SPEAKER_02: 0:30

Welcome everyone. We're so excited to invite you to Arcast 2025, right here in Fayetteville, Arkansas. We are joined by Jacob Pinter, who he grew up right here in Northwest Arkansas, here in Fayetteville. He went to Fayetteville High School, the University of Arkansas. And then he's kind of built this extraordinary career on storytelling from National Geographic to becoming the senior producer and co-host of NASA's flagship podcast, Curious Universe. His work has taken listeners from the depths of the ocean to the edges of the cosmos, weaving science, humanity, and awe into stories heard by millions. So we're really excited to have him on the show. We're excited that he is a person of Northwest Arkansas here in the People of Northwest Arkansas podcast. We're honored to have him back home on the stage. And he was our keynote speaker for the event today. And we're just excited to talk to him about just creativity, creating podcasting, talking a little bit about our expansive universe. The things that he spoke about today were fascinating and fun. We might even ask him about some conspiracy questions. I don't know. We'll see. But we really want to talk about just the craft of podcasting and and the expanse of that and just how a kid from the Ozarks ended up working for NASA. So let's welcome Jacob.

SPEAKER_03: 1:52

Thank you. That was too many nice things all in a row, but thank you very much.

SPEAKER_02: 1:56

It's how we do things around here. It's the South. Come on, you grew up here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 2:00

I'm um feeling some peer pressure to also be named Danielle. Is it okay?

SPEAKER_02: 2:06

Daniel. What needs that be? Join the club. Your middle name is Daniel, right? Yeah. That's what I heard. That's what I heard.

SPEAKER_01: 2:13

Okay. Jacob Daniel Pinter, everyone. Well, thanks for being here and letting us interview you live. You grew up in Fayetteville and you went to high school, college here. What was that like? How did that shape your career in what you're doing now?

SPEAKER_03: 2:28

The biggest, the biggest way it shaped my career, I would say, was that in high school, I don't know if there's any Fayetteville High School purple dogs in here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 2:38

Nice.

SPEAKER_03: 2:39

I got really involved in the TV program in high school. So at the time, Fayetteville High TV would produce its own news magazine. So we would go make packages and you know there were reporters and you would have to shoot and edit with cameras. We had a really almost professional level TV studio with, you know, there was a control room where you would punch buttons and there were really nice cameras. So, you know, you would anchor the newscast or you would produce or be the technical director for the newscast. Um when I was in high school, there was even the the adult who sort of ran the program got a hold of an old school bus somehow and he gutted it and he turned it into a production truck. That's the thing. And we did live broadcasts of the football games on Friday nights with three cameras and there were people punching. We had a replay machine, so there was somebody who was doing instant replays. And so I took those classes. You got to for that, you got to spend all day Friday during the day not going to class and getting ready for that, and then working the games Friday night. And so that was just so much preparation. I think a lot of this job is just like repetitions and doing it over and over and really learning your skill set and and really learning like when you're doing a good job versus when you're doing a bad job, and hopefully learning how to do the good job more often. And so that was such a head start that then I went to college and I was a broadcast journalism major at the U of A. And I felt really lucky because when you get to college, a lot of the people are learning how to use a camera and learning how to edit video for the first time. And I felt like I I had learned a lot of those basics and so was able to kind of keep learning new things beyond that. So I felt really, really lucky because of those things.

SPEAKER_01: 4:16

Aaron Powell I was gonna say you have a broadcaster's voice. When I first listened to your podcast, he reminded me of a sports broadcaster. So you have a really good uh voice for audio. So after you graduated, did you is that when you moved to DC or okay, you went right after?

SPEAKER_03: 4:32

Yeah, I um I was, you know, from when I was in high school, I was like, I want to go do journalism stuff. I got an internship at NPR headquarters in DC when I was in college. I just applied to a bunch of big internships. I applied to ABC and CNN and NBC, and they didn't call me back. Like I didn't hear anything from them. But I got one email back from one hiring manager at NPR, and I was really um intimidated because I I I had listened to a lot of NPR, and I thought they were like very they were very good. They're very smart and very fancy. And I'm from Arkansas, and at that point, my only relevant experience was covering sports, and I was like, they are not gonna like this. And what I found out later, that one of the reasons why I stood out apparently is because they thought, huh, he's from Arkansas and he does sports, and and we don't have one of those.

SPEAKER_00: 5:22

Um really funny.

