The Explorers Club - An Interview with George Nield

Curiosity Weekly

Warner Bros. Discovery

Self-improvement, Science, Astronomy, Education

4.6 • 935 Ratings

🗓️ 17 June 2022

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today, we’re talking to Explorers Club member, Dr. George C. Nield. Dr. George C. Nield is currently the Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation at the Federal Aviation Administration (or FAA). He has over 30 years of aerospace experience and has worked with the Air Force and NASA. Dr Nield came to the FAA from the Orbital Sciences Corporation, where he served as a Senior Scientist for the Advanced Programs Group. He has a wealth of experience from working as an Astronautical Engineer at the Space and Missile Systems Organization to working on the Shuttle/Mir Program and the International Space Station Program.

George Nield Interview from 4/23/22
Autonomous Flight: What We Mean and Why It’s First - Wisk Blog
- https://wisk.aero/news/blog/autonomous-flight-what-we-mean-and-why-its-first/#:~:text=By%20autonomy%2C%20we%20mean%20that,remote%20pilot%20on%20the%20ground
International Astronautical Federation (IAF) - Biographies - George Nield
- https://www.iafastro.org/biographie/george-nield.html

Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to get smarter with Calli and Nate — for free! Still curious? Get exclusive science shows, nature documentaries, and more real-life entertainment on discovery+! Go to https://discoveryplus.com/curiosity to start your 7-day free trial. discovery+ is currently only available for US subscribers.

Find episode transcripts here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/the-explorers-club-an-interview-with-george-nield

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	One day Dr. George C. Neild found himself somewhere few humans have ever gone before.
0:05.2	In March 2022, you were in space. Is that right?
0:10.1	That is right. How long were you there for?
0:12.1	The total mission was just a
0:15.1	suborbital space flight, so just up and back down just over 10 minutes, but it was
0:20.5	incredible and awesome experience.
0:23.4	It's called the final frontier for a reason.
0:25.3	Only a few hundred people in all of recorded human history
0:28.1	have been to space.
0:29.4	So statistically speaking, it's something very few of us will ever get to see, but many of us dream of experiencing.
0:35.5	George included.
0:36.5	So I've actually been interested in aviation and space my entire life and used to cut out newspaper articles and collect pictures
0:48.1	from Life magazine and make a scrapbook for myself as we were hearing about the
0:52.1	space chimps and Mercury astronauts and all the rest grew up,
0:57.2	studied math and science and went to the Air Force Academy to help me to learn more about the aerospace field and so forth.
1:03.2	It was in the Air Force and work for NASA and in the FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation.
1:08.2	So I've always had this interest in space, but it didn't appear that I was going to have a chance to personally. But he got lucky when Blue Origin announced they were auctioning off seats on some of their very first flights.
1:19.0	I flew on the fourth human space flight on March 31st.
1:23.0	That is amazing.
1:24.2	And then you came back down and it must have just
1:26.7	been the most surreal experience.
1:29.3	It was awesome, really.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Warner Bros. Discovery, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Warner Bros. Discovery and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.