Discovery Departure (Part 9: Video Interview) May 7, 2012
Posted by Lofty Ambitions in Space Exploration, Video Interviews.Tags: Discovery Departure, Museums & Archives, Space Shuttle
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Last Monday, we posted the first part of our video interview with Charlie Bolden, the current head of NASA and a former shuttle astronaut. You can see that video by clicking HERE and the write-up of interviews with John Glenn, Bolden, and Eileen Collins by clicking HERE.
We couldn’t resist asking our favorite question of Bolden: Discovery, great shuttle or the greatest shuttle? And Margaret Lazarus Dean, Lofty Ambitions guest blogger and author of the novel The Time It Takes to Fall, captured Bolden’s answer on video. Note the expression of the security detail over Bolden’s shoulder, indicating that this was his favorite question that day.
Discovery Departure (Part 8: Video Interview) April 30, 2012
Posted by Lofty Ambitions in Space Exploration, Video Interviews.Tags: Discovery Departure, Museums & Archives, Space Shuttle
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Lofty Ambitions traveled to Florida, then to the Washington, DC, area to see the space shuttle Discovery transferred to the Udvar-Hazy Center for permanent display. While there, we spoke with Charlie Bolden, the head of NASA and a former shuttle astronaut. We wrote about that HERE, and now we share the video that fellow writer, Lofty Ambitions guest blogger, and space nerd Margaret Lazarus Dean shot of Bolden answering a question or two.
A Year of Lofty Video Interviews April 9, 2012
Posted by Lofty Ambitions in Space Exploration, Video Interviews.Tags: Apollo, Museums & Archives, Space Shuttle
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Over the past year, we’ve been posting VIDEO INTERVIEWS we conducted with a variety of individuals directly involved with the nation’s space program. We’ve talked with Apollo astronauts Walt Cunningham and Charlie Duke as well as current Director of Johnson Space Center and shuttle astronaut Mike Coats. We even interviewed Dee O’Hara, the first nurse to the astronauts, and Daniel Lockney, who puts the spin on NASA spinoff technology that has reshaped our everyday lives.
Here, we recap the complete Table of Contents. CLICK ON THE DATE/NAME to see an individual video interview.
05/23/11 Mike Coats: Three-time Shuttle Astronaut & Director of Johnson Space Center
06/13/11 Michael Barratt: One-time Shuttle Astronaut & International Space Station Resident
06/27/11 Rhea Seddon: Three-time Shuttle Astronaut
07/06/11 STS-135 Atlantis Crew: Last-Ever Shuttle Crew
07/11/11 Hoot Gibson: Five-time Shuttle Astronaut
07/13/11 Stephanie Stilson: NASA Director for Shuttle Transition and Retirement
07/25/11 Mike Massimino: Two-time Shuttle Astronaut
08/08/11 Fred Gregory: Three-time Shuttle Astronaut
08/22/11 Mike Good: Two-time Shuttle Astronaut
09/12/11 Shannon Walker: International Space Station Resident
09/26/11 Karol Bobko: Three-time Shuttle Astronaut & Skylab Ground Simulation Astronaut
10/11/11 Jeffrey Rudolph: Director of the California Science Center
10/24/11 Kathy Thornton: Four-time Shuttle Astronaut
11/14/11 Andrew Allen: Three-time Shuttle Astronaut
11/28/11 Daniel Lockney: Program Specialist in NASA’s Office of Innovative Partnerships
12/12/11 Dee O’Hara: First Nurse to the Astronauts
01/09/12 Hank Hartsfield: Three-time Shuttle Astronaut & MOL
02/13/12 Walt Cunningham: Apollo 7 Astronaut
03/12/12 Charlie Duke: Apollo 16 Astronaut & Apollo 11 CAPCOM
04/09/12 Recap & TOC: That’s this post!
