Dare to Explore

Episode 37: Episode 32: Scott Holcomb

November 5th, 2024  |  48 mins 5 secs

Scott Holcomb is an educator and innovator of instructional technologies. In his youth, he was featured in the film, Space Camp, as Hideo Takamini, and he served as an Aviation Challenge camp crew trainier. Today he is the Ed Tech Imagineer at Crosstown High in Memphis, Tennessee.

Episode 31: Christina Mitchell

July 23rd, 2024  |  32 mins 55 secs

astronaut, nasa, roleplaying games, rpg, space, ttrpg

Christina Mitchell is a senior multimedia specialist for NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. She has a bachelors in mass communications and is currently pursuing her masters degree.  She is a passionate storyteller striving to find new and innovative ways to engage audiences. She joins Dare to Explore to talk about her most recent endeavor to do just that – NASA's first tabletop roleplaying game supplement, The Lost Universe.

Episode 30: John Lassiter

May 2nd, 2024  |  19 mins 10 secs

Lieutenant Colonel John Lassiter is a retired Air Force Aerospace Engineer who has worked on a variety of aircraft in his long career, including the F-15 fighter and the C-130 aircraft. Lassiter worked for nearly 30 years at NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center in the Test Laboratory, where he supported numerous programs such as the Space Shuttle and Space Launch System, conducting structural dynamic and fluid dynamic testing. Today, he is a docent at the Space and Rocket Center, and joins Dare to Explore to talk about the A-12 Oxcart on display in the museum.

Episode 29: Ed Stewart

February 29th, 2024  |  32 mins 4 secs

Ed Stewart graduated from West Virginia Weslayan College with a bachelor of arts in theatrical direction and design. Ed served the US Space and Rocket Center as the Director of Exhibits and Curation for almost nine years before becoming the full time Curator in May of 2023.

Summer of Skylab: Ron Paulus

December 6th, 2023  |  20 mins 30 secs

engineering, flight, history, nasa, rockets, skylab, space

May of 2023 was the fiftieth anniversary of the launch of Skylab. The US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, celebrated with the Summer of Skylab – a series of presentations, educational panels, and celebrity events taking place through November. This special episode features Ron Paulus, a retired NASA project engineer who worked on Apollo, Skylab, and Shuttle missions.

Summer of Skylab: Lowell Zoller

November 2nd, 2023  |  21 mins 18 secs

astronomy, nasa, skylab, space

May of 2023 was the fiftieth anniversary of the launch of Skylab. The US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, celebrated with the Summer of Skylab – a series of presentations, educational panels, and celebrity events taking place through November. This special episode features retired Marshall Space Flight Center Lowell Zoller. Zoller served as chief of the projects office in the materials laboratory at Marshall Space Flight Center during the creation of Skylab.

Episode 28: Beth Mund

September 28th, 2023  |  56 mins 29 secs

iss, nasa, science, space, stories

Beth Mund was a NASA public affairs officer for the Johnson Space Center and a communication officer for the International Space Station. She is a passionate advocate for the people and their stories of science and space exploration, now sharing their stories on stage, in workshops, and on her podcast, "Casual Space." She serves on the Space Camp Alumni Board and as a Space Drinks board member, and is an Analog Astronaut.

Summer of Skylab: Jack Stokes

September 6th, 2023  |  43 mins 4 secs

nasa, skylab, space

May of 2023 was the fiftieth anniversary of the launch of Skylab. The US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, celebrated with the Summer of Skylab – a series of presentations, educational panels, and celebrity events taking place through November. This special episode features retired NASA Human Factors Engineer Jack Stokes. Efficient, safe, and comfortable interactions between the machinery and the human astronauts on board SkyLab was made possible through the research and designs of the Human Factors Engineers at Marshall Space Flight Center.

Summer of Skylab: Richard Hoover

August 15th, 2023  |  34 mins 52 secs

nasa, skylab, space

May of 2023 was the fiftieth anniversary of the launch of Skylab. The US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, is celebrating with the Summer of Skylab – a series of presentations, educational panels, and celebrity events taking place through November. This special episode features retired NASA physicist Richard Hoover. Hoover worked on the ATM Experiment S-056 grazing incidence X-ray telescope that captured more than 25,000 solar Xray images from Skylab. Skylab.

Summer of Skylab: Kenny Mitchell

July 5th, 2023  |  35 mins 40 secs

engineering, nasa, rockets, skylab, space

May of 2023 was the fiftieth anniversary of the launch of Skylab. The US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, celebrated with the Summer of Skylab – a series of presentations, educational panels, and celebrity events taking place through November. This special episode features retired NASA engineer Kenny Mitchell. Mitchell worked at the Marshall Space Flight Center on the development of the Saturn V rocket and developed Environmental Control and Life Support Systems for Skylab.

Episode 27: Josh Whitfield

May 15th, 2023  |  35 mins 7 secs

Josh Whitfield is a United States Army veteran awarded the purple heart for his service in Iraq. Today, he is a political consultant and works as the District Director to California State Assemblymember Heath Flora. Josh attended Aviation Challenge 13 times in his youth and is a member of the Space Camp Hall of Fame.

Episode 26: Kirby Runyon

April 27th, 2023  |  35 mins 34 secs

Dr. Kirby Runyon is a Space Camp alumni and planetary geologist at the Planetary Science Institute. He has flown 16 parabolic flights, accumulating more than an hour of time spent in weightlessness. He owns a technical and space tourism consulting company, guiding clients through parabolic flights and teaching future astronauts about the geology they will see from space.

Episode 25: Gretchen Green

March 23rd, 2023  |  29 mins 38 secs

space

Dr. Gretchen Green is a Brown, Yale, and Harvard educated radiologist practicing in North Carolina. She attended Space Camp four times, and served as a crew trainer. Dr. Green served on the U.S. Space & Rocket Center Education Foundation's Board of Directors as the alumni representative, and is currently the active chairman of the Space Camp Alumni Association Board. She now serves as the active secretary to the U.S. Space & Rocket Center Education Foundation's Board of Directors as well.

Episode 24: Danny Jaques

March 15th, 2023  |  24 mins 44 secs

Danny Jaques is a retired school teacher from Colorado. In his three decades of teaching, Danny helped with fundraising and chaperoned more than 500 students to Space Camp. He is a member of the Space Camp Hall of Fame, and owns Danny's Rocket Ranch, selling dehydrated space salsa and donating a portion of the profits to continue funding Space Camp Scholarships.

Episode 23: Director Harry Winer

January 30th, 2023  |  34 mins 31 secs

education, film, nasa, rocket, rockets, science, science-fiction, space, space camp, spacex, stem

Harry Winer is a director, producer, and writer in the film and television industry. His television work includes Alias, Veronica Mars, Felicity, Hart to Hart, and many others. Harry is president of Smash Media and has written, directed, or produced over 25 films, including Space Camp in 1986. He is a professor at NYU and is a member of the Space Camp Hall of Fame.

Episode 22: Lt. Col. Burke Hare

November 22nd, 2022  |  41 mins 20 secs

deep space nine, engineering, enterprise, for all mankind, graphic design, nasa, rockets, science, space, space force, spacex, star, star trek, stem, trekkie, voyager

Lt. Col. Burke Hare was a U.S. Air Force space and missile operator whose career has included overseeing the maintenance and operations of ICBMs and improvements made to the GPS satellite system. He is a Space Camp Hall of Fame member and is currently Program Manager Space Operations with the Space Development Agency at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville Alabama.