No one person knows how to build a spaceship. Dr. Janet Vertesi has seen this firsthand. She’s spent years embedded in NASA science teams, not as a participant, but as an observer. She’s a sociologist who studies the team dynamics of NASA missions. She is alarmed at the prospect of indiscriminate firings at the agency, and at the potential loss of institutional knowledge that won’t easily be rebuilt.
Discover more at: https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/spe-janet-vertesi-on-threats-to-nasas-group-brain

Book Club Edition: “To Be Taught, If Fortunate” with Becky Chambers
1:06:09

Flying on Titan: The engineering of Dragonfly
59:44

U.S. space science in flux: Grant rules, rockets, and reorganization
56:18