Main Engine Cut Off

There are a ton of launches happening this month, but as we close out the year, there isn’t a lot to dissect at the strategic and political level like I like to do here. For that reason, I figured I’d do something different this week and give you a look at my own podcast feed and what space-related shows I listen to during the week.

I’m going to go alphabetically through my subscriptions since I’d have a hard time ranking these by priority or anything like that.

Are We There Yet?: Each episode is 20–30 minutes long and is always an interesting, insightful conversation between Brendan and someone in the industry. I really enjoy the breadth of topics covered, and the straight-from-the-horse’s-mouth nature of the show.

The Orbital Mechanics: David and Ben will keep you up to date on everything going on in space. It’s not only news, though. They do a lot of interviews, tell stories of spaceflight history, and don’t shy away from the gritty technical details in any of it.

Planetary Radio: I’ll be honest, not every episode is my cup of tea. But, they do some great interviews, and once a month they do a space policy-focused episode which I always enjoy.

The Space Show: A longer-form, daily, talk radio-style show. Again, you probably won’t be interested in every single episode, but I’m sure you’ll find some worth listening to in full. There’s a mix of recurring guests and one-off interviews. Gwynne Shotwell has even been on the show.

SPEXcast: This one is hosted by a group of students at Rochester Institute of Technology, so it’s definitely got an engineering streak to it. If you like that sort of thing, you’ll love it. Be sure to check out episode 20 when they interviewed Tory Bruno.

Talking Space: A sometimes-frequent-sometimes-not longer-form discussion of current events, news, and policy topics. The group of hosts have very varied viewpoints, which makes it a enjoyable show.

WeMartians: If you’ve been a reader and/or listener for more than a few months, you know Jake from WeMartians—he and I did some crossover episodes surrounding the SpaceX IAC announcement. His show is (obviously) Mars-focused, but covers a wide variety of Mars-related topics—current and near-future missions, space habitats, psychological considerations for human missions, and so on. Really worth adding to your subscription list.

Thank you!

Thanks for reading the eighth issue of Main Engine Cut Off Weekly. Each week, I bring you what I find interesting and important in spaceflight, and you can get it however you like best—blog, podcast, or this here column. If you like what I’m doing, I’d really appreciate your support. Head over to Patreon and become a patron for as little as $1 per month. Everything I do is supported entirely by readers and listeners like you, and every little bit of support helps. Big thanks to those of you out there supporting!

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Thanks for reading, and I’ll talk to you next week.

— Anthony