SPEAKER_03: 5:24

And that was really, you know, that made me feel um a lot more confident that like I have something to bring, even if it's not always the thing that I think it is.

SPEAKER_01: 5:36

Did you go to a tiny desk concert? Sorry, I didn't answer. I'm obsessed with tiny desk concerts. Yes.

SPEAKER_03: 5:41

I went to a lot.

SPEAKER_01: 5:42

Who did you see?

SPEAKER_03: 5:43

My very favorite ones were like a guy with an acoustic guitar. Yeah. Um so when I was an intern, Sturgil Simpson did a tiny desk concert.

SPEAKER_01: 5:51

I've seen it, or not obviously a lot. This was in 2014. Yeah. Ah, that's so cool.

SPEAKER_03: 5:55

Um I didn't know who he was. He had a big album that came out that year that really kind of like made him more popular. I didn't know who he was, but I went to the Tiny Desk and it was incredible. That was really memorable. I saw Jason Isbull, who I love, and I was getting my parents actually were in town for that, so we all went together, and it really is just like in an office. It is like a desk in an office building. And so I was it's I was on the floor above where my desk was. So I was walking up there a couple minutes early, and I walked by the bathroom, and Jason Isbull came right out of the bathroom, the guy who I was about to see, and I went, and I was way too scared.

SPEAKER_02: 6:30

I need to go, I need to step back just a little bit because I have a very important question. Since you they wanted you to come because you were from Arkansas and Sports, were the Razorbacks good at the time? Like, were they? I don't know. No. Oh, the audience is bad.

SPEAKER_03: 6:44

I was a freshman in 2011, which is the year that Arkansas won the Cotton Bowl. And so the spring of my freshman year, yeah, there's a lot of people in the crowd. But then the for those of you who remember, who know, April Fool's Day of 2012, which was also my freshman year, was when the motorcycle crash happened. I was at so again, for this is like a deep cut for the real ones, but so then the 20 the 2012 season, John L. Smith was the head coach. We went four and eight, it was not fun. But there was this I was working kind of off campus at a sports radio show at the time. So I had a I would go to some events as like a press member, and there's this one really famous press conference when Arkansas got throttled by Alabama, and in the regular Monday press conference, John L. Smith shows up and he goes, Everybody's looking so sad. Why don't you smile? And I was like four rows back. Uh and it's now it's like a really famous meme and YouTube clip that people send around. So that's my that's my like tiny claim to fame.

SPEAKER_02: 7:43

Yeah, that was dead. I wish people could see that, but we are doing videos so they can see.

SPEAKER_03: 7:49

I've heard Arkansas is looking for a football coach, and I I can give my number out to 100 euro check.

SPEAKER_02: 7:55

I feel like you had a lot of like Jimmy Stewart in that impersonation as well. Like I might need to come back to that a little bit later. So tell us a little bit about your journey into storytelling. So you grew up in Arkansas, you had this opportunity to get into broadcast journalism. What what was something that kind of drew you into stories, that very aspect of just the different narrative pieces that that make up a story?

SPEAKER_03: 8:19

I think that when you have a microphone or a camera, you people trust you a lot. I don't know if you've ever heard this thing that like if you just wear a suit and are confident, or if you look like a construction worker and you have a ladder and are confident, you can just walk in anywhere. It's kind of the same with a microphone or a camera. Like people will just talk to you if you ask and if you seem like you're gonna do a good job. And that is such a neat uh opportunity. Obviously, then there's caveats like it has to fit with the publication you're doing or whatever, and like some people don't want to talk to you. But when it when it when it works, I just think that's so exciting. And then you get to hang out with somebody smart and you get to ask them whatever you want that fits in with your story, and that's so neat.

SPEAKER_02: 9:07

That is really neat. That's kind of like full circle right now. We're right here. Yeah. Talking with somebody we find interesting. Can you talk in front of a microphone? And these are nice microphones. So I said, Yeah, they're really nice. And I think just like it's it's really exciting because of just the podcast that we've built and and something around, you know, what we love and then the people's stories and building this community here is really great. And to hear from somebody who grew up here and who's in the podcasting space, you know, this is a really great opportunity and to talk about what happened. I love, I love that the Razorbacks were doing well when you were in college. Thank goodness. Perfect for the show. And um, I think that there's value in in hearing other people's stories and being able to share them with um this community.

SPEAKER_01: 9:53

Especially since you went from like sports to NPR. And then where did the jump to NASA where did that happen?

