,920 --> 00:29:54,480
competition versus collaboration, like we see on the

463
00:29:54,480 --> 00:29:57,729
space station, in terms of moving innovation forward?

464
00:29:58,080 --> 00:30:04,860
I think that we’ve seen a large shift in science as well as technology, in

465
00:30:04,860 --> 00:30:11,010
terms of moving from, kind of, isolated laboratories to then more collaborative

466
00:30:11,080 --> 00:30:15,620
projects that often include international partners, and certainly the

467
00:30:15,620 --> 00:30:22,530
International Space Station came together in the 1990s in a moment when

468
00:30:23,030 --> 00:30:27,740
the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation, which had great experience in

469
00:30:27,750 --> 00:30:32,984
long-duration space flight, a whole series of space stations flown in the

470
00:30:32,984 --> 00:30:39,390
1970s and 1980s, and so, you know, great wealth of practical experience that

471
00:30:39,400 --> 00:30:44,419
had been culminating in the Mir space station at the time, and thinking about

472
00:30:44,440 --> 00:30:49,830
what the next generation station should be, and seeing that as a vehicle that

473
00:30:49,840 --> 00:30:54,179
something that’s stronger because it’s done internationally and collaboratively.

474
00:30:54,599 --> 00:30:59,090
And so, that has really been the hallmark for thinking about what’s

475
00:30:59,310 --> 00:31:03,069
next in terms of going back to the moon with the Artemis program.

476
00:31:03,070 --> 00:31:07,339
But you can even look in astronomy with something like the Event Horizon

477
00:31:07,340 --> 00:31:14,710
Telescope, where it was really a project to visualize, to image, a

478
00:31:14,750 --> 00:31:20,820
black hole, and that came from gathering images, gathering data from

479
00:31:20,860 --> 00:31:26,130
telescopes all over this globe to then try to crunch those together.

480
00:31:26,230 --> 00:31:30,760
I couldn’t explain science or technology of what they did other

481
00:31:30,760 --> 00:31:35,910
than knowing that it really took that global effort on a scientific

482
00:31:35,910 --> 00:31:40,890
basis to then collaborate and put that remarkable image together

483
00:31:40,900 --> 00:31:44,879
of actually being able to see a black hole, to image that.

484
00:31:45,190 --> 00:31:49,290
So, it is a story that we are looking forward to telling.

485
00:31:49,290 --> 00:31:53,460
We’ve got an exhibit that’s coming up called Discovering Our Universe, and

486
00:31:53,460 --> 00:31:57,860
one of the things that you will see in that is not only a history of the

487
00:31:57,860 --> 00:32:02,359
science of astronomy and how we know, what kinds of questions were being

488
00:32:02,360 --> 00:32:06,159
asked, what kinds of instruments were being used to answer them, but also

489
00:32:06,160 --> 00:32:10,510
you’ll see a little bit of this path from the kind of singular astronomer,

490
00:32:10,660 --> 00:32:16,439
perhaps working, John Herschel and his wife Caroline, working on his

491
00:32:16,440 --> 00:32:21,450
observations and her helping him to put all of that together, to now these

492
00:32:21,480 --> 00:32:26,520
kind of large multinational groups that are really doing the science today.

493
00:32:26,520 --> 00:32:31,170
So, it’s a story that we tell broadly at the museum, but

494
00:32:31,200 --> 00:32:33,659
especially in Discovering Our Universe, it will be, I

495
00:32:33,690 --> 00:32:35,899
think, something that will be very evident to visitors.

496
00:32:36,059 --> 00:32:40,559
We spoke on an earlier AMSEcast with Heino Falcke about his book as

497
00:32:40,559 --> 00:32:44,060
part of that effort to take that amazing image of the black hole.

498
00:32:44,210 --> 00:32:47,629
It’s beautiful and scary at the same time [laugh] when you look at that image.

499
00:32:48,110 --> 00:32:50,800
So, a question I meant to ask you a bit earlier is about the

500
00:32:50,820 --> 00:32:55,090
role of the private sector now in space, and how do you interact

501
00:32:55,090 --> 00:32:58,670
with great innovations we see now on the private sector side?

502
00:32:59,270 --> 00:33:00,980
Are those items you’re collecting as well?

503
00:33:01,050 --> 00:33:02,500
Is that a story you’re telling as well?

504
00:33:02,870 --> 00:33:04,670
It certainly is a story that we’re telling.

