Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition

Talk, where we introduce you to fascinating people who passionately inhabit the scientific and technical frontiers of our society.

Hi, I'm your host, Dawn Kornegis, and joining me to introduce today's podcast is a man behind the curtain, Dr. Ken Ford, IHMC's founder and chief executive officer emeritus, who is also the chairman of the Double Secret Selection Committee that selects all the guests who appear on STEM Talk.

Hi Don, great to be here.

Today we have the second part of a two-part AMA.

It really helps us reach more people who might enjoy STEM Talk.

As always, the Double Secret Selection Committee has been hard at work scouring iTunes and other podcast apps for the sharpest, funniest, and most lavishly praise-filled reviews to share on STEM Talk.

If yours makes the cut and you hear it on the show, please send us a note at STEMtalk at IHMC.us to claim your very own official STEM Talk t-shirt.

And that is proof that the committee does in fact exist.

Dr. Jones has authored six books, including Skywalking, an Astronaut's Memoir, and has written for aerospace magazines such as Air and Space Smithsonian, Aerospace America, Popular Mechanics, and the Planetary Report.

A senior research scientist for IHMC, he appears regularly on television news as an expert commentator for space exploration and science stories.

Dr. Jones, who flew on four space shuttle missions, is the recipient of the NASA Distinguished Service Medal, as well as many other honors.

Something that I'd like to point out, which we'll talk a little bit about today, too, is in April of 1994, during a mission aboard Endeavor, he was one of three Catholic astronauts to receive Holy Communion in space, marking the first time the Eucharist was brought into space.

you remember from that grand challenge? For sure.

I'll tell you, one of the ones that I think Jerry's team from IHMC was the first one to really nail, but he helped share it across, but Um, we knew that the kinematics were funky when the leg was loaded and, uh, it turns out the leg upper leg, I mean, Atlas was a big, heavy robot.

It was like 400 pounds loaded with batteries.

the leg was actually deforming.