Terry Gross

Singer wrote the new book, Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry. Over the last decade, private companies have provided tactical support, advice, training, security and even intelligence to the military. In the recent war against Iraq, private military employees handled everything from feeding and housing U.S. troops to maintaining sophisticated weapons like the B-2 stealth bomber. The practice raises troubling ethical questions.

Murray has written a new collection of short stories, A Few Short Notes on Tropical Butterflies. Many of his stories are informed by his experiences as a doctor with the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's Epidemic Intelligence Service when he traveled to developing countries like Burundi, Ethiopia and Eritrea. Murray is also a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop.

Journalist James Bennet of The New York Times. He's been in the Middle East covering how the crisis there is affecting both Israelis and Palestinians.

He was NASA's first flight director, from the first forays into space in the 1960s to after Neil Armstrong landed on the moon in 1969. Kraft also created Mission Control. He's the author of, Flight: My Life In Mission Control.

General Chuck Yeager, test pilot, war hero and the first man to break the sound barrier. Tom Wolfe called Yeager the "the most righteous of all the possessors of the right stuff." Yeager's autobiography is Yeager. This interview first aired September 13, 1988.

Alan Shepard was America's first man in space in 1961; the voyage covered 302 miles and lasted 15 minutes. Ten years later with Apollo 14, he made it to the moon, playing golf on the moon's surface. Early in his space career, Shepard was diagnosed with an inner ear syndrome which could have ended his career. Shepard grounded himself in 1963 and became Chief of the Astronaut Office. Later, after a risky operation took care of his ear problem, Shepard returned to flight status, becoming commader of the Apollo 14.

Alan Shepard was America's first man in space in 1961; the voyage covered 302 miles and lasted 15 minutes. Ten years later with Apollo 14, he made it to the moon, playing golf on the moon's surface.

Ted Conover is a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine. He went to Guantanamo Bay to report on the detention of suspected jihadists and terrorists there. He has written about it in the June 29th edition of The New York Times Magazine, "In the Land of Guantanamo." Previously, Conover spent a year as a prison guard inside New York State's infamous Sing Sing prison to experience first hand the conditions within a prison. He wrote about it in his book, Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing.

He has written the new biography Benjamin Franklin: An American Life. Reviewer Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., writes of the book, "both an absorbing narrative biography and an acute assessment of the man and his impact on his time and on posterity." Isaacson is also the author of a biography of Kissinger, is president of the Aspen Institute, and was managing editor of Time magazine.

Veteran producer, pianist, singer, club owner George Wein. He's the founder of the Newport Jazz Festival, the Newport Folk Festival, and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. In the early 1950s he founded the jazz clubs Storyville and Mahogany Hall in Boston where jazz giants Art Tatum, Sidney Bechet, Charlie Parker, Stan Getz and Miles Davis played. In 1954 he launched the Newport Jazz Festival where he presented Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Dave Brubeck and others.