505
00:33:04,680 --> 00:33:07,700
And one of the stories that we’re telling also is that, you know,

506
00:33:07,700 --> 00:33:10,949
the private sector has always been involved in space flight.

507
00:33:10,950 --> 00:33:15,300
So, one of the things that I collected myself in our Social and Cultural

508
00:33:15,330 --> 00:33:19,810
History of Space Flight collection, which is our memorabilia of the space

509
00:33:19,980 --> 00:33:25,070
flight efforts, as well as our space science fiction objects, but we

510
00:33:25,070 --> 00:33:30,164
have a jacket that has McDonnell embroidered across the back of it, and

511
00:33:30,219 --> 00:33:33,899
that comes from the company that built the Mercury and Gemini spacecraft.

512
00:33:34,719 --> 00:33:39,559
And if you look at the pictures of the Mercury spacecraft, for instance,

513
00:33:39,559 --> 00:33:45,910
there’s a famous one of John Glenn being helped into the spacecraft in a test.

514
00:33:45,910 --> 00:33:48,669
He’s in his full suit, and he’s being helped in, to kind of,

515
00:33:48,679 --> 00:33:52,250
get used to the in and out of getting in and out of the vehicle.

516
00:33:52,520 --> 00:33:57,129
Literally, the person who is holding him up off the ground and helping him into

517
00:33:57,130 --> 00:34:02,470
that vehicle is wearing a coverall that says McDonnell across the back of it.

518
00:34:02,480 --> 00:34:07,780
So, one of the stories that we’re telling is not only about these

519
00:34:07,790 --> 00:34:13,029
innovative new companies that are working in aerospace and really

520
00:34:13,040 --> 00:34:17,699
thinking about how they do this with NASA as a major client, but

521
00:34:17,699 --> 00:34:22,590
also with other clients, so not only as a contractor to NASA,

522
00:34:22,929 --> 00:34:27,000
but selling this kind of technology and capability more broadly.

523
00:34:27,239 --> 00:34:32,979
But we’re also looking at the ways that under much more restrictive contracts in

524
00:34:32,979 --> 00:34:39,070
the 1960s where they really were thinking about NASA as the, kind of, main and

525
00:34:39,080 --> 00:34:44,070
only client for these kinds of technologies, you had companies—North American

526
00:34:44,070 --> 00:34:49,569
Aviation, McDonnell—that were a part of doing this work for a very long time.

527
00:34:49,569 --> 00:34:53,449
And you see that in military and national security space, as

528
00:34:53,449 --> 00:34:56,460
well as planetary exploration, as well as human spaceflight.

529
00:34:57,480 --> 00:34:59,950
I know a part of that also is the system of

530
00:34:59,960 --> 00:35:02,380
satellites we now have circling the globe.

531
00:35:03,040 --> 00:35:06,500
Could you perhaps comment on how those satellites are utilized in some

532
00:35:06,500 --> 00:35:11,090
general ways, and American innovations that have been evident in the satellite

533
00:35:11,300 --> 00:35:15,710
industry, if that’s the right word, since Sputnik went up in, what, ’57?

534
00:35:15,960 --> 00:35:19,890
It’s kind of amazing to think, given how much we now live on a

535
00:35:19,890 --> 00:35:24,230
world that is ringed by constellations of satellites, that there

536
00:35:24,230 --> 00:35:30,090
was a moment in, you know, early-1957 where none of that existed.

537
00:35:30,700 --> 00:35:33,619
Sputnik, as you mentioned, the Soviet satellite, being the very

538
00:35:33,620 --> 00:35:39,460
first one in October of 1957 and, you know, then moving very quickly.

539
00:35:39,719 --> 00:35:44,000
I think that I don’t know that people always recognize how much

540
00:35:44,040 --> 00:35:49,840
we rely on that kind of satellite information on a daily basis,

541
00:35:49,840 --> 00:35:55,250
in terms of being able to navigate via GPS, which is, you know,

542
00:35:55,259 --> 00:35:59,389
in your theme of American innovations, is a very, very strong one.

543
00:35:59,650 --> 00:36:04,950
It not only makes it kind of safer for vehicles to move, for you to know

544
00:36:04,950 --> 00:36:08,950
where you can find a cup of coffee or which is your off ramp, it has

545
00:36:08,950 --> 00:36:15,179
military applications, which has been life saving for understanding where

546
00:36:16,299 --> 00:36:21,060
fighters are and being able to understand the landscape of a battle.

