The space shuttle’s legacy & the Apollo spacesuit
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Hour 1
Tomorrow the space shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to lift off on its final mission (if weather doesn’t interfere) to carry critical supplies to the International Space Station. This last launch marks the end of NASA’s three-decade-long and $192 billion space shuttle program. Next, NASA will pay the Russians to shuttle U.S. astronauts to and from the International Space Station until private companies get their rockets off the ground. This hour, Marty talks about the legacy of the shuttle program and the future of NASA with JONATHAN McDOWELL, astronomer and space historian at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Then, we’ll look at one of the most iconic symbols of the space age – the Apollo spacesuit. UC Berkeley architecture professor NICHOLAS de MONCHAUX has written a fascinating history of the space-age garment, titled Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo.
Listen:
[audio: 070711_100630.mp3]
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