SPEAKER_03: 10:00

I'm gonna well, okay. The first thing I want to say is that you are making it all sound like a straight line. It didn't feel like a straight line. I don't think it really was a straight line. Yeah, yeah. So I just wanna like if if that's like a misconception, I just want to like nip that in the butt. It's never it never feels like a straight line. Right. It continues to not feel like a straight line. I have no idea. But it was even a little bit less of a straight line because I I worked at NPR right after college for like nine months. I got hired on a temp contract, and I was just like worried it was gonna end and I wouldn't have a job. So I was making all these backup plans, and as I was leaving college, the Office of Nationally Competitive Awards sent an email that was like, hello, you have been recommended to apply for these things. And one of them was the Road Scholarship, and I was like, that's not gonna happen. And then I think the other one was like the Marshall Scholarship, and I was like, that's not gonna happen. And then the third one was a Fulbright English teaching assistantship. And I thought, well, that's also not gonna happen, but it sounds interesting at least. And so I applied to be an English teaching assistant in Thailand, and I found out that I got it a few months after I graduated, and also that the start date for that was right after my current temp contract ended. So it just seemed like a great opportunity and like something that would never come up again. So I left. I lived in Thailand for a year and taught English. I was a horrible English teacher, and then I got back and I needed a job, and I was just a temp at NPR again. So it was kind of like I hit pause and went and had a little like fun gap here and came back. To answer your question, I worked at NPR for a few years. The cool parts were really cool. I really enjoyed what I did. I worked at the show Morning Edition, which is an awesome radio show. It comes on at five in the morning, and so there's a team that gets there at when I worked there anyway, at 11:30 at night and works until 7.30 in the morning. I saw the face you just made. That's how I felt a lot of the time.

SPEAKER_01: 11:49

That's nocturnal life.

SPEAKER_03: 11:51

Yeah, and it's it it it affects your life in a lot of other ways. Um and it was not affecting my life in some great ways at the time. There was someone I knew who got a job sort of creating an audio team at National Geographic. It was just someone I'd worked with and someone I really liked. And it seemed like a good opportunity at the time. So I took that job. And then started to have some specific science experience. And then and then a few years after that, I was looking for jobs again and and NASA was available. And there was a lot of like skill overlap at that point. So, like, again, I really can't stress enough. Like, I never for one, I never set out to work in podcasts because those just kind of like happened when I was in college. Right. So there was that. And I like really never meant to work at NASA until it was just possible all of a sudden.

SPEAKER_01: 12:41

Yeah, that's funny. That is funny. It's like that's kind of how happens for a lot of people. Yeah, I don't think we meant to do that either. That means not what my degree was in, not what I had planned to do. So I like that you talked about it being nonlinear because that really is how it kind of happened for us too. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 13:00

I just thought of an an analogy of like the linear to nonlinear. What? So when I started, I did broadcasting TV as well when I first kind of got started. And we had to, it was all linear editing. So you were you were laying your control track and you were laying your edits on top of that control track one by one, and you had to get it like perfect. And then all of a sudden, this introduction to digital editing happened, and it was insane. Like just this idea of like, oh, I can move this clip over here. Oh, wait, I want to move it here now. Now I can move it here and I can move it there. And and so it's just like it's such a great analogy for me coming from that world of broadcasting and TV and film, is like life isn't a straight line, you know, it's can it can move around and pieces can move around. And I always like distress, like, it doesn't matter how old you are, like you can do something new, do something fresh. And so, you know, as you've gotten into this, like what what has it that, you know, how many years first, how many years have you been um at na NASA? And then like from where you started to kind of where you're at now, like where where have you seen that growth happen for you?

SPEAKER_03: 14:06

Been in NASA for two and a half years, and I have, I would say, 14 years or something of career experience. I don't know the exact answer to your question. I think it's just kind of like everything you do prepares you for everything else. You know, there's always some random thing, like being at a football press conference or something that happened like nine years ago, and all of a sudden you realize that it it taught you how to like write this one specific thing you need to write in this one story or whatever, you know? I think it's just always kind of keeping your eyes open and being open to those kind of learning experiences.

SPEAKER_01: 14:42

That's awesome. So when you gave your keynote, you talked about sci-fi a little bit.

SPEAKER_03: 14:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 14:47

And I'm curious, do you like sci-fi?

