Bea. Hello and welcome to the Space Policy Edition of Planetary Radio, the monthly show, where we explore

the politics and processes behind space exploration.

I'm Casey Dreyer, the chief of space policy here at the Planetary Society joined by this

month's co-host Jack Curley the director of our government relations Jack how

are you I'm doing well how are you? I'm doing well, how about you, Casey?

I'm great.

This is actually, this show is the 8th anniversary of planetary radio space policy edition,

which is wild to me we're almost at a decade decade so we have a very special guest and topic something I've been wanting to talk about for a long time

This is a paper episode so we are talking Jack and I about a great paper published by Roger Lownius, the former chief historian of NASA and a curator at the Smithsonian Institution, called Escaping Earth, human spaceflight as religion.

This paper came out in 2013.

It has lodged itself into my brain as a way of evaluating and thinking about, particularly

American commitments to human space flights since then, and it is something we

linked to in the show notes. So if you want to read this before our discussion, you can read it there, but we will go through the paper and explain it fully.

But before we do, Jack, I have something we need to pitch. And what is that, Casey?

The Planetary Society is an independent member-supported organization.

Jack, you know that, I know that. hopefully everyone listening to this knows this

but what that means is that this show and all of our other work happens because of

the people who become members and donate regularly to the organization if you are not a member, please consider joining us at planetary.

org slash join.

Membership started just four bucks a month.

And if you are a member, first thank you for Membership started just four bucks a month.

And if you are a member, first, thank you for enabling this

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