Herb Baker — retired NASA manager, 42-year agency veteran, and author of the memoir From Apollo to Artemis: Stories From My 50 Years With NASA — joins Tammy and Tim for the return of Roundabout: Creative Chaos after a six-and-a-half-year hiatus, and the timing couldn't be more fitting.

Baker spent his entire career at Johnson Space Center, Kennedy Space Center, and NASA Headquarters, finishing as Manager of the Operations Support Office at JSC — a role that put him in direct support of the Astronaut Office, Mission Control, NASA Aircraft Operations, and astronaut training. Long before that, as a teenager growing up just miles from the Manned Spacecraft Center, Baker worked for ABC Television as a film courier during the Apollo missions, running 16mm footage from Houston to Intercontinental Airport twice a day so the networks could broadcast it in New York. He did that for Apollo 11, 12, 13, and 15. His mother, meanwhile, was the NASA seamstress photographed at the sewing machine stitching the parasol that replaced Skylab's lost micrometeoroid heat shield — a story Baker tells with pride. Since retiring in 2017, he has served as an Officer on the Board of Directors of the NASA Alumni League–JSC and volunteers with STEM-engagement organizations, including the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation and Space Center Houston. He is also an alumnus of the University of Texas at Austin and has appeared in 22 theatre productions.

The conversation covers an enormous amount of ground: what it was like to be a 17-year-old film runner during Apollo 11, the Challenger and Columbia disasters and NASA's annual day of remembrance, the Artemis II heat shield concerns and how NASA managed the risk, the woodpecker attack on a Space Shuttle external tank, Baker's decision to self-publish using Scrivener and Kindle Direct Publishing, why a conversation with Apollo 13 astronaut Fred Haise helped him choose independence over a hybrid publisher, his unexpected return to community theatre after decades away — including landing the lead role in Miracle on 34th Street — and what he's working on next, including a second book drawing on his own experience surviving squamous cell carcinoma.

Mentioned in this episode:

• From Apollo to Artemis
• Herb Baker's website
• Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain

Category: Science & Nature > Physics & Cosmology

After a six-and-a-half-year hiatus, Tammy Coron and Tim Mitra are back, and this episode is just the two of them catching up before the new season gets going.

They piece together how Tim became co-host in the first place — he was a guest before stepping in on Jay Bonasenga's episode — and why they stopped the show, and how the editing process was a major factor in that decision.

Tim also brings Tammy up to speed on his two active shows, More Than Just Code and Spockcast.

The conversation also covers the animated Firefly announcement, Brent Spiner and Jonathan Frakes having podcasts, and the surreal fact that people have apparently been listening to old Roundabout episodes throughout the entire hiatus.

Mentioned in this episode:

• raywenderlich.com
• More Than Just Code
• Spockcast
• Once We Were Spacemen
• Dropping Names

Find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you listen to podcasts.

Category: Arts & Culture

Join Tammy Coron and Tim Mitra on Episode 142, which was recorded on October 23, 2019.

On this episode, they talk with Mike Vinakmens.

For the past ten years, Mike's been an award-winning copywriter and Creative Director. He's written and produced hundreds of commercials for TV, radio and digital. He's now shifting gears and pulling that experience into the world of voice over.

If you like listening to Roundabout: Creative Chaos, and you want to know how you can help support the show, please visit our website at RoundaboutFM.com for details.