SPEAKER_03: 14:51

I tell people that I'm sci-fi curious. I don't like I have seen Star Wars. I feel positive about Star Wars. You can't like I don't think you can say I cannot say I'm a Star Wars fan because there's like a level of Star Wars that I am I am not. So I like I like Star Wars. Uh I haven't really seen Star Trek. Lots of NASA people are really into Star Trek, and I always kind of smile and nod. And I don't read, I like to read a lot, but I don't read sci-fi much or really at all. But I'm always kind of like, yeah, that seems interesting. And then I don't. I don't know what that says about me.

SPEAKER_02: 15:28

Yeah, you're just a real person. That's what it says. Yeah, person with sifaceted interests. You know, like we can all love different things. I love Star Wars. I do not like Star Trek. My father-in-law is a big Treky, and it's like Treky? Oh, yeah. And he loves it. All right. And I and he's like, we're gonna have a family movie night of watching Star Trek episodes. And I'm like, can I sit this out, please? You know, we watch it because he loves it and it's it's a great thing. But but yeah, I think that we all have different interests. We have different things that we are fascinated by. And we have to talk about Danielle being a a sky nerd. Like we have to talk about that. She was so excited about this interview.

SPEAKER_01: 16:10

I was talking about the sky. I wish you could have caught our conversation before this because I was like, well, we can't talk anymore. We're gonna save this for when we chat on stage because I loved the episode where you talked about Saturn or Saturn's moon, or was it Jupiter's moon?

SPEAKER_03: 16:27

This one was Jupiter's moon.

SPEAKER_01: 16:28

Jupiter's moon, sorry. Yeah. And um it was talking about how there could be water and the potential for life, and talked about like 20 miles thick of ice surrounding it, geysers with water vapor coming out at 800 miles per hour, like things that you just sound like from a sci-fi movie. And you mentioned on one of your episodes that one of the scientists was talking about his curiosity in sci-fi and using that kind of sci-fi image that's not real to talk about having two sons. So I think it's kind of fun when you have a scientist that's into that, or anyone that's like into stargazing or just curious about all the missions that NASA's doing. So when I heard you were the keynote, I was like, oh, this is perfect. So I I kind of want to know about your episodes, like how you because you you plan, produce, edit, host, everything. So where does the idea come from? Is it something that's internal? And NASA, are you the one that kind of searches out these stories since you work in communication?

SPEAKER_03: 18:00

It's always a little of both. I keep, and I know the other producer on our team, Christian, you know, we just kind of have a short list of like this is an interesting person, this is an interesting story. This is, you know, it's kind of like our wish list or like our rainy day list. Like whenever we just need to come up with something, this is what we got socked away. I used to work at National Geographic. National Geographic has a nonprofit side that funds scientists who are so cool. And they would always, you know, bring them into the office and have them do kind of like lightning talks of what they were doing. And I always felt like I was a producer, but really my job was to be a talent scout almost and just go to these meetings and be like, you're cool, and I want to bring you on our show. So it's a little bit of that. It's just kind of like who's cool? Who do I want to talk to? Yeah. You know, there are big mission milestones. Like sometimes there is just a big launch happening. It's always a push and pull. Sometimes it feels like we have to cover that, and sometimes it feels like we get to cover that. Um, obviously, getting to cover it is more fun. But even then, you know, a lot of times it's like, okay, there is a mission. What's our story? And then we really have to go figure out who do we want to talk to? What is the story angle that is right for our show? And then how can we develop, you know, then how do we interview the person about it? How do we um do all the production and the sound design and the writing and stuff like that?

SPEAKER_01: 19:23

So there is an art to interviewing someone because you want to guide the conversation, and a lot of these scientists are really smart. So you want digestible material. And I loved um one of your episodes where you're talking about Jupiter's moon, where you use an analogy about the James Webb Space Telescope, where you said it's like, imagine you're looking at a horizon and you can see it clearly, but if you were to look beside you, everything's going so fast you can't really see what's going on. So you're equating that to how the telescope, you know, can view things in our solar system versus the beginning of time. So I love that you in your episodes use visuals because I've I feel like a lot of listeners, I mean, when you're listening, you're turning off your visual mode, you have to create those images in your mind. So you do a really good job at that. I love that. I feel like it is definitely a beginner's, you know, type of podcast where you can kind of be in interested and know what's going on.

