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Blue Dot: Gerry Griffin and the movies! A NASA legend and his roles in Hollywood films

Gerry Griffin in front of his trailer on set for Fly Me To The Moon (Apple 2024).
Gerry Griffin
Gerry Griffin in front of his trailer on set for Fly Me To The Moon (Apple 2024).
Gerry Griffin on the set of Contact with Jodie Foster (Warner Brothers 1997)
Gerry Griffin on the set of Contact with Jodie Foster (Warner Brothers 1997)

Host Dave Schlom visits with his good friend retired NASA Flight Director Gerry Griffin. But instead of talking about the space program, this time, they discuss Griffin's amazing experiences on major studio film projects.

Starting with Ron Howard's Apollo 13 in 1995, Griffin has been a consultant for and even an actor in a few major motion pictures, including Contact (1997) with Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey, Deep Impact (1998) with Robert Duvall and last year's Apple original film Fly Me To The Moon. 

Gerry shares experiences and memories from his time on the sets and how there is a powerful analog between both the making of major motion pictures and the space program!

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.