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Space Canals · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Nke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
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  Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
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  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
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  Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: In nineteen oh one, a British academic named Charlotte Molberly
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  Speaker 1: and her assistant Elizabeth Shordan, stepped off a train at
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  Speaker 1: the Palace of Versailles. The two women had just started
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  Speaker 1: working together at a women's college in England, and this
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  Speaker 1: trip was supposed to be an opportunity to get to
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  Speaker 1: know each other. They walked around the palace for a
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  Speaker 1: while and found it beautiful but uninspiring, so they decided
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  Speaker 1: to go out through the garden and explore the a
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  Speaker 1: pet Trianon, a mansion on the palace grounds, built in
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  Speaker 1: the seventeen sixties. As they walked through the garden, though,
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  Speaker 1: they missed a turn and got lost, and that's when
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  Speaker 1: everything started to feel off. Unlike the palace, which was
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  Speaker 1: bustling with tourists, this part of the garden was almost
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  Speaker 1: completely deserted. There was no one around except for a
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  Speaker 1: handful of people in old fashioned uniforms and tricorn hats.
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  Speaker 1: Charlotte assumed that they were workers who were dressed in
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  Speaker 1: period costumes for historical reenactment purposes, but something about them
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  Speaker 1: didn't seem real. They looked like wax figures who'd been
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  Speaker 1: brought to life. Up ahead, Elizabeth pointed to an old
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  Speaker 1: farmhouse with a plow outside that looked like it was
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  Speaker 1: one hundred years old or more. There was a gardener
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  Speaker 1: outside of the farmhouse in the same old fashioned costume
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  Speaker 1: as the other workers, so the woman stopped to ask
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  Speaker 1: him for directions to the Petit Trianon. The gardener appointed
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  Speaker 1: them in the right direction, and as they got further
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  Speaker 1: down the path, Charlotte shivered. She felt like the world
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  Speaker 1: was lit, literally losing dimension. The trees were flat and
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  Speaker 1: there were no shadows, as if she were walking through
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  Speaker 1: a painting. She told Elizabeth that she couldn't explain it,
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  Speaker 1: but she felt a suffocating sense of dreariness and dread.
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  Speaker 1: Elizabeth raised her eyebrows in alarm and said that she
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  Speaker 1: too felt the same thing. Finally, they came to the
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  Speaker 1: Petit triannon, Charlotte saw a young woman in a white
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  Speaker 1: hat and an old fashioned summer dress sketching a picture
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  Speaker 1: of the garden, and as she passed, she noticed that
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  Speaker 1: the woman bore a striking resemblance to the late Queen
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  Speaker 1: Marie Antoinette. As soon as the women stepped inside the mansion,
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  Speaker 1: the oppressive atmosphere lifted. Everything looked normal again, as if
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  Speaker 1: a spell had been broken. They looked around the mansion
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  Speaker 1: for a bit, and then they headed back the same
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  Speaker 1: way they came, but strangely, on their way back, the
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  Speaker 1: workers in period clothing that they had countered on their
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  Speaker 1: way in were nowhere to be seen. Charlotte and Elizabeth
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  Speaker 1: went back to their hotel, both nursing a strange feeling
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  Speaker 1: about what had happened that afternoon, but neither of them
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  Speaker 1: dared to talk about it until months later when they
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  Speaker 1: were finally back in England, and when they compared their recollections,
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  Speaker 1: they couldn't deny that something odd had occurred that day
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  Speaker 1: at Versailles. After their trip, Charlotte and Elizabeth went back
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  Speaker 1: to Versailles several times and tried to trace the path
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  Speaker 1: they had taken to the Petitria. None but it wasn't there.
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  Speaker 1: Various landmarks they remember walking past were completely missing, and
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  Speaker 1: the layout of the garden was entirely different. But after
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  Speaker 1: looking at historical maps, they realized that the path they'd
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  Speaker 1: taken that day aligned perfectly with how the gardens were
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  Speaker 1: laid in the late eighteenth century in the days of
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  Speaker 1: Marie Antoinette. Charlotte was never able to explain exactly what
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  Speaker 1: happened that day, but she lived the rest of her
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  Speaker 1: life convinced that somehow she and Elizabeth had briefly slipped
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  Speaker 1: back in time to see Versailles, as it was more
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  Speaker 1: than one hundred years before their own day, and she
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  Speaker 1: believed that the woman she'd seen sketching in the garden
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  Speaker 1: was none other than Marie Antoinette herself. Six men emerged
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  Speaker 1: from the spinning gray capsule, green in the face and
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  Speaker 1: clutching their stomachs. Captain Greybiel swore under his breath they
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  Speaker 1: had only lasted a few hours in the Slow Rotation Room,
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  Speaker 1: a twenty foot circular space mimicking the living quarters of
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  Speaker 1: future astronauts. Across the large room, his colleagues shook their heads.
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  Speaker 1: Greybiel could easily guess what the problem was insufficient data.
