This week, I’m talking with author and producer Meredith Bagby about her book The New Guys, which follows the NASA astronaut class of 1978, the first to include women and people of color. We get into Sally Ride’s complicated legacy (first American woman in space, closeted gay icon, accidental hero of the Challenger investigation), the very real dangers of flying on a shuttle whose O-rings had failed a dozen times before anyone died, and what it means to celebrate diversity milestones when the culture is actively trying to erase them. Also: Ron McNair playing saxophone in space, Shannon Lucid befriending a canary in a freezing Russian apartment, and Judy Resnick telling Tom Brokaw where he could stick his roses. Kristen Stewart is playing Sally Ride in the Amazon series adaptation, and I genuinely cannot wait.
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Timestamps
00:00 Intro & Patreon updates
01:20 Why Mary ended up reading a space book (thanks, Taylor Jenkins Reid)
03:12 Meredith watched Challenger explode live as a kid — and never forgot it
05:12 The class of ’78: the first astronauts who didn’t all look the same
07:38 Sally Ride’s hero’s journey: lost friends, investigated her bosses, kept a secret
13:58 The Challenger investigation — O-rings, cover-ups, and a document slipped to Sally
18:21 How the women in the class handled the media, the sexism, and each other
24:47 Ron McNair: physicist, jazz saxophonist, one of the greats
27:42 Military pilots vs. Berkeley scientists — the culture clash inside NASA
31:52 Anna Fisher: surgeon, astronaut, first mom in space
34:00 Shannon Lucid: hid her pregnancies, aced a final two days after giving birth, lived alone in Russia with a canary
42:00 How politics and budgets shaped the Challenger disaster
48:00 What this history means now — DEI rollbacks, erasure, and why these stories still matter
55:30 The Amazon series, Kristen Stewart as Sally, and new Challenger revelations
57:30 Outro — Patreon, Instagram, and Jessica Fletcher memes
Transcript
Full episode transcript here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sJYZv8iwMI4BvEcFbyi8xZ5osq7KINYVpglZbcqkIUk/edit?usp=sharing
Connect with Mary:
- Website: http://www.marymmahoney.com
- Instagram: @mimimahoney
- Email: [email protected]
Connect with Meredith Bagby:
- Website: https://www.meredithebagby.com/
- Twitter/X: https://www.tiktok.com/@merbagby
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/merbagby/
- Book: The New Guys: The Historic Class of Astronauts That Broke Barriers and Changed the Face of Space Travel
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