SPEAKER_03: 20:21

So I used to work in public radio, and I think I'm I I got interested in this work really because I listened to public radio and loved it. So that's really like where my heart is. And I heard this saying once. Uh and and and public radio has like a very specific kind of writing and a specific vibe that maybe not every podcast has. But I heard this piece of advice that radio is a visual medium. And it seems to kind of not make sense. But I think the more you think about it, like your job as a writer or storyteller or whatever, is to create the picture in the person's mind because they don't have the picture. And so we tr that's something we try to do. People on my team make fun of me because I say that all the time. But it's I think it's it's an important thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 21:08

Especially especially for science, which is so complicated. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 21:11

So like we have to do work sometimes to make this seem interesting or to to break it down so it's understandable. But that's that's our term.

SPEAKER_02: 21:25

The spatial audio that that is really valuable to what you're what you're building, you know. So are you a purist when it comes to podcasting? Do you prefer no video or video as we sit here in front of video?

SPEAKER_03: 21:39

I will tell you that yeah. Hi. I'll tell you that the honest answer is that I don't watch video podcasts. I listen to podcasts. And I think that I kind of have like uh an audio-only bias, but I do really understand the reasons for making video podcasts. We have made a couple of video episodes for a number of reasons. We haven't done it consistently. But I do think I do think there are a lot of strategic reasons why it makes sense. And I'm and I'm still interested in it.

SPEAKER_02: 22:10

We definitely, you know, most of our podcast episodes are audio only, but we use it for value and both.

SPEAKER_01: 22:16

Right. Yeah. We we prefer audio as well. We like video and um there's definitely, you know, perks using it, clips online to draw but it the the end end goal for us in our podcast is to go to the audio.

SPEAKER_02: 22:30

Well, and I really especially enjoyed when you were giving your keynote today and you played some clips for us. And and it really spoke to who some of us are in that, you know, I kind of looked around the room at one point, but then I also was like, no, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna close my eyes and I just want to listen. You know, and I think I saw a couple other people here do the same thing. They were you know, like they were asleep after that very delicious lunch. I don't blame them. Um but I think that that that made it just even more of a visually appealing experience for me and that I could go into my my, you know, I probably did not visualize it correctly, but I I really enjoyed listening from that perspective.

SPEAKER_03: 23:15

Aaron Powell I mean, the another public radio thing that people talk about is driveway moments, you know? That moment when people are so hooked by your story that they get home and they stay in the car because they want to hear the end of it. Oh, yeah. And that's a high bar.

SPEAKER_01: 23:30

That's like that's what we're trying to do out here. Yeah. Yeah. So what okay, so playing off of that, how do you do that? What are some real tips you can give to other podcasters on creating that hook or that on the edge of your seat in the driveway moment?

SPEAKER_03: 23:45

I think first practice. There's some really interesting, maybe lectures or other interviews that like really famous podcast people have done, like Iraglass and Terry Gross and people like that. And like every single one of them that I've ever heard, when they talk about the very first radio show they made and when they listen back to it, they notice how hard they were trying and how they don't sound like themselves. And I think that's true for everyone. That's just how it is. And the only way to get better at that and it and to s quote unquote sound like yourself is just to practice and just to do it. And everyone like hates the sound of their own voice at first for like you know, but like you gotta power through it. Um so first you just have to practice. I think that writing is really important and something that people take for granted. And there's kind of like like for our show, we will actually like write a script, and so there's like that kind of writing a sentence. But even if it's if if you're doing like an interview-based show or something like that, thinking about how you structure the interview, like kind of as an outline, I think is a is kind of like a writing skill, or maybe storyboarding if you think of it that way. And maybe how you phrase the question is an important skill. And that's something that like if you are the person on the mic, it's important. But if you're a producer who is doing the writing behind the scenes and you have to hand it off to someone else, it's just as important. Like it's not something that only the host or the person talking has to be aware of. Um and I think that they're you know, the the depending on the show, sound design and things like that can be important. But I think that like the writing and storyboarding and content strategy that goes on behind the scenes is really like the magic behind the curtain that people kind of take for granted that can make something really sparkle or or maybe leave something on the table.

SPEAKER_01: 25:38

That's awesome. So, what about for someone doing it all themselves?

SPEAKER_03: 25:42

Great question.

SPEAKER_01: 25:44

Producer, editor, host, take a break.

