Supplemental 9: Where Does the Time Go? (Schedule Update)

It’s been a long time since the last episode of the podcast was posted. What’s going on? Fear not, dear listener, it’s all good news. Well, mostly good news. And really it’s more good for me than for you but– you know what, just give the supplemental a listen.

Episode Audio #

Purdue Homework #

Want to see what’s keeping me so busy? What could possibly be taking 25+ hours a week? Behold! Problem Set 7! (click to view PDF)

Changes at Work #

My new theme song:

Transcript #

NOTE: This transcript was made by me just copying and pasting the script that I read to make the podcast. I often tweak the phrasing on the fly and then forget to update the script, so this is not guaranteed to align perfectly with the episode audio, but it should be pretty close. Also, since these are really only intended to be read by myself, I might use some funky punctuation to help remind myself how I want a sentence to flow, so don’t look to these as a grammar reference. If you notice any egregious transcription errors or notes to myself that I neglected to remove, feel free to let me know and I’ll fix it.

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Hello, and welcome to The Space Above Us. Supplemental 9, Where does the time go?

Hey everybody! At the time of this recording, it’s been a little over two months since the last episode of the podcast came out. I know the schedule has been slipping lately, but that’s just ridiculous. And since I’m still not entirely sure when the next proper episode can come out, and not everyone watches the updates page on the show’s website, I figured it was about time I update everyone on what’s going on.

The main reason the episode is so late is actually good news. Well, good news for me, probably not for people who listen to the podcast as new episodes come out: I’ve been accepted into the Aerospace Engineering program at Purdue University, where I’m hard at work earning a Master’s degree. It’s an online program, so you’re not going to see me around campus, but it’s the same stuff that the on-campus students are learning, just filmed through a camera in the back of the classroom.

Now, I expected that the podcast schedule might take a minor hit as I adjusted to this new demand on my time, but I did not anticipate that my first class, AAE 532 Orbit Mechanics, is apparently a notorious time sink. For context, lately I’ve been logging around 25 hours a week on lectures and homework, and hit just shy of 30 hours a few weeks ago. If you’re curious what could be taking so much time, I’ve posted a PDF with one of my recent homework submissions on the show notes page. So needless to say, I’ve been a little fried. That said, I am slowly adapting to this increased workload and finding ways to continue the stuff that’s important to me, stuff like this here podcast. I also expect that while none of my upcoming classes will be easy, most should hopefully be a little less of a demand on my time, which will improve the podcast schedule situation.

Also battling for mental bandwidth has been some changes at work. I’m never entirely clear on what it’s OK for me to talk about openly with my job, but I think it’s pretty safe for me to read from a public NASA website. “Announcement from NASA Headquarters: Pursuant to appropriations law, NASA notified Congress on September 4th of the intent to cancel OSAM-1. The agency confirmed with the Committees on Appropriations that there is no objection to cancellation, and on October 1st, began proceeding with an orderly shutdown.” It continues from there, but I think you get the idea. So yeah! That’s sure not ideal. But don’t worry, I pretty quickly found a new home on a new mission. I’ll save any details until I’m sure I can get into them, but let’s just say that when humans next set foot on the moon, I will have played a teeny tiny role in helping to make it happen.

So what is the state of the next episode? Well, it’s actually mostly done. It was just a bit of bad timing that the Expedition 1 mission happened to land right as things in my life were getting a little hectic. Long duration missions require a pretty different approach than the typical short Shuttle missions we’ve grown accustomed to, and they require more time for me to put together. But all the reading has been done for weeks now, and almost all of the detailed outline is written. I still need to comb through my notes in the nearly 100 page long ISS Crew log and add that info to the outline, and then there’s still the actual writing and recording of the episode, but the end is in sight.

If you’re listening to this supplemental as it comes out and you’re really hurting for space podcasts, you’re in luck! The legendary Mike Duncan is back at it again, both with a new history show featuring him and Alexis Coe, and also with a new arc of the Revolutions podcast. I bring this up because the latest arc is covering the fictional future Martian Revolution, written 250 years after the events. It’s as if the podcasting gods looked into my head and said “what would make this particular human most happy”. The first few episodes are out now and covers these future events with the exact same diligent and thoughtful approach he brought to the English, American, French, Haitian, and other revolutions. If you like this show, and if you’ve liked Mike Duncan’s past work, I can’t recommend it enough.

OK, I think that’s enough for now. I really am sorry to keep you all waiting, and I hope the new episode will be worth the wait. And I offer my sincere thanks for all of you who have written in with kind words, and to the folks on the The Space Above Us discord who have expressed their excitement for these new developments in my life. It means a lot.

Ad Astra, catch you on the next pass.