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  Speaker 1: These men, although eager to help, were too ill for
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  Speaker 1: scientists to learn anything about long term changes to the
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  Speaker 1: human body in spaceflight. At high G forces, they passed out,
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  Speaker 1: and at slow rotations, their body lost equilibrium and they
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  Speaker 1: inevitably became sick. A memory tugged at the back of
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  Speaker 1: Captain Grabiel's mind, something he had learned in medical school
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  Speaker 1: or in the Navy's medical academy. There'd been a model
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  Speaker 1: of the human ear for students to observe, large drawings
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  Speaker 1: of semi circular canals that made up the vestibular system,
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  Speaker 1: the part of the human body responsible for balance and
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  Speaker 1: detecting motion. Graybial thought of the tests that his team
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  Speaker 1: had already conducted, and he fought back to which volunteers
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  Speaker 1: were most successful and what set them apart. And then
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  Speaker 1: an idea came together in his mind. So he sent
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  Speaker 1: a message to Galladet University in Washington, DC, requesting students
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  Speaker 1: to assist with a test that could very well win
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  Speaker 1: Americans the space race. Gabriel didn't share his hypothesis with
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  Speaker 1: the other scientists, but he felt confident that he was
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  Speaker 1: on the right track. A few days later, another group
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  Speaker 1: of men sat in the slow Rotation room. An hour passed,
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  Speaker 1: then two scientists outside the SRR were thrilled. So far
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  Speaker 1: these new volunteers from Galadet were lasting longer than any
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  Speaker 1: others had much much longer. The volunteers from Galadet spent
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  Speaker 1: a few hours in the SRR the first time, then
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  Speaker 1: two days. Eventually, the Galadet eleven, as they came to
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  Speaker 1: be called, spent twelve days inside the SRR. Captain grey
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  Speaker 1: Bial's team was exhausted, overworked, and eager to be done.
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  Speaker 1: When the door to the SRR was opened, the Galadet
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  Speaker 1: eleven were sitting calmly inside, playing a game of cards.
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  Speaker 1: If anything, they looked surprised that the time had passed
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  Speaker 1: so quickly. The Galadet eleven went onto ace every test
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  Speaker 1: from the Aerospace Medical Association. The zero gravity simulator, nicknamed
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  Speaker 1: the vomit Comet Rapid Elevator, rides up the Empire's state
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  Speaker 1: building with electrodes attached to their eyelids and a machine
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  Speaker 1: literally called the human Disorientation Device. All the while, Greybriel's
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  Speaker 1: team was getting more data than ever before, which meant
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  Speaker 1: that they were understanding the human body better. Calculations were
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  Speaker 1: adjusted to account for ease of movement, and the galadet
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  Speaker 1: eleven gave clear precise feedback on what they felt, the
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  Speaker 1: difficulty of performing some of movements, and the psychological effects
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  Speaker 1: of extended time in zero gravity. Finally, the most difficult
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  Speaker 1: test of all arrived. In nineteen sixty four, Ten of
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  Speaker 1: the galad At eleven boarded a tugboat setting out over
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  Speaker 1: the Atlantic. Black clouds hung in the stormy sky, but
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  Speaker 1: grey Bill's team had expected this, They had counted on it.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, they would go on to sail two hundred
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  Speaker 1: miles of rough seas and dangerous storms in a final
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  Speaker 1: study of what happened to the human body under extreme conditions.
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  Speaker 1: Grey Biel's researchers reported forty foot waves, buffeting winds, and
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  Speaker 1: surges three times the force of gravity. For the experiment,
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  Speaker 1: the galadet eleven were supposed to provide blood and urine samples,
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  Speaker 1: answer questioneers, and tests of dexterity under physical strain. As
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  Speaker 1: it happened, the researchers and the boat crew were so
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  Speaker 1: seasick they had to cancel all the tests. The galad
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  Speaker 1: At eleven, on the other hand, had a fantastic time.
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  Speaker 1: They read books, played games and commented on the exciting
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  Speaker 1: wild ride. So what was it that set these specific
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  Speaker 1: men apart? What superpower allowed them to withstand conditions that
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  Speaker 1: no one else could? The Galadet eleven or deaf. In
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  Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties, galad At University was one of few
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  Speaker 1: schools who catered to deaf or heart of hearing students.
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  Speaker 1: Most of these eleven men had survived spinal meningitis, a
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  Speaker 1: condition that damaged their vestibular systems. This meant that they
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  Speaker 1: could no longer hear, and it also meant that they
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  Speaker 1: were exactly what NASA needed to study the effects of
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  Speaker 1: deep space travel on the human body. The Galadets eleven
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  Speaker 1: were more than just test subjects. They took active roles
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  Speaker 1: in the scientific process. They taught the researchers asl which
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  Speaker 1: could be used to communicate even in a vacuum like
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  Speaker 1: space where sound doesn't travel. One member of the Galadets eleven, though,
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  Speaker 1: a man named Robert Greenman, actually worked with Captain Gray
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  Speaker 1: Biel years before the project officially started. He was integral
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  Speaker 1: to the success of NASA research, but like the rest
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  Speaker 1: of the galad At eleven, his contributions went unrecognized until
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  Speaker 1: twenty seventeen when galad At University opened and exhibit highlighting
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  Speaker 1: the critical contributions of Greenmund and his peers, and rightly so,
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  Speaker 1: because it's to them that we owe the success of
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  Speaker 1: every manned spaceflight in American history, all the way from
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  Speaker 1: the Apollo missions to today's Artemis two. I hope you
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  Speaker 1: enjoyed today's guided tour through the Cabinet of Curiosities. This
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  Speaker 1: show was created by me Aaron Manke in partnership with
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  Speaker 1: iHeart Podcasts, researched and written by the Grim and Mild team,
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  Speaker 1: and produced by Jesse Funk. Learn more about the show
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  Speaker 1: and the people who make it over at Grimandmild dot
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  Speaker 1: com slash Curiosities. You'll also find a link to the
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  Speaker 1: official Cabinet of Curiosity's hardcover book, available in bookstores and online,
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  Speaker 1: as well as ebook and audiobook. And if you're looking
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  Speaker 1: for an ad free option, consider joining our Patreon. It's
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  Speaker 1: all the same story, but without the interruption for a
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  Speaker 1: small monthly fee. Learn more and sign up over at
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  Speaker 1: patreon dot com slash Grimandmild, and until next time, stay curious.