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Blue Dot 178: Living In Isolation With Your "Family": A Conversation With Astronaut Peggy Whitson

NASA

 

 

Dave talks to retired NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson. She holds records for the most time in space for any American, any woman and commanded the International Space Station TWICE! Peggy shares her out of this world experiences by giving very down to Earth advice about how to deal with living in a confined space with your crew -- which for many of us, is our family. 

Peggy has spent 665 days in Earth orbit, enough time for a hypothetical round trip to Mars. Her story is one of remarkable perseverance, she spent years trying to make the astronaut corps before finally getting in but after she did, Whitson became one of NASA's most accomplished space explorers. And like Captain Kirk, she was born on a farm in Iowa!

Dave Schlom is the longtime host and creator of Blue Dot. From surfing to Voyager in interstellar space, rock guitar to orcas in our imperiled oceans, the topics on Blue Dot are as varied as the host’s interests and connections -- which are pretty limitless! An internationally respected space history journalist, Dave is also deeply fascinated by all aspects of the grand workings of nature’s awesome machinery on scales ranging from galactic to subatomic. And topics take in all aspects of the arts and sciences.
Matt Fidler is a producer and sound designer with over 15 years’ experience producing nationally distributed public radio programs. He has worked for shows such as Freakonomics Radio, Selected Shorts, Studio 360, The New Yorker Radio Hour and The Takeaway. In 2017, Matt launched the language podcast Very Bad Words, hitting the #28 spot in the iTunes podcast charts.