Interview: Charlie Duke March 12, 2012
Posted by Lofty Ambitions in Space Exploration, Video Interviews.Tags: Apollo
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Charles Duke (NASA)
One of the coolest things we’ve ever done at Lofty Ambitions is to interview Apollo astronaut Charlie Duke. He’s smart and charming, the kind of person with whom you could happily while away an afternoon talking. Here, we share an excerpt of our conversation from November 2010 that conveys Duke’s enthusiasm for flying, space exploration, and education (he chairs the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation).
Charlie Duke was chosen as an astronaut by NASA in 1966. With his calm Southern voice, he served as CAPCOM for Apollo 11, the mission that put the first human footprint on the Moon’s surface in 1969. Just a few years later, Duke flew on Apollo 16 and planted his own two booted feet on the Moon and traipsed around on its surface with John Young for more than 20 hours (of the more than 71-hour stay), taking rock and soil samples (Apollo 16 picked up more than 200 pounds of such material) and surveying the landscape.
Catching Up with Endeavour March 5, 2012
Posted by Lofty Ambitions in Guest Blogs, Space Exploration, Video Interviews.Tags: Museums & Archives, Space Shuttle
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HERE IT IS! Discovery on Launch ad 39A!
Usually, we have a guest blogger on the first Monday of the month, but we just had a busy week at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference where we shared the nuclear-focused part of Lofty Ambitions. Today, we’re catching up with the space-focused part of what we’re up to. This morning, NASA posted an overview of their plans to get Discovery, Endeavour, and Atlantis to their permanent museum homes within the next year. Read that HERE.
NASA Flow Director for Orbiter T&R Stephanie Stilson explains that Discovery will leave Kennedy Space Center in mid-April, which makes us consider a quick trip to the East coast to follow the orbiter from Florida to Washington, D.C. We’d welcome the chance to talk with Stephanie Stilson and have her show us Endeavour once again, after its OMS pods are reinstalled. Endeavour is scheduled to traipse across the country to Los Angeles in the fall. Atlantis doesn’t have far to travel, just down the road to the KSC Visitor Complex, but it will be the last delivered, and there’s sure to be a big party on the Space Coast for that event. “‘I continue to be impressed by the dedication and devotion of the team working to ensure Discovery, Atlantis, Endeavour and Enterprise are delivered to their new homes in the best possible condition,’ Stilson says.” You can see our previous interview with Stilson HERE.
Endeavour ready for last launch
We know that many of the people we met over the last eighteen months are following this story, too. Kim Guodace, who was the Orbiter Element Vehicle Engineer, is one of those people tracking the orbiters’ progress. She wants to see each remaining space shuttle in its new museum home. You can read her guest post HERE.
Now that we’re almost caught up after our two-week residency at Ragdale and our week at AWP, we’ll get back to our routine. Look for a new post on Wednesday.
Interview: Walt Cunningham February 13, 2012
Posted by Lofty Ambitions in Space Exploration, Video Interviews.Tags: Apollo
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Walt Cunningham (NASA)
Lofty Ambitions had fun talking with Walt Cunningham in 2010, in part because he doesn’t hold back his opinion, whether the topic is going to Mars or global warming. It’s easy to disagree with his ideas, but it’s not easy to stop listening.
In October 1968, Cunningham flew on Apollo 7, a mission we wrote about because it was the first time the now-famous space pen went to space. We sent the link (HERE) to Walt Cunningham, and he responded that we got the story right.
Born in Iowa in 1932, Walt Cunningham is a Midwesterner-turned-Californian like us. His master’s degree is in physics, but his B.A. is in literature, and he’s certainly not the only astronaut who read widely for a broad understanding of the world. He worked as a scientist at the Rand Corporation before joining NASA and was part of the Skylab program after his Apollo stint. He retired from NASA in 1971, but he’s kept busy by writing and investing. And saying exactly what he wants to say.
Interview: Hank Hartsfield January 9, 2012
Posted by Lofty Ambitions in Science, Space Exploration, Video Interviews.Tags: Apollo, Space Shuttle
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Before we get to today’s video interview, Lofty Ambitions extends condolences to the family and friends of Roger Boisjoly, who died last Friday. Boisjoly was a whistleblower in the Challenger accident investigation and an advocate for ethics in the workplace. You can read his guest post for Lofty Ambitions HERE.
