Shows
16 SunsetsColumbia ReturnsApril 12th 1981. Bob Crippen and John Young are in orbit around the Earth. Travelling at 17,500 miles an hour, with the world turning majestically beneath them, they witness 16 sunrises and sixteen sunsets every 24 hours. They have survived the violence of launch but the mission has run into a potential life-threatening problem. Crippen has just beamed footage down to mission control of missing tiles on the Shuttle’s OMS pods. If tiles are missing there, what about the underside of the orbiter, where the heat of reentry could cause catastrophic damage? Whilst Gene Kranz tries to re-assure the world’s press that eve...
2025-03-2757 min16 SunsetsColumbia RisingApril 12 1981. STS-1. Space Shuttle Columbia now stands proud on pad 39A at Cape Canaveral. After more than a decade of development, planning and assembly, NASA approaches its moment of truth.The most complex flying machine ever built, two and half million moving parts, hundreds of mission critical components with no back up, brought together in a two thousand tonne stack of propellant, boosters and rocket engines which - when lit - will unleash energy enough to carry its astronaut crew and their vessel into orbit around the Earth. The first all up test of a NASA...
2025-03-1346 min16 SunsetsAbort, Abort, Abort!The command ‘Abort RTLS’ was the last thing that astronauts on board the space shuttle wanted to hear from mission control. It meant that one or two of the shuttle’s main engines had failed in the first couple of minutes after lift-off and that the crew’s only hope of a safe landing was a blood-curdling manoeuvre at super-sonic speeds. The Return to Launch Site abort mode was an astronautic U-turn, aimed at getting the hobbled spacecraft back to the launch site at Kennedy Space Center. RTLS was one of several abort scenarios for which shuttle crews had to train, a...
2025-02-131h 0216 SunsetsEnterprise!12 August 1977. In the air, high above the Mojave desert, Apollo 13’s Fred Haise is at the controls of the Space Shuttle prototype. Alongside him is Gordon Fullerton. Cruising at 27 thousand feet, the vehicle is bolted to the back of a Boeing 747. It is the mother of all piggy-back rides. But this 68-tonne spacecraft is about to get its wings, as the moment approaches for the first free flight of the USS Enterprise. Haise pushes the button to blow the bolts - for a moment the shuttle lifts free, as the 747 dives away. But then - the master alarm is so...
2024-12-0558 min16 SunsetsThe Dreamers It’s 1968 and humanity reaches the Moon, but back on Earth, NASA is fighting for its life. As Apollo 8 makes history, the space agency faces a crisis. With the Vietnam War raging, political assassinations and social unrest gripping America, public interest in space exploration is dwindling, even before Neil Armstrong takes that one giant leap for mankind. To survive, NASA gambles on a radical new program: the Space Shuttle - a reusable spacecraft promising a new era of spaceflight, but it comes at a cost – a Faustian bargain with the US military, that will reshape its dreams and NASA's destiny...
2024-11-0739 min
TGP NOMINALTGP NOMINAL 9.8Welcome to the first episode of the new look TGP NOMINAL Podcast!
John Berger comes back to the fold with Mark Taylor for some Trans-Atlantic banter.
We have our monthly Sky Guide in conjunction with UK Astronomy.
Wil Photography from Twice Brewed Stargazing brings you his twist on a TGP NOMINAL favourite,
as Objects Of The Month returns to the show.
Plus, we have a Special Guest in the form of Kate Arkless Gray (AKA SpaceKate)
who chats with Mark and John about her time at the Atremis 1 launch and her...
2023-03-071h 44
Electric Vehicle Podcast: EV news and discussionsEV Podcast: John Arkless - Audi TT EV ConversionThis week I chat with John Arkless about his 2000 Audi TT EV Conversion he made over 4 and half years in Christchurch New Zealand. It's a bit of techie discussion but very interesting for those looking at building their own EV's.For Photos and video go to https://flic.kr/s/aHsmNLZTLX
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp
2020-06-2534 min