Nancy Comes Out of the Closet on 365 Days of Astronomy

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For Universe Today readers who know me only as a journalist, there’s something I’ve never revealed until today. But I tell all on today’s 365 Days of Astronomy podcast. The truth is, I’m a closet musician and songwriter. But while most musicians write songs about love, or love gone wrong, or that kinda stuff, being the space geek that I am, I write songs about things like, well, satellites, spacecraft and space missions. Today’s podcast is about the International Space Station, and I share a song I wrote after I saw the ISS for the first time in the night sky.

The first time I saw the ISS was back in December of 2000, just after the first set of large solar arrays were brought to the station. At that point, the ISS was then big enough and bright enough that I could finally see it in the light polluted skies over Minneapolis, where I lived at the time. But of course we had a couple of weeks of typical Minnesota winter cloudy weather, so I had to wait what seemed like an eternity until I could finally see it. But I’ll never forget how awe-inspiring it was to see that bright light moving quickly across the sky, knowing the Expedition 1 crew was on board that point of light.

So anyway, check out today’s 365 Days of Astronomy podcast. A friend of mine, Mike Spainhour, and I threw this recording together in about an hour, but I hope you enjoy it.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/

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