Henry W. Hartsfield, Jr. (NASA)
Henry W. Hartsfield, Jr., became a NASA astronaut in 1969. But even before that, he was part of the U.S. Air Force’s MOL (Manned Orbiting Laboratory) program. Once part of NASA, he served in support roles for Apollo 16 and Skylab, as well as back-up pilot for STS-2 and STS-3 on the space shuttle.
Eventually, Hank Hartsfield got to space, first as pilot on STS-4 in 1982. He flew on two other space shuttle missions, STS-41D as commander and STS-61A. His crew for STS-41D on Discovery‘s maiden voyage included Mike Coats (see our interview with him HERE), Charles Walker (the first-ever payload specialist whom we mention HERE), and Judy Resnick (who later perished in the Challenger accident) as well as Steve Hawley and Mike Mullane. They launched three satellites and conducted science experiments. His last shuttle mission was the first with eight crew and was dedicated to the German contribution to Spacelab.
We interviewed the soft-spoken and earnest Hartsfield at Kennedy Space Center in 2010. Watch part of our fascinating conversation here.
Interview: Dee O’Hara December 12, 2011
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We met Dee O’Hara, the first nurse to NASA’s first astronauts, last year when we visited Kennedy Space Center for Discovery‘s not-launch. At first, O’Hara was a little hesitant to be on camera, but she opened up so that we could capture some of our conversation in the video below.
Dee O’Hara was born in Idaho in 1935 and was educated and trained as a nurse in Oregon. She became an Air Force nurse in 1959, and she talks here about how she made her way to NASA and the Mercury program. O’Hara retired from NASA in 1997 but continued to volunteer at the Ames Human Research Center in California. A book about her, called Dee O’Hara: The Astronauts’ Nurse, was published in 1965 but is now out of print.
What we appreciated most about talking with Dee O’Hara was her enthusiasm for pursuing her goals and appreciating the timing of her life’s successes. It was great to see her still hanging out with the astronauts, and supposedly Al Worden has written a poem about her.
Interview: Daniel Lockney November 28, 2011
Posted by Lofty Ambitions in Science, Space Exploration, Video Interviews.Tags: Space Shuttle
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When we were at Kennedy Space Center in July for the last-ever space shuttle launch, we sat down with Daniel Lockney to talk about some of the spinoffs from NASA’s space program. Lockney is a Program Specialist in NASA’s Office of Innovative Partnerships, and he deals with technology transfers off all sorts.
In other words, when the United States decided to build the space shuttle and when we and our global partners set out to build the International Space Station, there existed a lot of problems to solve. In solving those problems and reaching its goals, NASA made technological innovations that could also be applied outside of the space program and even in our daily lives. Some of these new gizmos and materials were somewhat expected, but other innovations couldn’t have been predicted. NASA spinoffs number in the hundreds and hundreds. That’s 1743 secondary and commercial uses for technology that NASA developed to go to space.
Interview: Andrew Allen November 14, 2011
Posted by Lofty Ambitions in Space Exploration, Video Interviews.Tags: Countdown to the Cape, Space Shuttle
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Today’s video interview is with three-time space shuttle astronaut Andrew Allen. We met Andy Allen last November when we were at Kennedy Space Center for Discovery‘s not-launch.
Allen became an astronaut in 1988 and flew his first mission, STS-46, in 1992 on Atlantis. He calls that shuttle Hotlantis. Less than two years later, he was aboard Columbia flying STS-62, a science mission. Roughly two years after that, Allen found himself again aboard Columbia on STS-75, which carried the Tethered Satellite System Reflight into space, a system he’d help test on his first flight. The mission also carried the United State Microgravity Payload 3, a follow on to USMP-2 that had been part of Allen’s second mission. Allen commanded and landed that third flight.
Andy Allen retired from NASA in 1997 and remains in Florida. Click HERE for a local Florida news story about him, and, of course, watch our video below.