547
00:36:21,300 --> 00:36:26,090
So, I think we’ve got those constellations of satellites that tell us

548
00:36:26,090 --> 00:36:30,410
about weather in a way that you look back to the early-20th century,

549
00:36:30,410 --> 00:36:35,100
not really knowing if a storm was coming to Galveston, Texas, or

550
00:36:35,100 --> 00:36:39,020
somewhere in the Midwest to now, you know, I get an alert that says

551
00:36:39,020 --> 00:36:42,870
it’s going to rain where you are in 20 minutes, and I can kind of gauge

552
00:36:42,870 --> 00:36:45,880
like, do I think I could get myself indoors in the next 20 minutes,

553
00:36:45,880 --> 00:36:48,520
or do I need to, you know, make sure I have my umbrella with me?

554
00:36:48,759 --> 00:36:53,680
That kind of knowledge is really, I think, transformative

555
00:36:53,690 --> 00:36:58,000
for how people live their daily lives, with understanding

556
00:36:58,220 --> 00:37:02,550
all kinds of things about where we are and how we’re living.

557
00:37:03,050 --> 00:37:08,819
Not to trivialize the very much more important uses of those technologies, I

558
00:37:08,820 --> 00:37:12,635
just remember driving around Los Angeles with a Thomas guide open on my lap,

559
00:37:12,970 --> 00:37:17,100
which was not a safe thing to do, but that was only way to get your way around.

560
00:37:17,990 --> 00:37:20,700
Or even in the early days of the internet, having your, kind of,

561
00:37:22,130 --> 00:37:24,859
MapQuest directions printed out, and that was all fine and good, as

562
00:37:24,860 --> 00:37:27,839
long as you made every single turn, but if you really made a wrong

563
00:37:27,839 --> 00:37:30,850
turn, someplace where you didn’t know where you were, you could be a

564
00:37:30,850 --> 00:37:35,960
block off your directions and have no idea how to get back on your path.

565
00:37:36,020 --> 00:37:40,359
So yes, the ability to punch a destination in and

566
00:37:40,360 --> 00:37:43,489
even dynamically to be able to then have that app.

567
00:37:43,490 --> 00:37:46,020
And, you know, some of these technologies are very land

568
00:37:46,049 --> 00:37:49,490
based, and some of them are very space based, but to be able

569
00:37:49,490 --> 00:37:52,860
to dynamically say, “Oh, there’s a lot of traffic there.

570
00:37:53,310 --> 00:37:57,740
Go around it this way,” is a really complex technological story

571
00:37:57,740 --> 00:38:01,590
of, you know, of computing, as well as those kinds of feedback

572
00:38:01,590 --> 00:38:05,010
loops that are coming from lots of different cars’ GPS systems.

573
00:38:05,480 --> 00:38:08,160
Thank God I have it now or otherwise I’m lost forever.

574
00:38:08,160 --> 00:38:11,290
It’s ama—not to bore people with my personal life—at one

575
00:38:11,290 --> 00:38:13,330
point my life, for about a year, I was acting director of

576
00:38:13,330 --> 00:38:16,120
the FDR Presidential Library Museum in Hyde Park, New York.

577
00:38:16,120 --> 00:38:18,959
A wonderful place, but I would have to fly from Washington

578
00:38:19,000 --> 00:38:22,390
up to La Guardia and drive from there up to Hyde Park.

579
00:38:22,980 --> 00:38:24,610
That’s when I had to print out directions.

580
00:38:24,630 --> 00:38:27,490
And Margaret if in any time I’d had to deviate from

581
00:38:27,490 --> 00:38:30,510
that, I would still be lost somewhere in New York [laugh]

582
00:38:31,040 --> 00:38:31,070
.
[laugh]

583
00:38:31,090 --> 00:38:32,430
.
I would have been hopelessly lost.

584
00:38:32,430 --> 00:38:35,219
But now it’s a different world, thanks to those satellites.

585
00:38:35,420 --> 00:38:39,139
You know, in Oak Ridge, we’re very proud of the role—we’re proud a lot

586
00:38:39,139 --> 00:38:42,460
of things here—but the role we played in fueling the Voyager missions.

587
00:38:42,590 --> 00:38:44,830
I wonder if you can talk about some of the ways Air and

588
00:38:44,830 --> 00:38:48,100
Space Museum teaches about those and other unmanned missions.

