Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science
Episodes
Sally Ride: Revisiting our 2005 conversation
27 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Host Mat Kaplan has wanted to reshare his first conversation with the great Sally Ride for years. Sally talks about women in space, the loss of space ...
Amazing Technology at the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts Symposium
20 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Planetary Radio host Mat Kaplan interviewed NIAC Fellows about their revolutionary projects as part of the 2021 virtual symposium. You’ll hear h...
Leaders of the Lucy asteroid mission
13 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A delightful, exclusive conversation with principal investigator Hal Levison, deputy principal investigator Cathy Olkin and deputy project systems eng...
Why didn’t Dawn land on dwarf planet Ceres?
06 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It started with a question from a listener. The answer comes from Dawn mission chief engineer and mission director Marc Rayman. Marc also tells us abo...
Space Policy Edition: NASA's Congressional Logjam
01 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A polarized U.S. Congress is juggling nearly half a dozen pieces of major legislation, several of which face time-sensitive deadlines that, if missed,...
Mars Beckons: The 2021 Humans to Mars Summit
29 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Mars all-stars gathered online for September’s annual Humans to Mars summit produced by Explore Mars. Planetary Radio host Mat Kaplan moderated ...
The Wonderful: a new documentary about the International Space Station
22 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Clare Lewins has created a film that takes us inside the lives of people who have lived and worked on the International Space Station. Cady Coleman is...
The Case for a Return to Enceladus
15 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Morgan Cable of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is lead author of a paper that makes a compelling argument for a mission to Saturn’s smal...
An ESCAPADE to Mars, on the cheap
08 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
NASA hopes to radically reduce the price tag for exploring Mars with a mission called ESCAPADE. Principal investigator Rob Lillis and his team will se...
Space Policy Edition: The cultural rituals of space advocacy, with Linda Billings
03 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Communication is culture, says Dr. Linda Billings, an expert in social science and space outreach. So what culture is summed by the types of space adv...
Liquid Water Under the Martian Polar Ice? Maybe Not
01 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It was one of the most exciting planetary science announcements in 2018: Radar from an orbiting spacecraft might have found large pools of liquid wate...
Europa Clipper Sails Toward Launch
25 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jupiter’s moon Europa hides a vast water ocean under a protective layer of ice. The Europa Clipper mission will send a powerful orbiter to inves...
Cassini, Voyager and beyond with Linda Spilker
18 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Cassini project scientist Linda Spilker is back to describe how data from the Saturn mission that ended four years ago is behind new, trailblazing sci...
How Perseverance drives itself around Mars
11 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
NASA’s Perseverance is driving farther and faster than any previous Mars rover, thanks to its advanced AutoNav system. Vandi Verma, the mission&...
Space Policy Edition: Mars via the Nuclear Option
06 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Can nuclear propulsion fundamentally transform our ability to send humans to Mars? Bhavya Lal, a policy and nuclear engineering expert now working at ...
Alan Stern Says It’s Time for Suborbital Science
04 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An experiment rode next to Richard Branson when he rocketed to the edge of space on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo last month. Planetary scienti...
Andy Chaikin on Apollo 15 and the lessons of Apollo
28 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Apollo 17 commander Gene Cernan said of Andy Chaikin’s book A Man on the Moon, “I’ve been there. Chaikin took me back.” Andy r...
Amy Mainzer and a New Asteroid-Hunting Space Telescope
21 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We may finally get the powerful telescope we’ve needed to find almost all of the near-Earth objects that are big enough to destroy a city. Unive...
We’re Going Back to Venus
14 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Smrekar and Jim Garvin woke up in June to some of the best news a planetary scientist can receive. Their complementary missions to Venus had just ...
Visiting the James Webb Space Telescope
07 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is expected to be 100 times as powerful as its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope. We talk with three lea...
Space Policy Edition: The Pentagon's UFO Report, Featuring Sarah Scoles
02 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Pentagon finally released its hotly-anticipated briefing on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena. As expected, it provided little new information, saying...
Finding Life by Looking for Complexity
30 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
University of Glasgow chemist Lee Cronin and his collaborators have developed a new way to detect life. Their "assembly theory" could give us a reliab...
