The Rocket Ranch

The Rocket Ranch welcomes Dana Hutcherson, deputy manager for the Commercial Crew program. She'll talk about the mission ahead, reflect on the program's 10-year anniversary and share her personal journey with NASA.

The spotlights came on in the predawn hours of April 12th 1981, illuminating a spacecraft like no other, the space shuttle. Just before liftoff, Columbia's crew climbed inside for the very first test flight into space.

When instrumentation controller JoAnn Morgan was in Firing Room number One for the historic moonshot in 1969, she was the only woman. NASA has come a long way since. Today, the very same firing room is led by a woman, and 30% of the engineers supporting NASA's Artemis Moon program are women, too.

The Rocket Ranch welcomes Sheldon Lauderdale, Program Analyst for NASA's Commercial Crew Program, to share where he draws inspiration and talk about his role supporting NASA’s efforts to expand diversity and inclusion to empower the next generation of explorers.

After a 300 million mile journey through space, the Mars Perseverance Rover is ready to begin the most challenging part of the trip, landing on the red planet. If successful, it will embark on the most advanced mission ever sent here, to discover if life ever existed on Mars.

On this episode of the Rocket Ranch Podcast, we remember Challenger, her crew and their survivors, and how we carry forward the lessons NASA learned with the director of the Apollo Challenger Columbia Lessons Learned Program.

Astronaut Chris Hadfield flew to space three times, and was the first Canadian to walk in space. His cover of David Bowie's Space Oddity that he recorded on the International Space Station has over 47 million views, and as you're about to hear, he's given a lot of thought to the future of space exploration, and what it can mean for all of us.

The NASA Kennedy Launch team has persevered through a global pandemic to get a Mars Rover named Perseverance to the launch pad on time. The cloud of doubt the virus cast over the Mars mission and how NASA overcame it, next on the Rocket Ranch.

Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley will make history when they break the bond from Earth in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule that's never been flown by humans before. But find out how the strong bond of friendship they share gives them the edge in space.

And with the number one overall pick in the Kennedy Space Center NFL Draft, NASA selects Jacksonville, Jaguar quarterback and aerospace engineer Josh Dobbs. Next on the Rocket Ranch.

Pluto is not a planet...or is it? Next on the "Rocket Ranch.”

Sometimes history inspires us. Sometimes we find ourselves in the middle of history being made. Now we are in the middle of the most aggressive push for the Moon since we landed there the first time 50 years ago.

Commercial and government partnerships and contracts might not sound that fascinating, but when we're talking about certifying Boeing Starliner to carry humans to space, the challenges and complexities become a whole lot more interesting.

Rockets are dangerous. And before we strap our star sailors in, we need to know there is a proven escape plan.

The air-launched Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL is the vehicle selected to launch NASA's Ionospheric Connection Explorer, or ICON.

For over 20 years, NASA's Launch Services Program (LSP) has been the workhorse of uncrewed spaceflight, enabling exploration of Pluto, the Sun, the Earth and other worlds. In this episode, we hear from Amanda Mitskevich and Chuck Dovale - two leaders within LSP.

Every member of the NASA team is critical to our success, even if they're still finishing school. In this episode, we hear from two of our summer interns, Amber George and Peter Henson, during their first week here and their first impressions.

In this episode,we unpack the need and value of test flights with Jon Cowart, as well as dig into the recent, successful, second test of Orion’s Launch Abort System with Carlos Garcia.

NASA looks back at the Apollo era and ahead at the Artemis missions to come.

We're looking back at the Space Station Processing Facility, or SSPF, as it turns 25 years old.

NASA’s latest exploration goals center on returning humans to the Moon – not just for a visit, but to stay. At the center of that plan is Gateway. It’s a small lunar outpost that will have living quarters, laboratories for science and research, docking ports for visiting spacecraft, and more.

NASA has a reputation for creating history changing technology, and much of that technology is available to you right now. One of our secrets to success is that we aren’t developing all of this by ourselves. We’re leveraging industry and students to make innovative leaps.

On this episode of Rocket Ranch we catch up with several members of Commercial Crew to talk about the past, present and future of the program.

As we plan to send humans farther into our solar system than ever before, we must overcome a myriad of challenges. And at the top of the heap… is trash. Just like here on Earth, humans in space create trash—but we don’t have interstellar landfills. What we do have are super smart scientists and engineers working on converting trash to gas.

In this episode, we sit down with the Space Shuttle commander who officially began construction of the ISS in space. Former astronaut Bob Cabana recounts his experiences in being the first American on station and turning on the lights.

When people think of the Kennedy Space Center, rockets are what likely come to mind. But we have more than rocket scientists here on the Space Coast. In this episode, we meet a few Ranch hands with odd jobs you may not expect to find around these parts.

In this episode, hear from two powerhouses in NASA’s Launch Services Program: Mic Woltman, chief of Fleet Systems and Integration, and Launch Director Tim Dunn.

As we prepare to launch humans into space on new American-made rockets and spacecraft, it's more important than ever that we revisit what led to two of the most tragic days in NASA's human space flight history.

Even though our Sun shines bright in the sky, it is shrouded in mystery. In this episode, we'll sit down with scientists working to get us closer to the Sun than ever before.

The soil beneath your feet, the food on your table, the roof over your head... these are luxuries on Mars. Getting there isn’t a problem, it’s surviving once you land. In this episode we’ll sit down with scientists and engineers exploring our planetary neighbor and preparing for the survival of those who brave the journey.

Introducing the official podcast from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center - or, as we call it, the Rocket Ranch. What makes rockets fly? It’s people - regular men and women doing extraordinary things. During this podcast series, we’re going to introduce you to some of them.