589
00:38:48,710 --> 00:38:52,990
That’s a really important part because I think some of the earliest visions

590
00:38:53,059 --> 00:38:56,960
of going into space were very constrained by the idea that it would have

591
00:38:56,960 --> 00:39:02,110
to be a person on board a vehicle, with a film camera taking pictures.

592
00:39:02,390 --> 00:39:06,490
And very quickly, you end up with these wonderful innovations where, you

593
00:39:06,590 --> 00:39:11,940
know, we can send versions of ourselves out into the universe to, in that

594
00:39:11,940 --> 00:39:16,230
case, in fact, out of our own solar system, to be able to take those pictures.

595
00:39:16,230 --> 00:39:20,730
So, Voyager One and Voyager Two launched in 1977 to

596
00:39:20,730 --> 00:39:24,440
take advantage of this wonderful alignment of planets

597
00:39:24,440 --> 00:39:28,540
that was going to allow amazing scientific imagery.

598
00:39:28,590 --> 00:39:33,000
I heard Ed Stone, who’s one of the lead scientists on Voyager, was

599
00:39:33,000 --> 00:39:36,510
at the museum years ago, and he pointed out that that alignment had

600
00:39:36,510 --> 00:39:41,339
only previously been available essentially to humanity, the previous

601
00:39:41,340 --> 00:39:45,549
instance of it was under Thomas Jefferson’s presidency, and he just

602
00:39:45,849 --> 00:39:48,390
missed the boat altogether and didn’t take any advantage [laugh]

603
00:39:48,550 --> 00:39:51,949
.
He did a lot of interesting things in his life, but he missed the boat.

604
00:39:51,969 --> 00:39:52,939
He did, [laugh] right.

605
00:39:53,279 --> 00:39:57,190
So, I love those vehicles because they’re still in communication.

606
00:39:57,460 --> 00:40:02,320
The ability of humanity to, you know, put some part of ourselves

607
00:40:02,330 --> 00:40:06,850
so far out that they’ve actually left our solar system.

608
00:40:06,850 --> 00:40:10,389
We can document that they have exceeded the heliopause, the

609
00:40:10,430 --> 00:40:15,120
outside of the envelope of the solar wind that comes from our star.

610
00:40:15,380 --> 00:40:18,010
I love also that they’re signed, right?

611
00:40:18,010 --> 00:40:21,710
We’ve got the Voyager interstellar record on them, we’ve got some symbols on

612
00:40:21,710 --> 00:40:26,360
them that tell anyone who might encounter them a little bit about, you know,

613
00:40:26,370 --> 00:40:31,359
who we are, where we came from, the recordings of music with images of Earth.

614
00:40:31,710 --> 00:40:36,380
And so, I think they’re wonderful scientific vehicles, but they’re also kind of

615
00:40:36,390 --> 00:40:40,740
wonderfully optimistic cultural vehicles of who we are in trying to, you know,

616
00:40:40,740 --> 00:40:47,720
these early efforts in the 1970s to complete a survey of our own solar system,

617
00:40:47,720 --> 00:40:52,110
but then also think about these emissaries that we’re sending even farther out.

618
00:40:52,110 --> 00:40:55,830
And to think that we accomplished that in the ’70s, before so many of

619
00:40:55,830 --> 00:40:59,220
the advances we have today in computers and AI and that type of thing.

620
00:40:59,770 --> 00:41:02,790
And I think I will say to you, Margaret, as I’m pretty sure you’re

621
00:41:02,790 --> 00:41:07,029
a fellow Star Trek fan, my only concern is if [unintelligible]

622
00:41:07,029 --> 00:41:08,970
suddenly becomes self-aware, and then we have a problem, right?

623
00:41:08,970 --> 00:41:11,010
So, those listeners who may have watched

624
00:41:11,010 --> 00:41:12,650
Star Trek will know what I’m talking about.

625
00:41:12,960 --> 00:41:16,400
Now, you mentioned earlier, obviously the Challenger and Columbia

626
00:41:16,429 --> 00:41:20,870
disasters, and we’ve faced other horrible loss of life in the

627
00:41:20,870 --> 00:41:23,149
space program through the years, other mistakes and failures.

628
00:41:23,389 --> 00:41:25,090
How have we learned from those mistakes?

629
00:41:25,119 --> 00:41:27,960
How has NASA and other entities in the government

630
00:41:27,960 --> 00:41:30,060
and private sector learned from those mistakes?

