Terranauts

Season 3 is almost here ...

Season 2 has come to close and until Season 3 starts in September were playing some of our most popular episodes from the past year. 

Meet Terranaut Sarah Gallagher, Science Advisor to the President of the Canadian Space Agency, professor at Western University in London, Ontario, and supermassive black holes and galaxy researcher.

Season 2 has come to close and until Season 3 starts in September were playing some of our most popular episodes from the past year. First up is Chris Hadfield and Iain Christie on NASA's Day Of Remembrance.

On January 28, 2021, NASA marked its Day Of Remembrance. It was a day set aside to honour the sacrifices of all astronauts who have died in the pursuit of the human exploration of space. In this episode of Terranauts, host Iain Christie sits down with Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield to talk about those we have lost and what their sacrifices have meant.

Season 2 of Terranauts is a wrap!  In this, the 40th episode, we take a quick look back at our second season and look forward to Season 3.  While we won't be releasing new episodes over the summer, we will be keeping the feed active with some highlights of the past two seasons.  We will also be busy with some other projects including starting a Terranauts facebook page.  Search for us @TerranautsPodcast on Facebook.  Thanks so much for listening this season... and we'll talk to you again soon.

In part 2 of "The Flag Is A One" we pick up the story of the Communications Technology Satellite just as a perplexing and potentially mission ending failure is occurring.  Mac Evans will take us through a few days of high drama in the Mission Operations Centre as the team tries to use a tiny little bit of data to diagnose the problem, and fix it. It's a classic Terranaut story.

In this episode of Terranauts we talk about a little known moment of high drama in the Canadian space program surrounding the crucial Communications Technology Satellite mission.

In 1976, Canada and the world were in the midst of a telecommunications revolution. Determined to use satellite communications, John Chapman led a bold effort to build and test a satellite that would become the prototype of what we now think of as a telecommunications satellite. But the Communications Technology Satellite mission almost ended before it began. Mac Evans, who was there, as the Mission Director - is here today to tell us the story. Note that this is part one of a two part story.

Dr. Cameron Ower is the Chief Technology Officer at McDonald Dettwiler and Associates where he has been working for much of the last 35 years. When he started at MDA (then known as Spar Aerospace) he worked with and for the engineers who had designed and built the very first space robot, the original Space Shuttle Canadarm. His job, at the time, was to design the next generation of space robot - the space station arm and its special purpose dexterous manipulator known as DEXTRE.  This would become the first robot to live and work permanently in space.  Today, he is helping lead the team of engineers that is designing the Canadarm 3, the robot that will help humans work and live farther from home than we ever have before. Tune in to hear what has (and hasn't) changed in the last 35 years the world of space automation and robotics.

In this episode of Terranauts we talk about the beginnings of the other great endeavour in space. Instead of talking about leaving the planet to explore space, we're going to talk about the early efforts to work from space to understand the Earth and improve life here. Specifically, we are going to talk about the early efforts to literally connect the world, by sending satellites to space. Along the way we're going to introduce another first Terranaut. In this case, it's John H Chapman, Canada's first Terranaut, and one of the people that more or less invented the profession we now refer to as the "Space Scientist."

Today on Terranauts the second part of my conversation with the Quintessential Terranaut Dave Kendall.  We talk about Dave's career managing increasingly larger and more international programs until he ended up as the chair of one of the United Nation's largest and most active committees.  Not bad for a lad from Twickenham.

This week on Terranauts we're taking a break from our regular run of the Terranauts Guide to Leaving the Planet to bring you a fascinating interview with David Kendall who could be described as the quintessential Terranaut.

On Terranauts we often talk about the fact that no gets to space alone. We are fond of saying that space is a team sport, not only for individuals but for countries as well. Over the course of the past season and a half we have certainly talked to our share of Terrantauts with extensive international experience. But I think It's pretty rare to have one with the pedigree of today's guest.

Dr. David Kendall has not only been at the forefront of major international collaborations for the last 40 years, he has also been a Vice President of the International Astronautical Federation AND for two years he was the Chair of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space.

Having completed a "textbook" mission with Wally Schirra's flight, it was now time to go for a full day on orbit with the flight of Mercury-Atlas 9 and Gordon Cooper. But this would be the final act of Project Mercury. The project had been a complete success, but its day was done as NASA and the world moved beyond simply wondering if a human could leave the planet - and started wondering what humans - and their inventions - would do when they were there.

If you can do something three times, doing it three more times doesn't sound like it should be that hard.  Unless, of course, you're talking about orbiting the planet. In this episode we take a look at the third Project Mercury manned orbital flight - which doubled the number of orbits from 3 to 6 and we talk about why that was a lot more work for the Project Mercury Terranauts than you might have expected.

In this episode we return to the story of Project Mercury. Having managed to achieve its original object of getting and American into orbit, Project Mercury, life was now changing as NASA's manned space activities expanded to include the new Gemini and Apollo programs.  And, now that NASA had discovered it knew how to get a humans into orbit, they needed to start thinking about what they were going to do there.

