Houston, we have a podcast. Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center,

episode 132 Early Space Stations. I'm Gary Jordan and I'll be your host today.

If you're new to the show, we bring in NASA experts, scientists, engineers,

astronauts, historians, we bring them on to dive deep into everything human spaceflight.

We're coming up on 20 years of continuous human presence on the International Space Station, an orbiting

platform that has provided countless insights into living and working in space.

It's brought us more of an understanding about the universe, about the effects of

gravity, about the

benefits that research can bring to all of humankind,

the International Space Station has taught us what humans

are truly capable of and inspired so many more

to do and pursue great things.

All because in the pursuit of human space exploration,

space stations have held an important status in its history.

And generations of space explorers before us

and even early thinkers knew this pursuit was so important.

So today we're taking a journey through history and the history of space stations.

Coming on the podcast today is Dr. Gary Kitmacher, communications and education

mission manager in the International Space Station Program. Kitmacher has worked at

NASA for 35 years and has written several books about space stations including NASA's

reference guide to the ISS and he's also taught several courses about space station

space flight and space commercialization at MIT Sloan School of Management and the University of Houston.

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