631
00:41:30,320 --> 00:41:33,780
Well, one of them, obviously, was the Apollo 1 fire, thinking about those

632
00:41:33,780 --> 00:41:37,189
three astronauts who were lost in what was called a plugs-out test, which

633
00:41:37,270 --> 00:41:41,319
essentially means that before you go into space, you need to test the vehicle

634
00:41:41,320 --> 00:41:44,840
in a way that you literally unplug it and make sure that everything still works.

635
00:41:44,840 --> 00:41:49,700
And so, that was on the pad, and tragically, there was a fire in the spacecraft.

636
00:41:49,710 --> 00:41:55,640
And one of the painful lessons learned was that that hatch opened inward,

637
00:41:55,690 --> 00:41:59,220
not outward, and they were not able to then get those gentlemen out.

638
00:41:59,220 --> 00:42:03,660
And we actually have in the destination Moon exhibit, side by side,

639
00:42:03,660 --> 00:42:08,210
the two different hatches, what was used before in the Apollo program,

640
00:42:08,250 --> 00:42:11,849
until the that fire, and then how that was completely redesigned

641
00:42:11,950 --> 00:42:15,910
and rethought for, you know, for safety, for ease of egress.

642
00:42:16,139 --> 00:42:18,970
They were worried initially about making sure everything

643
00:42:18,970 --> 00:42:21,350
was sealed enough to keep everything in and they hadn’t

644
00:42:21,360 --> 00:42:24,490
thought about the eventuality of needing to get out quickly.

645
00:42:24,860 --> 00:42:27,289
And so, I think you see not only that

646
00:42:27,290 --> 00:42:31,150
technological shift, but also a shift in mindset.

647
00:42:31,200 --> 00:42:35,600
We know that Gene Kranz sat with mission control and said, you know,

648
00:42:35,629 --> 00:42:39,649
“Tough, but competent.” You know, “This will not happen again and we will

649
00:42:39,650 --> 00:42:44,549
work through all of the mission rules and figure out what we need to know

650
00:42:44,599 --> 00:42:50,059
in advance to be able to make the best decisions that we can.” So, I think

651
00:42:50,839 --> 00:42:54,330
something that’s important to keep in mind when you’re talking about human

652
00:42:54,330 --> 00:43:00,740
spaceflight is that it’s always dangerous, and so that safety culture is so

653
00:43:00,740 --> 00:43:06,359
important, and thinking about redundancies, but also just always recognizing

654
00:43:06,630 --> 00:43:12,810
the tremendous risk of lives in order to put them on top of essentially

655
00:43:12,820 --> 00:43:17,520
giant explosions that are sufficient to throw them off the surface of this

656
00:43:17,540 --> 00:43:23,600
planet, into orbit or even into another direction, trans-lunar injection.

657
00:43:23,960 --> 00:43:29,319
And so, it’s both the story that we try to tell in terms of understanding

658
00:43:29,330 --> 00:43:34,000
the remarkable achievements of human spaceflight, and it’s also the, kind of,

659
00:43:34,000 --> 00:43:38,330
shadow of what we see with the amazing things that have been done in planetary

660
00:43:38,330 --> 00:43:42,119
exploration, of thinking about, you know, how do we do it without the person?

661
00:43:42,170 --> 00:43:44,520
What can we send, even to the point of, we’ve

662
00:43:44,520 --> 00:43:48,210
got a test vehicle for the Ingenuity helicopters.

663
00:43:48,210 --> 00:43:52,530
Humanity has flown a helicopter on another planet,

664
00:43:52,620 --> 00:43:55,840
and not just once, but multiple, dozens of times.

665
00:43:55,910 --> 00:43:59,430
And so, being able to create something like that, and

666
00:43:59,440 --> 00:44:02,000
think about, how does that offer, literally, a new

667
00:44:02,020 --> 00:44:05,819
perspective on what we can see when we go to another place.

668
00:44:06,199 --> 00:44:11,299
The Dragonfly mission that’s being planned is essentially a plan to fly

669
00:44:11,299 --> 00:44:17,490
a quadcopter in the atmosphere of Titan, a moon in the outer planets.

670
00:44:17,520 --> 00:44:22,770
And so, that kind of ingenuity that comes when you have to protect

671
00:44:22,770 --> 00:44:26,690
human life, how do you come up with the technologies that allow you

672
00:44:26,690 --> 00:44:31,800
to do quite so much remotely and be able to learn as much as we have?

