![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
merrileemakes posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
voiceinmyear13 Minutes to the Moon is a podcast about the history of NASA, rich with both current and saved interviews and audio recordings of transmissions between astronauts and mission control. It's well made, well researched and well presented. But it is also the centre of a bit of ~drama~.
In one of the earliest episodes there was a throwaway comment about how the show knows that including diverse voices is important, but they really want to focus on the raw details from people who were actually there, and the people that were actually there were straight, white men so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
Which is, frankly, bullshit.
But the first season, about Apollo 11 and then the second, about Apollo 13, was interesting enough.
But then, podcast osmosis happened. Season 3 of 13 Minutes, about the space shuttles, was released with a new British-Nigerian woman hosting, a more dramatic and less technical vibe and waaaay more diverse voices. Like, a lot more. And the previous presenter, Kevin Fong, kickstarted for his own podcast series about the space shuttles, 16 Sunsets. Which is... curious.
Both shows focus heavily on the Challenger disaster but their approaches are pretty different. 13 Minutes season 3 very much goes into the heartfelt tragedy of the disaster, especially the loss of the 'teacher in space' Christine McAuliffe and then dives headlong into the inquiries into why the disaster happened (pretty much administrative error). It also focuses quite a bit on how NASA had to change their astronaut recruiting practices to expand it beyond test pilots, to maintain their social licence to operate in a world that was demanding change.
In contrast, 16 Sunsets tend to gloss over these 'softer' aspects of the space shuttle program and dive more into recordings of missions and launches. It also covers the Challenger disaster, but with much less detail and pretty much summarises it as "there were 1000 mission critical bits of the shuttle, one of them was going to go wrong sooner or later". Ouch.
I can't find any real reason for the split into the 2 duelling detailed-retrospective-of-NASA's-space-shuttle-program podcasts, apart from an interview with Kevin Fong on yet another podcast talking about going 'independent'.
I do think 16 Sunsets suffers a bit for its independence - when 13 Minutes is getting interviews with a woman who was in the room designing the shuttle, 16 Sunsets is interviewing the son of the guy who ran the shuttle design program and how he made paper airplanes in the backyard with his dad. But it's also hard to compare, because the 16 Sunsets feed went dark after 4 episodes and a few bonuses.
Ultimately, I like both podcasts. I'd recommend both. But I also need a third podcast detailing the reasons split!
In one of the earliest episodes there was a throwaway comment about how the show knows that including diverse voices is important, but they really want to focus on the raw details from people who were actually there, and the people that were actually there were straight, white men so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
Which is, frankly, bullshit.
But the first season, about Apollo 11 and then the second, about Apollo 13, was interesting enough.
But then, podcast osmosis happened. Season 3 of 13 Minutes, about the space shuttles, was released with a new British-Nigerian woman hosting, a more dramatic and less technical vibe and waaaay more diverse voices. Like, a lot more. And the previous presenter, Kevin Fong, kickstarted for his own podcast series about the space shuttles, 16 Sunsets. Which is... curious.
Both shows focus heavily on the Challenger disaster but their approaches are pretty different. 13 Minutes season 3 very much goes into the heartfelt tragedy of the disaster, especially the loss of the 'teacher in space' Christine McAuliffe and then dives headlong into the inquiries into why the disaster happened (pretty much administrative error). It also focuses quite a bit on how NASA had to change their astronaut recruiting practices to expand it beyond test pilots, to maintain their social licence to operate in a world that was demanding change.
In contrast, 16 Sunsets tend to gloss over these 'softer' aspects of the space shuttle program and dive more into recordings of missions and launches. It also covers the Challenger disaster, but with much less detail and pretty much summarises it as "there were 1000 mission critical bits of the shuttle, one of them was going to go wrong sooner or later". Ouch.
I can't find any real reason for the split into the 2 duelling detailed-retrospective-of-NASA's-space-shuttle-program podcasts, apart from an interview with Kevin Fong on yet another podcast talking about going 'independent'.
I do think 16 Sunsets suffers a bit for its independence - when 13 Minutes is getting interviews with a woman who was in the room designing the shuttle, 16 Sunsets is interviewing the son of the guy who ran the shuttle design program and how he made paper airplanes in the backyard with his dad. But it's also hard to compare, because the 16 Sunsets feed went dark after 4 episodes and a few bonuses.
Ultimately, I like both podcasts. I'd recommend both. But I also need a third podcast detailing the reasons split!
no subject
Date: 2025-12-09 03:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-12-18 01:39 am (UTC)