In our second interview for season 3, cohosts Emily Carney and Eleanor O’Rangers welcome Space Historian Jay Gallentine to the podcast.

As described on Amazon, Jay has a reputation for stripping away technobabble to focus on the intimate human stories behind space missions. His politely uncouth, casual writing style makes the topic accessible and enjoyable, while retaining accuracy worthy of a reference tome.

Based on our interview, I would wholeheartedly concur with this assessment. In Part 1 of our interview, we ask Jay to describe what exactly is a space historian, and then delve into some interesting back story on his first award-winning book for astronomical literature, "Ambassadors to Earth", which details the turbulent early days of solar system exploration based on 5 years of original research and numerous interviews with those who did the work. This intensive research and drive to dig deep has led to some, well, interesting “bumps along the road” that might deter a less dedicated space historian.