David Woods has a new book out, so of course he has to talk about it on omega tau :-) His recent book is about the Saturn V launch vehicle, i.e., this time it is about the rocket, not about the spaceship. In this episode we dive into lots of details that we did not cover in the two Apollo episodes (episodes 83 and 97) -- make sure you have listened to those before you listen to this one.

In October 2015, Joseph Tainter was my guest in omega tau 184 to discuss his concept of increasing complexity and eventual collapse of societies. In this episode, our guest Paul Arbair discusses these concepts in the light of today's rising populism in several countries. The episode is based on two articles Paul wrote on his blog: one on Brexit and one on Trump.

Late 2016, during a trip to the Netherlands, I visted Rutger Vlek of River Creative Technology in his home studio to record an episode about synthesizers. We talked about the basics of sound generation, various enveloping and filtering techniques, sound design, the different fundamental approaches of sound synthesis, as well as a couple of classic synths. Rutger illustrated lots of approaches with samples from some of his many synthesizers.

Last fall I visited ESTEC, ESA's space research and technology center. In this first of three episodes, I talk with Maria Hernek, who heads the Flight Software Systems section. We talk about the challenges of space flight software, the development processes used by ESA and its vendors, as well as means of ensuring the required quality attributes. This episode can be seen as a continuation of the conversation with Andreas Wortmann in the OHB episode.

Rick Ruiz is a pilot for Atlas Air where he flies various versions of the Boeing 747 freighter. Previously he flew the 767 and the 777 for LAN Chile, primarily cargo as well. Rick is also a crew member of the Airline Pilot Guy podcast, where he is known as Miami Rick. In this episode, we stroll through the woods around Landstuhl, Germany, where I visited Rick while he was on a layover. We geek out about flying the Big Boeings.

Im Rahmen einer München-Reise im Herbst habe ich die Deutsche Flugsicherung in München besucht und habe mich mit den beiden Lotsen Lars Albrecht und Mathias Andlinger unterhalten. Wir starten mit einer allgemeinen Einführung in Lufträume, Verfahren und die diversen Bodenfunkstellen. Dann besichtige ich mit Lars das Center in München und mit Mathias den Tower; dort unterhalten wir uns jeweils nochmal über die Spezifika der beiden Aufgabengebiete.

Last fall I visited EPFL for a programming languages workshop when I saw a poster on bio inspired systems. Darja's name was on the poster because she coordinates the programme; I sent her an email and asked if she wanted to talk a bit with me about this field while I am at EPFL. Her calendar had some free time, and so we met. In the episode we discuss why it makes sense for system designers to look at biology and nature as an inspiration and then explore lots of examples that are currently being researched at EPFL.

Im Herbst war ich in den Fernsehstudios des Bayerischen Rundfunks um zu verstehen, wie Fernsehen gemacht wird. Dazu habe ich mich mit einer Reihe von Gästen unterhalten, die die verschiedenen Aspekte einer Fernsehproduktion - aus technischer Sicht - repräsentieren: Kamera und Bild, Licht, Ton, sowie Ausspielung und Verbreitung.

Particle accelerators are the backbone of today's particle physics research and help us understand the smallest building blocks our world is made of. To understand this deeper, more powerful accelerators are needed, beyond what is possible with today's LHC. The world's physics community is continuously running studies to explore science questions and evaluate the required accelerators; one of those the studies is the Future Circular Collider study led by CERN. In this episode we discuss the science questions as well as the core engineering challenges with the two leaders of the FCC study, Michael Benedikt and Frank Zimmermann.

Vom 20. bis 23. Dezember war Markus mit einer MD-11F der Lufthansa Cargo von Frankfurt über Tel Aviv nach Istanbul (LH8340, LH8341) unterwegs und hat dabei den Kapitän André Wüseke und den ersten Offizier Jens Kreuzer bei der Arbeit beobachtet und interviewt. Diese Episode ist auf diesen Flügen entstanden und enthält sowohl Aufzeichnungen von Briefing, Outside Check und der Arbeit im Cockpit, als auch ein 2-stündiges Interview im Hotel in Istanbul.