Flight Deck Podcast

In this final episode of 2020, we welcome author Phil Stamper onto the show for a discussion of adapting space history into fiction for a modern young adult audience, the literary inspirations for his book The Gravity of Us, and the realities LGBTQ+ astronauts faced throughout NASA history from Sally Ride all the way back to the days of Project Mercury. View full shownotes here: https://blog.museumofflight.org/flightdeck/the-gravity-of-us

What happens at the end of the world? Today’s episode is the finale of the playthrough of “Before There Were Stars,” a storytelling game about creating myths based on constellations. Join a team of science educators from around the world as they follow in the footsteps of the ancient storytellers and look to the stars for inspiration and a way to describe the world around them, bringing their stories to a conclusion at the End of Time. This episode will not make much sense unless you first listen to Part 1 of our Before There Were Stars playthrough, which you can check out at www.museumofflight.org/podcast.

Join a team of storytellers as they look up at the stars to create myths and legends based on what they see. Today’s episode is Part I of a playthrough of the storytelling family game “Before There Were Stars,” featuring science educators from around the world improvising a creation myth based on images seen in an imaginary night sky. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the story.   You can keep the podcast and The Museum of Flight going by making a tax-deductible donation. https://pages.museumofflight.org/flight-deck-donate   Want to try “Before There Were Stars” yourself? Purchase a copy at The Museum of Flight’s online store. Your purchase will support The Museum of Flight and the game makes a wonderful holiday (or anytime) gift. https://www.museumofflightstore.org/toys/puzzles-games/before-there-were-stars-game.html   Learn more about Ricky and Matheatre’s work, including education opportunities and their new podcast, here: https://matheatre.com/   Check out Cassandra’s “We Share the Same Moon” program, weaving to

We think of history in terms of grand, sweeping events and often forget that actual humans are at the center of it. Today’s episode reminds us that people drive history, everyday people like you and me who are swept up or have to react to these larger events. The discussion centers around Mike Caputo, a World War II B-24 Navigator, and his daughter Yvonne, the woman who helped him open up about the wartime experiences he’d hidden deep inside. While helping her father document his story in his own voice, she forged a stronger connection with him that she carries even today after he’s passed away.

It’s common to hear a visitor to The Museum of Flight wonder how astronauts go to the bathroom in space. Today is the continuation of a conversation with Museum of Flight staff member Brenda Mandt, who spearheads the tours of the Museum’s NASA Space Shuttle Full Fuselage Trainer, where she talks about modern space toilets on the Space Shuttle and on the ISS. She also talks about what did and didn’t work about toilet and personal care needs when women joined the US space program. As with the previous episode, this is a frank and honest conversation about toilets and what goes in them, so listen to learn more but maybe not while you’re snacking.

“How do astronauts go to the bathroom in space?” This is a question we hear often at the Museum, asked by people young and old from all around the world. Host Sean Mobley enlisted Museum of Flight expert Brenda Mandt, one of the masterminds behind the Museum’s NASA Space Shuttle Full Fuselage Trainer Tours, to investigate how humans carry out this universal body function in space. In this first of two episodes, Brenda shares about the early tests and solutions developed for the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions. They were messy and uncomfortable!

Bill Wilson, a Vietnam Veteran and Museum of Flight Docent, features in this episode of The Flight Deck, sharing his story of bailing out of his crashing General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark just a few miles from Hanoi, the capital of the Communist government of Vietnam, during the Vietnam War. Surrounded by hills, jungle, and enemy combatants, Wilson did everything he could to evade capture long enough for a rescue attempt, a situation made more complicated by the constantly changing weather which foiled efforts to extract him. If you wish to support the podcast and the Museum financially you can do so at www.musemofflight.org/flightdeck. This episode is one part of a two-episode collection titled “A Tale of Two Aviators,” telling the story of two US aviators who served in Vietnam who were both shot down over the course of their service. You can listen to the other episode in this collection at www.museumofflight.org/flightdeck. During this unprecedented time, The Museum of Flight has been working hard to

Museum of Flight Docent Jerry Coy returns to The Flight Deck to share a story of survival behind enemy lines. When Captain Roger Locher’s McDonnell F-4 Phantom was hit by fire from a Vietnamese MiG-21, he safely bailed out…only to realize he was months away by foot from safety, and was deep in Communist territory, making an air rescue extremely dangerous. In order to extract him, the Air Force would have to essentially “pause” the war. Today’s episode details Locher’s saga deep in the northern reaches of Vietnam.

Wrapping up the Collections miniseries, today we’re looking at the oldest artifact in our archives. To find it, we need to go back behind-the-scenes, into the Rare Book Room of the Museum’s Harl V. Brackin library to find an object that predates the US Constitution.