SPEAKER_03: 25:46

Take a walk, call your phone a friend, call your significant other or your mom, walk your dog, like get out of your head a little bit. That's kind of nice. I think I I w especially when I was like brand new out of college, I worked with editors who were so good and who would take your story and say they would mark it all up in red ink and they would say, This is all the ways that it's not working, and you need to go fix it. And they would also do it in a way that like I had they wouldn't fix it for me, I had to fix it. And there's just so much you learn from that. So I would I believe very strongly that everyone, even if you are working by yourself, you need someone else to be your editor or at least just be your like just like listen, give you some honest feedback and tell you how to make it better. The more that you can have, I think, a like a professional or like professional-ish story editor or mentor who can coach you through that, the better you are.

SPEAKER_02: 26:44

I agree. Yeah, because we know this is a great time to give a big shout out to our producer, Brock, yes. Brock Short and Brock Entertainment. Brock and then Brian with Go Rogue. Brian with Go Rogue. They both have uh given us some really great advice and have been very real with us.

SPEAKER_01: 27:00

No, I think and I think a lot of podcasters do it all themselves. And I think that's great advice because that's the first thing we did was find someone who edits and who will give us points and who will point out all the crutch words and just the la, you know, how to make it, like you said, sparkle and kind of wrap it up with a bow.

SPEAKER_02: 27:19

I think that's really great. And I think it's important too, as we're talking in front of a group of podcasters and people interested in podcasting, you know, to not be afraid of getting that critique and that criticism because it it helps you to grow. It helps you to become better at what you're doing at your craft. You know, it it's nice to hear the praises. It's nice to have your mom or a good friend say, oh my gosh, you sounded so great and I loved so much. And you're like, uh-huh, but what where can I improve? Like, where can I, where, where can I do better? And so when you have those people that are in your life that can give that feedback and give that input, you know, I think our very first episode that we ever recorded, our our producer was like, you guys, stop. Like you're you're talking monotone, like you sound like the like ladies from SNL skit, like this is just not going in the direction. Yes, and it was in PR to be not at all who we are those people and the chemistry that we found um on air already. And we just kind of like we were trying too hard to make it like this, you know, sculpted kind of a show. And it was like, no, we just need to be ourselves, and we're gonna have these quirky moments and we're gonna have these real moments, and we're gonna go off script. But having, you know, having a script and having something that is there for you to catch you and to keep you flowing forward is so important. You know?

SPEAKER_01: 28:41

Yeah. Yeah. And I want to bring up something you talked about in your keynote that resonated so much with me. It caught me by surprise because I think it's something a lot of podcasters experience, but I don't know if we like talk about it, but when you said that you work so hard, you create this episode, you you hit publish, and then it's like on to the next, and then then it's just out there. And how do you interact with it from there? I guess it's nice when you do get a message about a particular episode that it, you know, someone else really could share and feel that story and appreciate it that you created that episode, but you mentioned listening to it and learning from it. So I guess that's one way you could interact with it. Or do you try to revive it? Do you try to reshare old episodes or give it life again?

SPEAKER_03: 29:30

There's a time and a place, I think. Um sometimes. And and there is definitely like for you know, for us specifically, we kind of have a back catalog now where like we can say, oh, some kind of black hole news is happening. We've got a couple black hole. If you want to like promote those on social media, here they are, or or something like that. Yeah, it's hard.

unknown: 29:50

I don't know.

SPEAKER_03: 29:51

It's just out there. Podcasts, uh, it's the same thing with like you know old school radio for sure. You just do it and it goes out and it's gone. And then you gotta show up tomorrow and and keep working.

SPEAKER_02: 30:03

Yeah, keep doing it.

SPEAKER_03: 30:04

It's tough. It's or it can be tough. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 30:06

What are some things that um maybe podcasters stress about that that they shouldn't, it shouldn't matter, that those things don't matter.

SPEAKER_03: 30:15

Oh, I think they all matter.

SPEAKER_01: 30:17

Well, so stress about everything. No getting it.

SPEAKER_03: 30:20

I look, I do I'm not gonna recommend this. I do stress about everything. I I mean, look, honestly, I'm I'm uh a very like detail-oriented person. I sometimes I maybe fixate a little too much on like I gotta write this sentence a little bit better. Like I could probably like get it done and turn the story in earlier. But I think, for me at least, like I really do sweat almost everything. When I before this, I worked at National Geographic. National Geographic is a great magazine, as you probably know. And so they have great copy editors who work, and they are like the best copy editors, like they know where the commas are supposed to go. And we would publish transcript pages of our episodes on the National Geographic website, and they would get copy edited by the same copy editors who did the magazine. And so at first, this is and this is like the number of people who go to a transcript page compared to the number of people who actually listen is so small. So this is like a very, I'm gonna say not important part of the job in the grand scheme. But I would get so I took so much pride in like learning their process and figuring out where to put the commas. So like if as clean as they could send it back, it's and that is that gets me in trouble sometimes also. But like I do think I think all the details are important. Well, most of the time.

