Guest: Marianne Dyson was our guest for this Space Show program as we discussed her role in the early days of NASA as one of the first ten female flight controllers. Since 2008 marks 50 years of the United States space program, there is much to learn by becoming familiar with our space history. Ms. Dyson worked on the first five shuttle flights and shared stories about these flights, plus what it was like working on them at the time. Not only do we learn insights about NASA in these early years of the shuttle regarding crews, the shuttle, and female employees, but we get an insider look at the type of problems that took place on the early missions and ways in which problems were solved. We also learned how the shuttle was tested first with a crew of two, then up to four, then five, and finally a full crew of seven astronauts. You will certainly want to hear what Marianne has to say about this part of our space history. There is laughter as well as fear. In fact, she told us that STS-5 was the scariest for her so listen to her story. Think back to Nov. 11, 1982, 26 years ago from this show, as the times were quite different then, the support was different and as you will hear, the technology was different. Listen through the perspective of the times of the day, 1982! Marianne shared many stories with us about employment back then and some issues that came up regarding the women employees. She mentioned the first space walk and STS-7 with the first woman astronaut on board. Marianne Dyson has a book that you can check out, "Space And Astronomy." Visit http://www.mariannedyson.com/publications.html for information on this and other books she has written. Her website is http://www.mariannedyson.com and if you want to send her a comment or question, you can do through the contact link on her website or emailing mariannedyson@yahoo.com.
Guest
The Space Show
