Episode 21 – How to Store Your Dragon

Chemicals! In! Spaceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Dragon, you are go for re-entry.

This week on Technically Speaking, we invite another member of the Brachiolope Media Network to come hang out: Chad Jones, of The Collapsed Wavefunction Podcast! Hooray! Chad talks to us about his awesome podcast, and chemistry in general. Jacob finds out his favorite word (ubiquitous) is also a protein, and Chad gets insults engineers, even though he’s about to be one himself. Harumph.

Next up: It’s our 1 year anniversary! That means it’s time for a contest! A Flyer contest! So, a few years back, Science… Sort Of did a flyer contest. In an attempt to pick up some new listeners, and in honor of our show’s birthday/anniversary/date-of-marginal-significance we’d like to copy SSO and have our own. However, unlike SSO, our contest is to be a 2 part contest, which means, multiple prizes! woot!

Part 1) You, our talented listeners, use your computer boxes and photoshop/illustrator/MS Paint skills to come up with a flyer for us to use in the contest. 1 Sheet, normal letter size paper (8.5 x 11 in). The judges (Your favorite podcast hosts) will pick from the submissions their favorite. The artist receives a prize (still to be determined, watch the Facebook page and twitter) and their artwork will be distributed for part 2!

Part 2) We post the winning flyer design for you to hang up as you see fit. Take a picture and send it in.  We’ll make a list of all the submitted pictures and pick one at random. Winner gets another prize. Definitely TBD.

The deadline for Part 1 is July 4th. Get photoshopping!

After that exciting piece of news, its on to our favorite subject: Elon Musk! Again?! Look, it’s not our fault this guy is an awesome-news machine. This week it was the unveiling of the all-new Dragon 2 space capsule. This new version of the already-proven Dragon 1 capsule adds the new features of being fully human-ready (See picture) and (more interestingly) recoverable via rockets. Until now, space capsules have relied on parachutes for their return to planet earth, and are thus at the mercy of the winds as to where exactly they will land. The Dragon 2 adds rockets for landing, to allow for a precise landing anywhere NASA desires. Watch the webcast of the announcement here.

Chad, now super excited about space, proceeds to totally nerd out about Kerbal Space Program. Neither Jacob nor Joe had played it at the time of the recording. We since have, and it’s pretty cool. You can download the demo for free from the website or Steam.

Finally we wrap up as we always do, with the BRAINSTORM! This week we discuss data storage, as suggested by listener Chad Jones. Hey, he has the same name as our guest. Weird. Anyway, Jacob gives us a brief history of storage before we dive into coming up with new, ridiculous, expensive, and impractical methods of storing your pictures of cats.

What do you think? Got any ideas for a future brainstorm? We’d love to hear them. Or stories you want us to talk about. Or even just random thoughts.

Let us know with an email, a comment on Facebook, a shout-out on Twitter, or a comment below! And if you liked the show and want to keep hearing more, be sure to leave us a review on iTunes!

Run Time: 1:17:29

Music: “Puff the Magic Dragon” – Peter, Paul and Mary

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About Joe Batwinis

Joe was raised by wolves in the Black Forest of Germany, where he taught himself to build flying machines by studying the eagles and falcons soaring high above him as he apprenticed as a cuckoo clock maker. He later graduated from The Ohio State University with a BS in Aerospace Engineering, and now they let him work on real airplanes! In his spare time, Joe likes driving his car in autocrosses and track days, mountain and road biking, radio controlled aircraft, and podcasting, apparently.