Last week, on 28 January, NASA marked its Day Of Remembrance. It was a day set aside to honour the sacrifices of all astronauts who have died in the pursuit of the human exploration of space. In this episode of Terranauts, host Iain Christie sits down with Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield to talk about those we have lost and what their sacrifices have meant.

The need to do big things is a basic human urge.  The need to do them together is an even more basic one.  Going to space satisfies both those urges in fundamental and sometimes profound ways. But human beings have been captive to the Collective Power of The Big Idea for a long time.  In this episode, Terranauts host Iain Christie muses on how the theme of working together to accomplish big things can be seen as far back as ancient Athens and how it expresses itself today.

When we left Project Mercury they had finally managed to have a successful orbital flight.  All of the technologies, techniques and procedures had been tested.  The global tracking network was in place.  There was only one thing left to do.  Put an astronaut in the capsule and get him into orbit... and bring him home, of course.  In this episode of a Terranauts Guide To Leaving The Planet, NASA finally makes it to the big leagues - getting to orbit and setting a course for the moon.

This week's installment of The Terranauts Guide to Leaving the Planet is called "Project Mercury Gets Around."  When we left the Mercury Flight Control team they were just about to make their first attempt to get an American into space.  Once they cleared that hurdle though, the game would change again, as they confronted all of the things they would need to learn in order not just to get to space, but to stay there for at least one orbit around the earth.  Oh yes, and did we mention, the President was about to let the world know that he had much bigger plans for the American space program.

In this episode of a Terranauts Guide to Leaving The Planet, we return to the story of First Terranaut Gene Kranz and the early days of NASA's Mercury Project which was supposed to get the first American into space. As we found out last time, though, Project Mercury was having trouble getting more than a few inches off the launch pad. In addition to that, they had some pretty big challenges to overcome. Most of which had nothing to do with getting to space, and everything to do with connecting places on Earth.

If you were going to spend some time on board a drilling rig in the North Atlantic, in the foggiest place on the planet where icebergs are common, you would probably want Des Power looking over your shoulder from space.  Des and the team at C-CORE have been solving the problem of tracking icebergs from space for more than 20 years.  Des didn't start out wanting to go to space, but that's where he spends a lot of his time these days and there are a lot of people who are glad he does.

Today we have another instalment of the Terranauts Guide to Leaving the Planet. The guide is our exploration of spaceflight, the challenges that have been overcome in getting there, and the people who overcame them. Today's focus, a young engineer named Gene Kranz who would later become the NASA Apollo Flight Director, and who famously said of the rescue of Apollo 13, "failure is not an option."

Meet Terranaut Sarah Gallagher, Science Advisor to the President of the Canadian Space Agency, professor at Western University in London, Ontario, and supermassive black holes and galaxy researcher.

In the latest instalment of the Terranauts Guide to Leaving the Planet, Iain talks about the first Terranauts. In this multi-episode track, Iain first discusses Wernher von Braun who could be considered the first Terranauts. von Braun's life and story is a complicated one. His work, which started in earnest in Germany shortly before World War II led to the first rockets that sent humans to space.

As we pause before starting season 2 in September, we're playing remastered "Best of Terranauts"  episodes. This is our Summer Series Best of episode 4, Apollo 13 and Stan Rogers in Tales From Mission Control.

The latest Terranauts podcast happens to be the 13th episode and it coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 13 mission. So naturally Iain provides a unique and insightful look at the mission.

As we pause before starting season 2 in September, we're playing remastered "Best of Terranauts"  episodes. This is our Summer Series Best of episode 3, Tales from Mission Control.  Host Iain Christie takes you on a journey through Johnson Space Center’s Mission Control Center during the 90’s with the first part of a this new series, Tales from Mission Control.

As we pause before starting season 2 in September, we're playing remastered "Best of Terranauts"  episodes. This is our Summer Series Best of episode 2, Launch Day. Launch Day is a quintessentially Terranaut experience, and this is Iain's Launch Day story.

As we pause before starting season 2 in September, we're playing remastered "Best of Terranauts" episodes for the next three weeks. This week, host Iain Christie, recounts the story of when he realized what it meant to be what he now calls a Terranaut.

It's hard to believe that we've come to an end of Season 1. Iain shares his thoughts including what he learned from his guests and in creating a podcast for the first time. He then provides a glimpse into Season 2 which is scheduled to launch on September 10. Between now and then you can expect a "best of season" to be published. 

His love for space was so strong that he joked that when he was interviewed to be one of the first people at a new space organization, that he was willing to work for free. 

That was what Gilles Leclerc told Iain Christie in this weeks Terranauts podcast. He was one of the first five employees at the Canadian Space Agency.

Leclerc has been working at the Canadian Space Agency for almost as long as there has been a Canadian Space Agency. He has held, or acted in, just about every management position all the way up to President. He has had a front row seat for just about all of Canada's big moments in space since the early 1990's. Join Iain for a conversation about what it has been like to be a self-described "ordinary person" that has spent a career going to space in extraordinary ways … without ever leaving the planet.