SPEAKER_01: 31:42

Yeah, transcripting is interesting because you know we do it as well, and I always wonder if anyone actually looks at looks at that, but I actually look back at it. Sometimes I'll want to like capture that information and be like, oh, what did they say? So I'm I'm with you. I stress about everything too.

SPEAKER_03: 31:57

And for the record, I think having transcripts is very important. There's actually, since we're a federal government product, there are laws that videos must have subtitles, podcasts must have transcripts. Um we work really hard to make sure that images have alt text. There's this is not related to podcasts necessarily, but there's this whole field of science that uses sonifications of scientific data, and there are people with low sight or no sight who are able to do meaningful science based on the way that things sound. And so I think all of that is. I mean, talk about like sweat the details. I think I think all of that stuff is really important. And making the content as accessible as you can to as many people who can consume it.

SPEAKER_01: 32:35

Yeah. What was one of your favorite episodes?

SPEAKER_03: 32:38

Ever?

SPEAKER_01: 32:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 32:40

I shared an interview today with Ada Limone, who was the poet laureate at the time, talking about Europa Clipper. That one was so memorable. Just because we don't get to interview poets very much on a science podcast.

SPEAKER_01: 32:53

One of your fans got a tattoo because of it. One of our listeners about that really quick.

SPEAKER_03: 32:59

But we we released this episode, and then months later, like so, like I said, we published it. My mom said, Great job. And then months later, we had forgotten about it and moved on. And this woman from Poland sent a message that she had been extremely moved by the episode, and she had gotten this full-sleeve tattoo that included like a depiction of the moon Europa and and a phrase from the poem that we shared, and then some other it was like the coolest tattoo I I've ever seen, on top of it being meaningful. And I just it's a combination of like interviewing a poet on a science show. Like that speaks to me. I just think that's fun. Um and the guest, Adelaide Moan, was so, so good. Yeah. Um I th I I I think we talked for 45 minutes or 60 minutes, and we cut it down to like 15 minutes in the episode we aired. And we easily could have just like hit play and run the whole thing, and it would have been just about as good. I mean, she was outstanding.

SPEAKER_02: 34:00

Yeah. That's awesome. There's so much intrinsic value in those kind of experiences. You know, we we look at numbers. She's very much more the numbers person than I am. And I think that that it's really great when you have those stories that you get to share of those experiences that you have on your show. I know we are getting to a point where we need to kind of start to like wrap this up with a little bow. Um, you know, taking the time of everyone in this room, we appreciate everything, just all the stuff that we've been able to do here today and talking about podcasting, meeting new podcasters, meeting people interested in podcasting, um, connecting with friends. I think this is such a valuable community. We're so glad that you could be here today. Um, and so you can just wrap us up with a last question.

SPEAKER_01: 34:44

So when we were talking before we close, you mentioned Artemis.

SPEAKER_02: 34:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 34:48

And as well as Roman, the the telescopes. I know you'll be covering that because you have to.

SPEAKER_00: 34:54

I mean, I get to. I get to.

SPEAKER_01: 34:56

You get to, you get to. You get to. So tell us quickly about you'll be covering Artemis, Roman, what those are, and then let our listeners know how they can follow you and where they can listen to your podcasts.

SPEAKER_03: 35:10

Sure. I'll give you the very quick elevator pitch for those two things. So in early 2026, as early as February, um, a mission called Artemis II is going to send humans around the moon for the first time since the Apollo program. And then the next mission after that, called Artemis III, will land people on the moon for the first time since the 1970s, which is so cool. And that by itself is cool, but also the goals of this are to establish a long-term presence on the moon for the first time ever. Um, and then also to create the knowledge and the technology that will send people to Mars for real one day. And it's just it's just one of those things that I've been I've met the four astronauts who will fly around the moon. They're incredible, obviously. That's why they're doing this.

