Designing a space station and other stories

The International Space Station. Credit: NASA.The International Space Station

Welcome to the Terranauts first episode of Season 2. On this episode we talk to Colleen Merchant who worked on the international team that designed and built the Space Station and the international flight control team that continues to support it on orbit today.

Her career has taken her from the Tropical heat of Houston summers to the frozen wasteland of Saint-Hubert, Quebec in January. She has worked for both NASA and the Canadian Space Agency in roles ranging from purely technical, to leading teams to strategic planning at the national level. She has developed new rendezvous procedures for the space shuttle and spent many hours in Mission Control watching those procedures play out on orbit.

The International Space Station elements. Credit: NASA.

About Season 2

This year on Terranauts we’re going to offer a mix of interviews with Terranauts, people who go to space all the time without leaving the planet, and we’re also planning regular installments of the Terranauts Guide to Leaving the Planet where we explore the history of humankind’s adventures off the planet.

The Show

Listen to and Subscribe to the Podcast

The podcast is also available on Anchor, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Castbox, Pocket Cast, RadioPublic, and through our RSS feed. You can also subscribe to the podcast using your favourite podcast app (iOS and Android).

About Iain Christie

Founder and CEO at SideKickSixtyFive Consulting and host of the Terranauts podcast. Iain is a seasoned business executive with deep understanding of the space business and government procurement policy. Iain worked for 22 years at Neptec including as CEO. He was a VP at the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada, is a mentor at the Creative Destruction Lab and a visiting professor at the University of Ottawa's Telfer School of Management.

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