Jun 13 2008
NPR/All Things Considered Interview Tomorrow
I did a phone interview with NPR’s All Things Considered yesterday, not about the Obama thing, but about the Phoenix Lander on Mars. The fellow who was interviewing me was asking me about whether the Phoenix mission wasn’t a little bit boring, and what I might do as a writer to spice things up. For my part I explained why, yes, some of the details of the mission might be a bit of a snooze unless you were an engineer (in which case, they’re really, really interesting), but that was not only okay, but necessary for actual science, because a) science features a lot of process, and b) the process of science does not fit a convenient narrative structure most of the time. And so on.
In any event, the interview, or some portion thereof, will be on the weekend edition of All Things Considered, tomorrow (Saturday) at 5:40pm or thereabouts. Says my notification e-mail: “Best to check the schedule with your local station to see when the show airs, because sometimes they delay it.” Indeed.
In any event, if you’re an NPR listener, listen tomorrow!
I'm the Creative Consultant for this television show, appearing Fridays on Syfy. Miss a week? For US residents, 
Sweet!
Yet agin another reason why I hate that my Saturday’s are crammed full of stuff to do when important things are happening on radio.
A follow interviewed you?
Did you mention The Amazing Photograph? I didn’t see a single major news outlet show it, regarding the landing of the Phoenix Lander.
Dr. Phil
Sounds cool!
Having worked on Mars research until recently…I really, really feel sorry for the Phoenix team. They’ve got some really great scientific stuff there, but…well, MER was going to be an incredibly tough act to follow no matter what, but to be following it as a lander, not a rover…
I’m trying to remember what this “radio” thing is. If I recall correctly, it’s like a podcast, except you can’t pause it and you can’t decide when to listen to it. I didn’t realize that was still around…
Hopefully they will have it up in some sane format soon enough so I can listen.
Is this the start of a new career as a science “expert”? Should we expect to see you on TV attempting to explain science to talking heads? (Something on the order of teaching pigs to sing, I imagine.)
You can tell I’m a liberal because I think that being on All Things Considered is sexy. And talking about Mars! Dreamy…
It might be dry, but I love the Phoenix’s Twitter feed.
Then again, I do work at JPL…
However, I was distracted by the news on the Twitter feed that Tim Russert died today while recording voiceovers.
I’m sitting here, absolutely stunned.
To John – Congrats on the interview, I’ll listen for it tomorrow.
Carol Elaine – thanks for the notice on Tim Russert’s death. I’ve been on-line job hunting all day and haven’t had either NPR or the TV on all afternoon. YIKES!
A sure sign you’ve made it, John.
I’ll be listening.
@ Chang and Steve: They also podcast it on their site after it airs. Watch this page – it’ll likely show up tomorrow at 7pm Eastern.
#4. I would expect it to be easier to teach a pig to sing than to explain science to the talking heads on TV.
I agree with Mary @ 5.
Very cool.
Which thing about Obama would they have interviewed you on? I might have missed something here.
Oh. Never mind. I have no idea how I missed any posts here, let alone that one.
But… but… *who* did you get to talk to? Did you swoon?
When Mars Pathfinder touched down, lo these many years ago now, one of the science team members was an internet person and science fiction writer named Geoffrey Landis.
He’s the one who started naming rocks after cartoon characters, as it happened, and he spent a good deal of effort (in between his actual science team duties and watching his experiment run) on PR stuff.
With the right attitude, to some extent you can help popularize stuff that’s otherwise sort of boring for normal people, space and science wise.
Well, the obvious answer would be aliens, I would think.
This is huge!
I am a huge NPR fan of most of their shows.
5:40PM in what time zone?
Ray.
It’s an hour long program. Wait for the beginning, and then count 40 minutes and there he’ll be.
:)
(I have to wait until I get home tomorrow to listen.)
Random Michelle K @ 18
OK.
1-1000 2-1000 3-1000 4-1000 5-1000 6-1000…..
Boring is not exactly the word I’d use for this: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/phoenix/phx-20080611.php
Jon @ 10,
You don’t listen to enough NPR. These are the people who brought you the science of oral phosphoric explosions due to wintergreen candy.
http://www.npr.org/about/specials/sstamberg/wintergreen.html
Just another driveway moment from NPR.
Yes, I am an Ira Flatow fangirl.
Are we really that boring… get back to our toast?!?
I suppose most of us are.
Nice piece, how did it end up in your capable hands?
For those that missed it, the piece can be found at NPR.org. The audio should be up in about an hour.
Toast?!?
How did I miss it?? I was listening from 5:20-6:20pm.
Thanks for the link, Kurt.
Amusingly, there was a link on the NPR site to another “science” piece about procrastination, something I know that John knows a bit about… the guest’s name is John Perry.