Located in the Charles Simonyi Space Gallery, an exhibit space dedicated to modern space exploration, you’ll find the youngest artifact in our collection: An American flag flown to space on the historic Blue Origin New Shepard NS-3 Launch. In today’s episode of the Flight Deck, we’ll take a look at the flag and it’s story, and also learn why stories are at the heart of any museum…and how the stories told in museums have changed over time.

Mike Mullane grew up a child of the space race and realized his dream of space flight as an astronaut for the Space Shuttle program. In today’s interview, which was recorded as part of a Trivia Night program the Museum put on, he takes questions from the audience about his training and experiences in weightlessness. He also helps us answer a few trivia questions about life as an astronaut. Can you get all of the correct answers before he does?

Host Sean Mobley brings the second part of this behind-the-scenes mini-series featuring the “extremes” of the Museum of Flight’s collection. Today we’re staying very close to home on our Museum of Flight campus to look at our Biggest artifact, something so big that moving it took boats, barges, and cranes!

Host Sean Mobley brings us part one of an all-new mini-series featuring The Museum of Flight’s most extreme artifacts. In this series you will uncover the smallest, largest, oldest and youngest objects in our collection. Join us for a journey of wonderment and surprise as we discuss some of our most unique artifacts!

This week we are honored to speak with Museum of Flight docent and Holocaust survivor, Pete Metzelaar. Listen as he describes his first-hand account of the devastating sound of war planes flying over Holland during World War II, and his journey to freedom.

This week’s episode of the Flight Deck Podcast is the first in a series associated with the Museum wide initiative to feature untold stories in honor of the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II. Today you will hear from Museum docent Reiner Decher who was a young boy in Germany during WWII. Reiner recalls the end of the war through the eyes of a child, escaping Germany with his family through Operation Paperclip. Reiner’s father worked in aviation developing cutting edge technology for Junkers Aircraft and Motorworks. After the war, Russia and the United States wanted to employ the greatest German scientists and engineers, Reiner’s Father was one of those selected.

We dive into part two of our interview with Museum docent and Air Force Colonel Peggy Phillips. Peggy remembers her time in the military flying C-141 cargo airplanes, eventually transitioning to C-17 aircraft in 2001 where she became the first female C-17 squadron commander.

Peggy Phillips and the WASPs by The Museum of Flight

Undoubtedly one of the greatest achievements of man has been stepping foot on the Moon. In 1969, the famous Apollo 11 mission fulfilled this dream. Fast forward to 2013, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos commences an expedition to find the powerful Saturn V F-1 rocket engines that propelled Neil Armstrong into space for the imperative Moon landing. The expedition presented many challenges, one of those being that eight other Apollo missions were said to be located in the same general area off of the coast of Florida. On this week’s Flight Deck Podcast host Sean Mobely dives deep into conversation with Vince Capone, a deep-sea diver who worked with Nasa to track down pieces from Apollo and various other space missions. Capone takes us through his journey seeking the Apollo 11 F-1 rocket engines in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean. With a search area spanning 180 square miles of complete and utter darkness, side scan sonar provided the highest resolution with the most amount of ground coverage for the expedition. S

Matthew Burchette joined The Museum of Flight in late 2019 as our Senior Curator, launching a new stage in a career spanning several decades of supporting museums in their quest to tell amazing stories and spark inspiration. In today’s episode of The Flight Deck, host Sean Mobley chats with Matthew about his career briefly before moving into a behind-the-scenes discussion on some of the philosophical underpinnings behind our museum and some of the big questions we wrestle with, questions like: How do we decide what to make an exhibit about? Whose story do we tell? What are we looking for when someone comes in the door wanting to donate an artifact? If you’ve ever been curious about some of the thought processes that go into the day-to-day operations and big-picture visions of a museum, or been curious just how someone becomes a curator at a major museum, this will be an enlightening conversation. Interested in donating an artifact to The Museum of Flight? Click here to learn more about what we’re looking fo

On the eve of a New Year, join host Sean Mobley on a trip behind-the-scenes on the making of an exhibit at The Museum of Flight. Two unassuming display cases outside Wings Café at the Museum contain one of the most looked-at exhibits on the whole campus; the rotating display put together by the NorthWest Scale Modelers Association. A combination of the prime location of the exhibit at a popular crossroads within the Museum, the constantly changing display, and a human fascination with shiny small things makes this exhibit consistently popular with visitors. Follow volunteer curator Tim Nelson and Exhibits Graphics Designer Mandy Faber and a cadre of others as they take an exhibit idea from dream to reality. You can check out the model exhibit, “Now Boarding – The Birth of Air Travel,” at the Museum of Flight from now through May 2020. Interested in models? Join us for the NorthWest Scale Modelers Show all weekend February 15th and 16th. Learn more here. Credits Producer: Sean Mobley Webmaster: Layne Ben