673
00:44:31,910 --> 00:44:34,940
I do believe—I may be wrong—I think Jani Radebaugh is on our

674
00:44:34,950 --> 00:44:38,340
National Advisory Committee as part of that Dragonfly Project.

675
00:44:38,589 --> 00:44:40,420
It’s a really exciting project.

676
00:44:40,500 --> 00:44:43,220
Ellen Stofan, who’s the undersecretary for science here

677
00:44:43,220 --> 00:44:46,970
at the Smithsonian, is a part of that team as well.

678
00:44:47,070 --> 00:44:51,160
So, we’re always interested in being able to not only preserve and tell

679
00:44:51,160 --> 00:44:55,450
those histories, but the ways that Smithsonian, as a research organization,

680
00:44:55,509 --> 00:44:59,109
has active scientists and engineers who are part of these teams.

681
00:44:59,480 --> 00:45:02,090
I’m going to ask you an unfair question here as we near the end.

682
00:45:02,330 --> 00:45:05,640
As all the items you have, all the artifacts you have,

683
00:45:05,640 --> 00:45:08,679
all the topics you talk about, what’s made the biggest

684
00:45:08,679 --> 00:45:10,870
impression on you since you’ve been at Air and Space?

685
00:45:10,870 --> 00:45:11,920
What do you say, Wow?

686
00:45:12,059 --> 00:45:13,610
What’s the biggest wow moment for you?

687
00:45:13,910 --> 00:45:17,920
Senator John Glenn was kind enough years ago to lend his name to

688
00:45:17,920 --> 00:45:22,080
our premier space flight lecture, and he used to come personally

689
00:45:22,090 --> 00:45:25,279
and be at the reception and do the introductions for that.

690
00:45:25,710 --> 00:45:29,779
And for that then, I think I gained a new appreciation

691
00:45:29,790 --> 00:45:33,389
for what he did when he flew with the Mercury program in

692
00:45:33,469 --> 00:45:37,050
1962 and became the first American to orbit the Earth.

693
00:45:37,080 --> 00:45:42,720
Just the risk taken with that within a year before his launch

694
00:45:42,720 --> 00:45:47,279
on an Atlas rocket, he had watched an Atlas blow up on the pad.

695
00:45:47,389 --> 00:45:52,150
The willingness to—he would say everything had been fixed.

696
00:45:52,670 --> 00:45:55,260
He had confidence that they had worked it

697
00:45:55,260 --> 00:45:58,420
out, but just the size of that vehicle, also.

698
00:45:58,420 --> 00:46:01,580
We have that on display in the Boeing Milestones of Flight hall.

699
00:46:01,580 --> 00:46:06,069
That will open later this year and bring that back to public view.

700
00:46:06,099 --> 00:46:08,100
And it’s only six feet in diameter.

701
00:46:08,400 --> 00:46:10,229
It’s really small.

702
00:46:10,609 --> 00:46:15,430
And I love also that, you know, we know up on the, essentially,

703
00:46:15,450 --> 00:46:19,089
the dashboard of that vehicle, there’s a small paper eye chart.

704
00:46:19,420 --> 00:46:23,650
They really weren’t sure if during orbit, his eye might change shape

705
00:46:23,650 --> 00:46:26,879
so much that he would have trouble seeing, and so part of the test

706
00:46:26,880 --> 00:46:31,370
was to repeatedly read from this little paper eye chart that had been

707
00:46:31,390 --> 00:46:35,030
added to the vehicle, along with various checklists that have been

708
00:46:35,070 --> 00:46:38,680
added for him to be able to keep track of what he was needed to do.

709
00:46:38,870 --> 00:46:44,140
So, I would say Friendship 7, which is John Glenn’s 1962 Mercury

710
00:46:44,140 --> 00:46:48,869
spacecraft, is a personal favorite of mine because he was personally

711
00:46:48,949 --> 00:46:55,170
such a fine gentleman and so knowledgeable about just not only what

712
00:46:55,170 --> 00:46:58,999
he’d done, but what was being done in space flight, and a wonderful

713
00:46:59,000 --> 00:47:03,240
supporter of that lecture series to get that information out.

714
00:47:03,360 --> 00:47:05,060
Godspeed, John Glenn, of course.

715
00:47:05,060 --> 00:47:09,230
And of course, he went on to a long career in the US Senate after that.