SPEAKER_01: 35:54

I would have a fangirl moment there, like freak out. You would totally freak out. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 35:59

Yeah. That imagine how I feel. And then I've gotten to meet other, you know, like engineers and scientists who are doing more of like the unsung work. And every single person, no matter how quote unquote big or quote unquote small their job sounds, takes so much pride in doing it exactly right because they know that the stakes of putting people in on that rocket in that spacecraft and sending them to the moon, the stakes are so high and people take that so seriously. And even if their job seems like just a fraction of the mission, they are gonna do it perfectly. And that I just think that is so inspiring. And get-I mean, for me personally, getting to meet those people and see some of that equipment and stuff is so cool. And I really want to get across how many people working together it takes to make this possible, um, which I think is a really important part of the story. So that's going to be a big focus of what we do. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is super cool. Um, it's being built in the Goddard Space Flight Center, which is where I work. Nancy Grace Roman was, I think, the first ever chief of astrophysics at NASA. She was for sure the first woman to be chief of the case.

SPEAKER_01: 37:12

She was the first, yeah, first woman.

SPEAKER_03: 37:13

People call her the mother of Hubble, which is the space telescope that's been in space since 1990, I think. Um, and so this is gonna give us really new information about dark matter and dark energy, and also exoplanets, which are just some of the like coolest weird stuff out there. Yeah. And so there's lots of science, there's you know, engineers building it and there's scientists getting ready. Um, so that's a neat thing to be a part of as well. And if you want to hear about it all on NASA's Curious Universe, um we're at nasa.gov slash podcasts. I got a shout. We have three other podcasts. Houston, we have a podcast, Small Steps, Giant Leaps, and a Spanish language one called Uniberso Curioso de la NASA, and they're all at nasa.gov slash podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Um and it's one of those things that like it takes all of us. Like it takes all of the group together.

SPEAKER_02: 37:59

Great pitch. Now, we have to ask our you know bookend question that we always love to ask about what you love most about Northwest Arkansas. And while you grew up here and you no longer live here, what is something that you loved about Northwest Arkansas and what do you love now in seeing the growth that has happened over the years?

SPEAKER_03: 38:16

There's a lot of things I love about Northwest Arkansas. I love hiking in the Ozarks, and I still watch every football game, every weekend, which is not very good for my mental health, I think.

SPEAKER_00: 38:30

Yes.

SPEAKER_03: 38:31

Um my parents still live here. I have I have friends here, so you know it's not like I'm never back, so for one, I'm like coming back and seeing all the construction and stuff. You know, I live in Washington, DC, as you guys have mentioned. I meet a lot of people who have never been to Arkansas, and it's always a little sketchy, like if those people can even find Arkansas on a map. Um and I think that people uh who haven't been have a lot of some of them have like some kind of preconceived notions about what Arkansas is like. Some of them it's just kind of a blank slate, and I can say whatever, and they wouldn't know. Um that. Yeah, so there's that. Um but the thing that I always try and get across is that um I the vibe I get is that a lot of people who haven't been to Arkansas think of it as a small place where people imagine that they can do small things. And I have always felt like growing up here and continue to feel like um Arkansas and especially Northwest Arkansas, since that's what I know best, is just one of those places where like really anything is possible. And like I really feel like if you grew up here, you can do whatever it is that you want to do. I like I said, just going back to like being in school and going to the university here, I felt extremely supported. I feel like I had opportunities that a lot of people anywhere don't get to have necessarily, just in terms of of broadcast equipment and and teachers and things like that. Yeah. Um and I'm really, really grateful for that.

SPEAKER_02: 40:05

Yeah. Well, that's really awesome. Do you all hear that? There's great opportunity. Yeah. Zigging it and kidding.

SPEAKER_03: 40:11

So I'm like the I'm running like the DC Bureau of the Arkansas Tourism. Yeah, go float the buffalo.

SPEAKER_01: 40:21

And I want to point out and it's dark sky friendly in the buffalo. You can go out there and there's no light pollution. So you sent yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 40:30

It is. There's no light pollution. I'm really curious how many of you are now more curious about the universe after reading DCAT. That's great.

SPEAKER_01: 40:39

Let's give a hand to Jacob. Thank you, Jacob, for being here.

SPEAKER_03: 40:42

Major does.

SPEAKER_01: 40:43

Hey, thanks so much for listening today. If you liked what you heard, please consider subscribing to the podcast so you never miss an episode. You can also follow us on Instagram at People of NWA. Thanks so much.