In 1946, Swedish and Finnish observers reported "ghost rockets" flying over Scandinavia. In the United States, they became known as "flying saucers." Historian Greg Eghigian discusses the science and culture of UFOs in the twentieth century (rebroadcast).
Scott Wallace talks about his recent trip to Brazil reporting on the efforts of the Guajajara people to protect uncontacted tribes from loggers, miners, and poachers.
Richard Ivan Jobs talks about the rise of backpacking in Europe after the Second World War, a phenomenon that contributed to the political integration of Europe during the 1960s and 1970s (rebroadcast).
Valerie Olson talks about why the idea of outer space as a "frontier" is giving way to one that frames it as a cosmic ecosystem. Olson is an associate professor of anthropology at University of California, Irvine. She is the author of Into the Extreme: U.S. Environmental Systems and Politics Beyond Earth .
Paige Madison talks about her work at the Liang Bua cave in Indonesia where she studies Homo Floresiensis as well as the team of researchers who have worked at the cave for years, sometimes for generations.
Nathan Smith discusses the psychology of exploration, specifically the psychology of performance in extreme environments. Smith worked closely with polar explorer Ben Saunders in 2013 as Saunders attempted to complete Robert Falcon Scott's trek to the South Pole and back.
Kate Harris -- writer, scientist, and extreme cyclist – talks about the trip she made with her friend Mel, tracing Marco Polo’s route across Central Asia and Tibet. The journey is the subject of Harris’s book, Lands of Lost Borders: a Journey on the Silk Road (rebroadcast).
Joyce Ashuntantang talks about her experiences as a traveler and a poet, from her childhood Cameroon to her years studying in Great Britain and the United States. Ashuntantang is a professor of English at Hillyer College, University of Hartford. She is the author of many works of poetry, including Beautiful Fire , published this year with Spears Media Press.
Anthropologist P.J. Capelotti discusses the role of exploration archaeology in understanding the Pacific voyage of Kon-Tiki, the Arctic airship expeditions of Walter Wellman, and the fate of Orca II, a fishing boat used in the film Jaws.
Emily Gibson talks about women, aviation, and global air travel. Gibson is an associate historian at the National Science Foundation.
Historian Max Edelson talk about the British Board of Trade’s ambitious project to explore and survey British America from the St Lawrence River to the islands of the Caribbean.
Anthropologist Lisa Messeri talks about planetary scientists and the way they use data to bring these places to life. Messeri is the author of Placing Out Space: An Earthly Ethnography of Other Worlds .
Michael Benson talks about the making of 2001, a movie inspired by the collaboration of American director Stanley Kubrick and the British futurist Arthur C. Clark.
Jason Smith discusses the U.S. Navy’s role in exploring and charting the ocean world. Smith is an assistant professor of history at Southern Connecticut State University. He’s the author of To Master the Boundless Sea: The U.S. Navy, the Marine Environment, and the Cartography of Empire.
Bill Rankin talks about the changes brought about by GPS and other mapping technologies in the twentieth century. Rankin is the author of After the Map: Cartography, Navigation, and the Transformation of Territory in the Twentieth Century .
Astronaut Garrett Reisman talks about life aboard the International Space Station. Reisman flew on two shuttle missions to the station and conducted three seven-hour spacewalks during his 107 days in space.
Andrea Pitzer talks about her book One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps , one of the Smithsonian’s Ten Best History Books for 2017
Paige Madison talks about her work at the Liang Bua cave in Indonesia where she studies Homo Floresiensis as well as the team of researchers who have worked at the cave for years, sometimes for generations.
Maria Nugent talks about Aboriginal Australians' first encounter with Captain Cook at Botany Bay, a violent meeting has come to represent the origin story of Australia’s colonial settlement.
Stewart Gillmor -- the sole American at Mirny Station in 1961 and 1962-- continues his discussion of life at the Soviet base: how communism plays out 10,000 miles from Moscow, the problems with planes in Antarctica, and what to do when the diesel generator dies at the coldest place in the world.
Stewart Gillmor talks about his fourteen-month stay at Mirny Station, the Soviet Union's Antarctica base. Gillmor was the sole American at Mirny in 1960-1962 during the height of the Cold War.
Historian Martin Thomas discusses the 1948 Arnhem Land expedition and the controversy that surrounds it. His new documentary, Etched in Bone, which he co-directed with Beatrice Bijon, traces the events of the expedition and its effects upon the aboriginal communities of Northern Australia.
Cole Kelleher talks about his work for the Polar Geospatial Center at the University of Minnesota, an agency that uses satellite data to make cutting-edge maps for the support of polar scientists in the field.
Broadcast journalist Jolene Laverty interviews me for ABC Radio Canberra. We talk about my exploration research, podcast, and recent work at Australian National University. Special thanks to ABC Radio Canberra for permission to post this interview.
Sean Cocco talks about the 1631 eruption of Vesuvius and its impact on Renaissance science and culture. Cocco is an associate professor of history at Trinity College. He is the author of Watching Vesuvius: A History of Science and Culture in Early Modern Italy .
Dr Joy McCann discusses the great circumpolar ocean that surrounds Antarctica. McCann is the author of Wild Sea: A History of the Southern Ocean. She is a historian at the Centre for Environmental History at Australian National University.
Historian Kate Sheppard discusses Egyptologist Margaret Alice Murray who was central to the field of British Egyptology at the turn of the twentieth century. Sheppard is the author of The Life of Margaret Alice Murray: A Woman’s Work in Archaeology (Rebroadcast).
Journalist Michael Kodas talks about the phenomenon of megafires, forest fires that burn over 100,000 acres, and why the number of these fires is increasing every year. (Rebroadcast)
Professor Stephan Bullard discusses the 2013 Ebola outbreak in West Africa which killed 11,000 people. It is the subject of his new book, A Day to Day Chronicle of the 2013-16 Ebola Outbreak (rebroadcast).
Emily Lakdawalla discusses the design and construction of Curiosity, formally known as the Mars Science Laboratory, one of the most sophisticated machines ever built.