716
00:47:10,060 --> 00:47:12,780
So again, one more unfair question.

717
00:47:12,840 --> 00:47:16,200
So, when we look to the future, and as an historian, as you look

718
00:47:16,200 --> 00:47:20,850
at these great case examples from the past, is there any lesson

719
00:47:20,850 --> 00:47:23,799
you would learn from those, say this is something we should

720
00:47:23,809 --> 00:47:28,420
bear in mind as we go into the next 100 years, next 250 years?

721
00:47:28,430 --> 00:47:35,030
I think I’m so impressed by the pace of change in recent years, of going

722
00:47:35,030 --> 00:47:40,399
from, you know, within living memory, the kind of, first steps into space at

723
00:47:40,410 --> 00:47:45,580
all to being able to put humans on the moon, starting in 1969, and then the

724
00:47:45,580 --> 00:47:51,110
great pace of change in planetary science, of exploration in the 1970s into

725
00:47:51,110 --> 00:47:56,490
the 1980s, a robust system like the shuttle, and through to the year 2011.

726
00:47:56,759 --> 00:48:00,790
I think the challenge of space flight is always that

727
00:48:00,790 --> 00:48:04,980
you’re trying to marry innovation with reliability, right?

728
00:48:04,980 --> 00:48:08,850
It needs to be really reliable and robust, and in some ways, that

729
00:48:08,850 --> 00:48:13,860
cuts against the impulse to innovate, to break, to do the next thing.

730
00:48:14,190 --> 00:48:19,399
And so, I would say, as a community of historians here, there are about a

731
00:48:19,410 --> 00:48:24,950
dozen of us in space history, about a dozen curators in aeronautics, we’re

732
00:48:24,970 --> 00:48:29,129
always kind of with eyes in two different directions, that we’re looking

733
00:48:29,130 --> 00:48:32,850
at what’s been done in the past and what’s available to allow us to tell

734
00:48:33,150 --> 00:48:36,160
those stories, to preserve those stories, to bring them to the public.

735
00:48:36,529 --> 00:48:42,840
And then really, we’re avid readers of the current literature, in terms of

736
00:48:42,870 --> 00:48:47,529
military national security space, or looking at planetary exploration, looking

737
00:48:47,530 --> 00:48:50,810
at the number of launches that are happening right now, and then, thinking

738
00:48:50,810 --> 00:48:56,680
about, you know, how do we tell those stories of innovation in the museum?

739
00:48:56,700 --> 00:49:01,720
So, I think it’s a remarkable time to be working in this field,

740
00:49:01,720 --> 00:49:06,060
even as a scholar, trying to be more of a neutral observer.

741
00:49:06,650 --> 00:49:09,479
We’ve had more launches in the past few years than

742
00:49:09,480 --> 00:49:12,830
you had in the entire space age, running up to that.

743
00:49:12,850 --> 00:49:17,970
So, that pace of change, that ability to put things reliably into orbit

744
00:49:17,970 --> 00:49:22,890
and bring things back, and also to build out that constellation as

745
00:49:22,980 --> 00:49:28,429
a global environment of satellites that are telling us so much about

746
00:49:28,430 --> 00:49:32,380
ourselves and about what the rest of the solar system looks like.

747
00:49:32,520 --> 00:49:36,290
I don’t know it’s an easy answer for you, so much as to say it’s a

748
00:49:36,290 --> 00:49:41,759
fascinating time to be working on the edges of that as a scholar and

749
00:49:41,759 --> 00:49:46,780
trying to think about, you know, how we judiciously preserve the best

750
00:49:46,789 --> 00:49:50,620
parts of that to make sure that we can continue to learn from it.

751
00:49:51,230 --> 00:49:54,430
Margaret, as we end a very fascinating conversation, how can our

752
00:49:54,430 --> 00:49:57,459
listeners learn more about what’s going on at the Air and Space Museum?

753
00:49:59,370 --> 00:50:02,910
airandspace.edu is our website, and I hope that people will set

754
00:50:02,910 --> 00:50:05,449
aside some time when they come and take a look because you’ll

755
00:50:05,449 --> 00:50:09,090
find not only things about our public programming, you’ll find

756
00:50:09,090 --> 00:50:13,260
resources for teachers and students, but you’ll also really be

757
00:50:13,260 --> 00:50:17,340
able to dig into the collection and learn about particular objects.

