logo
episode-header-image
Mar 2019
40m 33s

XX Factor | The Woman Who Put Man on the...

Wondery
About this episode
Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin are preparing to land on the Moon. The whole world is watching live on television. But something is very wrong, their warning alarms are flashing and they don't know what it is. There’s only one woman who can fix it: MIT software engineer Margaret Hamilton.This is the first episode of a special series with Smithsonia ... Show More
Up next
Apr 2019
Airplane | The Flight of the June Bug | S11-E1
Think for a moment about some of the pioneering developments from the earliest days of American aviation: The first pilot’s licence; the first flight from one city to another; the first airplane sold commercially. More than a century later, most people attribute these milestones ... Show More
44m 15s
May 2019
Star Wars' Cinema Technology | 6842 Valjean Ave | S12-E1
When STAR WARS debuted in May 1977, it gave rise to a pop-cultural phenomenon unlike any the world had ever seen. The movie was so singular and iconic, and so technically ambitious -- that it almost never came to be.To bring Star Wars to the screen, new technology had to be inven ... Show More
43m 15s
Jun 2019
The Birth Control Pill | But Can It Be Done? | S13-E1
When Margaret Sanger opened her birth control clinic in 1916, she knew she was breaking the law. Distributing contraceptives, or even literature about birth control, was a jailable offense. But she didn’t care. As a nurse, Sanger had sworn to devote herself to the welfare of thos ... Show More
40m 56s
Recommended Episodes
Dec 2020
Astronaut Stephanie Wilson Might Walk on the Moon
Engineer and astronaut Stephanie Wilson was a toddler when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin visited the Moon. She may someday almost literally walk in their footsteps. Stephanie is one of 18 astronauts--9 women and 9 men--chosen for the Artemis Team. We also welcome back Cassini-Hu ... Show More
49m 14s
Jun 2019
Episode 3: Moon Girl
Meet the scientists who are making big discoveries by studying some very tiny rocks. The women of NASA’s Mid-Atlantic Noble Gas Research Laboratory (MNGRL) are getting ready to analyze never-before-seen Moon samples. These samples, collected by Apollo astronauts and brought back ... Show More
9m 38s
Nov 2022
Rocket women: How a secret program paved the way for female astronauts
Get ready for an out-of-this-world episode! Joy and co-host Elsa are trapped in a black hole with a baby elephant and a mountain of old junk! They’ll explore the history of a super secret astronaut testing program for women called the “Fellow Lady Astronaut Trainees.” This group ... Show More
38m 14s
Nov 2017
The First Woman on the Moon
If history had been kinder, aviator Wally Funk might have become the first woman on the Moon. In the early 1960s, she was one of 13 female pilots who passed the same physical tests as the Mercury 7 astronauts. Unfortunately her chance never came and no one has walked on the Moon ... Show More
49m 49s
Apr 2019
T-minus 3
Introducing 13 Minutes to the Moon, with Apollo 7 astronaut Walt Cunningham and former Apollo engineer Poppy Northcutt - the first woman to work as an engineer in an operational support role in NASA's Mission Control. 
2m 45s
Jul 2019
The Glass Stratosphere
What if women had been among the first to head to the moon? A NASA physician thought that wasn't such a far fetched idea back in the 1960s. He developed the physical and psychological tests used to select NASA's first male astronauts, and ran those same test on women, who thought ... Show More
26m 41s
May 2019
Ep.02 Kids in control
The unsung heroes who saved the day. "Here’s some 26-year-old kid, who could stop the lunar mission." An alarm appears on the on-board computer, but what does it mean? With Kevin Fong. Starring: Steve Bales Charlie Duke John Aaron Glynn Lunney Gerry Griffin Jerry Bostick Gene Kra ... Show More
47m 52s
Jan 2023
Moonshot
It's episode 100, LET'S GO TO THE MOON! The 1969 Apollo 11 landing was iconic, but what happened to the earlier missions? What kind of impact did it have on pop culture and the Cold War? Why are there so many conspiracy theories? And most importantly - who was the first person to ... Show More
50m 1s