A sci-fi-flavored Air Force Space Command, as imagined by Air Force Space Command. Credit: U.S. Air Force

In this episode of the SpaceGeeks podcast, Dan Leone talks to military space buff Brian Weeden: erstwhile nuclear missile operator, former space surveillance officer, aspiring policy Ph.D at the George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute, and technical adviser at the Secure World Foundation think tank in Washington.

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SHOW NOTES:

A long list of Brian’s published writing, including (full disclosure) a smattering of pieces for SpaceNews.

Brian can’t talk details about what it was like to be a nuclear missile officer, but you can pretend to be one yourself with this handy web app that lets you drop any kind of nuke anywhere on the map.

Eric Schlosser’s riveting book about life in a missile silo, if you haven’t gotten your fill of stories from workaday nuclear-forces personnel.

The official website of the National Reconnaissance Office. It is unclear whether Stargate Command was moved out of Cheyenne Mountain to NRO’s Chantilly, Virginia, headquarters.

Fictional Air Force Space Command officers show you what space situational awareness operations might look like if everyone wore jumpsuits. Collision averted, sir!

Dan Leone is a SpaceNews staff writer, covering NASA, NOAA and a growing number of entrepreneurial space companies. He earned a bachelor’s degree in public communications from the American University in Washington.