758
00:50:17,340 --> 00:50:22,760
And we have a wonderful library now of the blog posts that have been written

759
00:50:22,770 --> 00:50:27,900
by curators, by staff, about current events, about anniversaries, about

760
00:50:27,900 --> 00:50:32,030
objects, about, you know, trends that we’re seeing in science and technology.

761
00:50:32,030 --> 00:50:34,099
So, that’s really the best way.

762
00:50:34,099 --> 00:50:36,060
And then, you know, follow us on social.

763
00:50:36,060 --> 00:50:40,609
We have a wonderful set of reels that are on Instagram and on Facebook.

764
00:50:40,609 --> 00:50:44,850
I’m the star of our latest one, which was about the Close

765
00:50:44,850 --> 00:50:48,279
Encounters of the Third Kind mothership model that we have on

766
00:50:48,280 --> 00:50:51,370
display at the Udvar-Hazy center, so that’s a fun little bit.

767
00:50:51,550 --> 00:50:56,379
So, we’re always thinking about different ways that we can get what we know out

768
00:50:56,589 --> 00:51:01,410
to the public, and sometimes it’s in a tweet or a reel, and sometimes it’s a

769
00:51:01,420 --> 00:51:05,740
scholarly book that, you know, took one of our scholars years to put together.

770
00:51:05,780 --> 00:51:08,410
And sometimes it’s a wonderful conversation on a podcast.

771
00:51:08,610 --> 00:51:10,520
Well, it has indeed been wonderful.

772
00:51:10,550 --> 00:51:13,800
Margaret, thank you so much for joining us on AMSEcast.

773
00:51:13,809 --> 00:51:14,659
Oh, this was a treat.

774
00:51:19,759 --> 00:51:22,500
Thank you for joining us on this episode of AMSEcast.

775
00:51:22,910 --> 00:51:27,220
For more information on this topic or any others, you can always visit us at

776
00:51:27,240 --> 00:51:33,850
AMSE.org or find, like, and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

777
00:51:34,350 --> 00:51:36,670
I invite you to visit the American Museum of Science

778
00:51:36,670 --> 00:51:39,480
and Energy and the K-25 History Center in person.

779
00:51:39,800 --> 00:51:43,960
You can also shop at our online store and become a member at AMSE.org.

780
00:51:44,420 --> 00:51:47,870
Thanks to our production team with Matt Mullins, plus our supportive colleagues

781
00:51:47,870 --> 00:51:51,710
at the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, Office of Environmental

782
00:51:51,710 --> 00:51:55,690
Management, and Office of Legacy Management, as well as Oak Ridge National

783
00:51:55,690 --> 00:52:01,529
Laboratory, the Y-12 National Security Complex, NNSA, and the AMSE Foundation.

784
00:52:02,040 --> 00:52:03,769
And of course, thanks to our wonderful guests

785
00:52:03,770 --> 00:52:05,589
today, and to all of you for listening.

786
00:52:06,090 --> 00:52:08,770
I hope you’ll join us for the next episode of AMSEcast.

787
00:52:11,480 --> 00:52:14,460
If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, I would like to ask that you consider

788
00:52:14,460 --> 00:52:19,029
becoming a member of the 117 Society, the newest membership opportunity

789
00:52:19,090 --> 00:52:22,550
offered by the American Museum of Science and Energy Foundation.

790
00:52:23,309 --> 00:52:26,490
By joining the 117 Society, you will help us continue

791
00:52:26,490 --> 00:52:29,300
this podcast and our other innovative programming.

792
00:52:29,680 --> 00:52:32,600
You will support the expansion of our vitally important educational

793
00:52:32,600 --> 00:52:36,480
outreach, including virtual classes, and you will help ensure that both

794
00:52:36,490 --> 00:52:41,119
the American Museum of Science and Energy and the K-25 History Center can

795
00:52:41,120 --> 00:52:45,190
continue to provide world-class exhibits to our community and to the world.

796
00:52:46,029 --> 00:52:48,900
Benefits of membership includes special access to video

797
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and audio content, and 117 Society merchandise, as well

798
00:52:53,110 --> 00:52:56,060
as all the benefits of our Atom Splitter Membership Level.

799
00:52:56,620 --> 00:52:58,920
To learn more, go to AMSE.org.

800
00:53:00,009 --> 00:53:04,810
The 117 Society is vital to the future of AMSE and the K-25 History Center.

801
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I hope you will consider joining, and thank you very much.