Gretchen Heefner

Gretchen Heefner, a historian and chair of the History Department at Northeastern University, dives into the U.S. military's ambitious yet often futile attempts to conquer extreme environments. She discusses the irony of desert training that led to muddy battles in North Africa and highlights the Pentagon's strategic missteps in Greenland. The conversation unveils how military failures prompted the need for environmental data and examines the toxic legacy of these endeavors. Heefner even connects these military efforts to early NASA plans for lunar construction.