AirSpace

100 years ago Bessie Coleman became the first African American woman to earn her pilot’s license. You might remember Bessie from a previous episode of the pod (last season’s Chicago Flyer) – she inspired many of her contemporaries, including those who formed the Challenger Air Pilots Association. But Bessie’s tremendous determination and perseverance is beyond worthy of another episode. In part because she was a woman, and especially a woman of color, Bessie had to travel all the way to Europe to get her flight training. Today on AirSpace, we're looking back on Bessie's experiences in France and Germany in the 1920s and exploring just how far she went to earn her historic license (and inspire generations of pilots along the way).

AirSpace is made possible by the generous support of Olay.

Raise a glass and cheers to a new season of AirSpace! And to help us get in the celebratory mood, today's episode is about a truly intoxicating period of American history – prohibition. You might know [we didn’t] that NASCAR has its roots in bootleggers driving illicit hooch in the 1920s. But it turns out, not all bootleggers were driving their contraband around in cars. In addition to rum runners there were also rum flyers (pinot pilots? alcohol aviators? booze-stormers?). And beyond smuggling alcohol, party-planes were also used to get thirsty customers to destinations outside the US where they could drink legally. Today on AirSpace, learn how prohibition and passenger airlines went hand-in-hand.

AirSpace is made possible by the generous support of Olay.

We’re just two weeks away from a brand new season of AirSpace!  Today, though, we’re revisiting a favorite from May 2020 – the first installment of the AirSpace Movie Club, our very first episode recorded from our respective pandemic bunkers. At this point, we’re old hands at remote recording and thankfully our techniques have improved since this first go round but we love this episode nonetheless. Join us on this trip down memory lane and listen to Emily, Matt, and Nick break down the Voyager-referencing, Bowie-fueled, and endlessly endearing Troop Zero. And don’t miss new episodes of AirSpace beginning September 9th!

We’re hard at work on Season 5 (launching this September!) but before then, we’re giving you a second bite at a topic we spent a long time thinking about this year: what’s in a name? Earlier this season we explored how planetary bodies and their geological features get named. And to our surprise, it’s not all Greek and Roman mythology (we’re looking at you, Titan’s hills Gandalf and Bilbo). We also recorded an explainer on how NASA names their spacecraft, but we just didn’t have time for it in the original episode. So, what do Snoopy, Spider, and Gumdrop have in common? Find out in this bonus episode!

We have a flair for the dramatic here at AirSpace (Who… US?!). And we’d be lying if we told you we don’t occasionally daydream about the end of the world. But, like, scientifically speaking. We’ve seen plenty of sci-fi depictions of what the end might look like, but what will actually happen when the Sun engulfs the Earth? And what does the “end of the universe” even mean? To dissect these grim questions, we’re diving into a sci-fi series that offers a lot of hopeful examples of humanity’s perseverance: Doctor Who.  

Is this an elaborate ploy to do an episode about one of our favorite television series? You bet it is! But it’s the last episode of the season and we want to go out with a bang. Strap in, we’re going to the end of it all. This is the end of the world according to Doctor Who.  

Earth’s twin or Earth’s evil twin? It depends on who you ask. And no, we’re NOT talking about Mars (take a break from the news cycle, Ingenuity). We’re talking about the beautiful, enigmatic, and hot (VERY hot) VENUS. Not one but TWO NASA spacecraft are heading to Venus later this decade (NASA’s first Venus missions since the early 90s!). But, how do you study a planet whose surface is too hot for robots and whose atmosphere is too dense for the visible light observation? On today’s episode we’re taking a look at the wonder of Venus and the magic of radar.  

We’re all movie buffs here at AirSpace *gestures to extensive movie episode back catalog.* And while we’re not exactly film critics, we know what we like—and we love when people see themselves represented in their favorite stories. And a long time ago (2013), and not so far away (New Mexico), a group embarked on a quest of their own: to translate Star Wars: A New Hope into Navajo. Their goal was to help preserve the language by introducing it to new generations and audiences beyond the reservation. In this episode, we’ll recount our decade+ hero’s journey from the call to action, to seeking a greenlight from Lucasfilm, to finding the translators and voice actors, creating whole new words for terms like “lightsaber” and “droid,” and finally the triumphant fanfare of a live audience seeing the famous opening crawl for the first time in their language. A herculean grassroots effort to create the first indigenous translation of a major motion picture has become a movement to interpret other indelible pieces of pop culture from Finding Nemo to Baby Shark. Hear how it all started today on AirSpace.

In the early days of aviation flying was dangerous and expensive. Even if you could afford it, societal barriers in the United States kept many would-be pilots grounded. In this episode, we’re telling the story of how pioneering Black aviators improvised, innovated, and overcame those barriers to fulfill their dreams of flight. Across the U.S., Black aviators banded together to form clubs to instruct others and grow interest in aviation. In Chicago, the Challenger Air Pilots Association cultivated a community that has since helped thousands of Black pilots learn how to fly. And it all started with a broken down car.

If you’ve flown commercial, you’re familiar with the preflight safety spiel (and if you’ve only ever flown private, we wanna know why, but it’ll have to be a different episode). You know the moves: stow your tray tables, life vests are under the seat, insert the metal end into the buckle until it clicks, and please don’t forget the nearest exit may be behind you. Frequent fliers can probably recite these instructions in their sleep, and we have a whole selfcare philosophy based around securing your own oxygen mask before helping others. But in the last 15 years or so, the safety presentation has become a cinematic celebre -- with everything from famous actors, eye-catching FX, and even Marvel superheroes. Emily, Matt, and Nick dive into the history of the inflight safety briefing to better understand the evolution from straight-forward instruction to Hollywood production, and an expert in cabin safety weighs in on whether these flashy videos  actually make air travel safer. Please note the no smoking light will remain on throughout today’s episode, and remember to remain seated until the pilot turns off the seatbelt sign.

Did you know the National Air and Space Museum has a huge art collection? Yeah, we keep that secret pretty well. It all STEMs (see what we did there?) from a program organized by NASA beginning in the 1960s where a small number of American artists got tons of access to launch sites, clean rooms, space suits, spacecraft—you name it, they painted it. The result was thousands of works that represented some (but not all, not by a long shot) of the most important art ever inspired by space exploration. On today’s show, we sketch out the origin story of a space agency art’s program, explain where our museum enters the picture, and explore works within and beyond the NASA art scene.