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Blue Dot

Blue Dot: America's first satellite: the inside story of Explorer 1 and JPL

By Dave Schlom,
Matt Fidler
Published February 18, 2022 at 10:24 AM PST

Dave gets to talk about one of his favorite topics, spaceflight history, with NASA/JPL Historian Eric Conway. We cover the roots of the CalTech Pasadena rocketry program that helped the U.S. catch up with the Soviet Union with the launch of Explorer 1 in January of 1958, three months after Sputnik. It is a tale of politics, history and yes -- rocket science!

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Blue Dot ScienceNASA
Dave Schlom
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.
See stories by Dave Schlom
Matt Fidler
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.
See stories by Matt Fidler