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263: Lunar Landings & Late-Night Shifts: Ben Tackett from Firefly Aerospace on Blue Ghost Mission 1

Casual Space

Release Date: 04/17/2025

290: Back to the Moon Pool: Reuniting at Jules Undersea Lodge show art 290: Back to the Moon Pool: Reuniting at Jules Undersea Lodge

Casual Space

Back to the Moon Pool: Reuniting at Jules Undersea Lodge This week on Casual Space, Beth heads back to familiar waters, and to some very familiar faces! Longtime listeners will remember the STORIES of Space crew lived and worked inside Jules' Undersea Lodge for MISSION 05. Now Beth checks in with the Sea Star crew, living about 20 feet underwater in that very same habitat. This crew is something of a reunion. Paul Bakken was Beth's crewmate at Jules on STORIES of Space MISSION 05. Dr. Michaela Musilova and Dr. Brandy Nunes served with Beth on her 2020 analog mission in Hawaii. And Jen Pint...

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Casual Space

This week on Casual Space, it's just Beth, a clean room, and one very real Moon rover. Beth takes you behind the scenes at Astrolab in Hawthorne, California, where she came face to face with FLIP, the rover getting ready to carry thousands of human stories to the lunar surface. Yes, she geeked out. No, she's not sorry. Beth walks through why landing on the Moon is only half the job (you still have to get around once you're there), what FLIP is built to demonstrate, and how it fits into Astrolab's bigger FLEX rover vision. Then comes the moment that made it all real: spotting the 5D crystal,...

info_outline 287: Drive Me to the Moon with Chris Lockett of Castrol show art 287: Drive Me to the Moon with Chris Lockett of Castrol

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info_outline 285: Did the 285: Did the "Project Hail Mary" Film Stick the Landing? / ft. Dr. Danny Jaques

Casual Space

An earlier version of this episode got corrupted on export, so the audio cut out part of the way into the episode. That has been fixed in this version. Apologies for the inconvenience! - Dr. Danny Jaques, a 36-year veteran science educator, Space Camp Hall of Famer, and founder of Danny's Rocket Ranch, joins Beth for a review of the Project Hail Mary film adaptation. A lifelong educator who has taken nearly 600 students to Space Camp and spent decades bringing science to life in the classroom, Danny brings a perspective to this conversation that you simply cannot get anywhere else. Beth and...

info_outline 284: Etched in Crystal: Putting 3,237 Stories Onto a Lunar Rover show art 284: Etched in Crystal: Putting 3,237 Stories Onto a Lunar Rover

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Casual Space

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Casual Space

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Ben Tackett Show Notes 

TITLE:  Lunar Landings & Late-Night Shifts: Ben Tackett from Firefly Aerospace on Blue Ghost Mission 1”

This week on Casual Space, it’s one small step for your playlist — one giant landing for a Blue Ghost…this episode delivers big on space, story, and spirit!

Beth is joined by Ben Tackett, Lead Systems Operator at Firefly Aerospace, to relive the extraordinary journey that took him from Purdue classrooms to helping land a spacecraft on the Moon.

Ben shares how his early love of aerospace evolved into a hands-on career that’s shaping the future of space exploration. From collaborating with Buzz Aldrin on a Mars colonization project, to working the operations console for Blue Ghost Mission 1, Ben gives us a raw and real look at what it takes to bring a mission like this to life.

 In this episode, you’ll hear about:

  • The long nights, tight timelines, and 500+ hours of simulations that made history possible

  • Real-time moments of awe: lunar images streaming in after touchdown

  • The behind-the-scenes grit of small teams doing big things

  • Why parking lot champagne tastes better after a lunar landing

  • And what’s next with Blue Ghost Mission 2, featuring payloads from the European Space Agency and a radio telescope bound for the far side of the Moon

Ben’s story is one of curiosity, commitment, and cosmic-scale inspiration — a reminder that behind every successful mission is a team of passionate people pushing past limits. This episode captures not just the technical triumph, but the human heartbeat of spaceflight.

 Don’t miss this inside look at a truly historic mission — and a glimpse of what’s just over the horizon.

 

#CasualSpacePodcast #BlueGhostMission1 #FireflyAerospace #MoonLanding

Credit/copyright for photo/video footage: Firefly Aerospace

 

 

About Ben Tackett:


Ben is the lead systems operator for the Blue Ghost lunar program at Firefly Aerospace, current commercial New Space systems engineer , and a prior NASA hypersonic flight mechanics engineer.  For Blue Ghost, Ben maintains the technical "big picture" of the program and ensures that the sub-systems required to make a successful spacecraft work together towards a successful mission program.

In addition to Blue Ghost, Ben has been a part of the Mars Sample Return initiative as Lead Flight Mechanics Engineer for development of the Earth Entry Vehicle, supported Aerocapture and Aerogravity-Assist initiatives, and completed multiple Verification & Validation efforts for the Artemis program with the NESC. Ben completed his education at Purdue University, focusing on hypersonic mission design, re-entry trajectory guidance and optimization, and aerospace systems engineering publishing a thesis on real-time trajectory optimization for onboard optimal control.

If you enjoyed this episode and would like to share, I’d love to hear it! 

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Got a great guest suggestion or idea for the show? E-mail me at [email protected]. Send your story to space TODAY! The window for STORIES of Space MISSION 03 AND MISSION 04 are NOW OPEN! Send your story, for free, to www.storiesofspace.com