The Pearly Clouds of Mars
23 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Want to see wild colors on Mars? Look up! Planetary scientist Mark Lemmon studies planetary atmospheres at the Space Science Institute. He marvels at ...
Amateur Astronomers Saving the World
16 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Planetary Society has awarded more than 60 Shoemaker near-Earth object grants to astronomers around the world, enabling them to discover, track, a...
Experimental Cosmologist Brian Keating
09 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How did the universe begin? Why do galaxies look the way the do? Can we see the vanishingly dim light of undiscovered worlds in the Kuiper Belt? These...
Space Policy Edition: NASA's 2022 Budget Request Says "Yes"
04 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
President Joe Biden's new budget proposal for NASA is very good, supporting nearly every major Planetary Society priority. It would fund science at re...
Mighty Jupiter Revealed
02 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Scott Bolton leads the Juno mission that has been orbiting and revealing Jupiter for five years. NASA has granted an extension that will keep the spac...
The New Great Space Observatories
26 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine will soon issue the Astro2020 Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey. It will rank fou...
Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Project Manager MiMi Aung
19 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The tiny Mars Helicopter Ingenuity has flown into our hearts. Project manager MiMi Aung and her team may have made it look easy, but Aung explains why...
Defenders of Earth on Planetary Radio
12 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The 2021 Planetary Defense Conference brought together the leading scientists, policymakers and other experts who are working to protect our planet fr...
Space Policy Edition: How Starship at the Moon Brings NASA Closer to Mars
07 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In a surprise move, NASA chose SpaceX's Starship as the sole winner of its 3 billion-dollar human lunar lander development contract. Within days, Blue...
Author Andy Weir and Project Hail Mary
05 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It is always such fun to welcome back Andy Weir. The author of The Martian and Artemis has just published his most entertaining and inventive novel ye...
A Conversation with Kyoto Prize Recipient James Gunn
28 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
There is no Nobel prize for astronomy, so the Kyoto Prize for Astronomy and Astrophysics may be the highest international recognition an astronomer ca...
Is ‘Oumuamua a Piece of a Pluto-Like Planet? And Ingenuity’s First Flight on Mars
21 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We begin with a thrilling recap of the successful first flight of NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter on Mars. Then we meet two researchers who have com...
The High Frontier: A New Documentary About Gerard K. O’Neill
14 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Physicist and space pioneer Gerard K. O’Neil gathered a community of followers as he led planning for vast, magnificent human settlements in spa...
The First Space Shuttle Pilot: Bob Crippen on the 40th Anniversary of STS-1
07 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Pilot Bob Crippen and Commander John Young became the first astronauts to fly a Space Shuttle into orbit on April 12, 1981. Crippen tells host Mat Kap...
Space Policy Edition: Biden Names His NASA Administrator
02 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Bill Nelson, former Senator from Florida, congressional astronaut, and father of the Space Launch System, will likely be NASA's next administrator. Ca...
NASA’s TESS Exoplanet Mission Finds Over 2,000 Possible New Worlds
31 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) team has just announced more than 2,200 new exoplanet candidates. Natalia Guerrero of the Massachuset...
The Perseverance Rover and a Great First Month on Mars
24 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Deputy project scientists Katie Stack Morgan and Ken Williford are living on Mars time and living for Mars. We get an update from them on the work of ...
Return From Ryugu: The Hayabusa2 Leader on His Mission’s Success
17 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Hayabusa2 project manager Yuichi Tsuda and his team learned a lot from Hayabusa1, Japan’s troubled-though-successful mission that returned a sam...
InSight’s Mole: A Martian Science Odyssey
10 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Troy Hudson and a brilliant international team created a device that would hammer its way below the surface of Mars. Mars had other ideas. The Jet Pro...
Space Policy Edition: SpaceX's Early, Desperate Days (with Eric Berger)
05 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The SpaceX of today reuses rockets and launches people into space. But 15 years ago, the future of the company was in doubt as its Falcon 1 rocket rep...
Spinoffs: How NASA Technologies Benefit Life on Earth
03 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Cleaning up water pollution, inventing inexpensive ventilators for hospitals, turning waste plastic into sidewalks, and making baby formula more nutri...
Touchdown! The Sights and Sounds of Perseverance on Mars
24 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Mars 2020 rover is on Mars. We have collected the most thrilling moments from the landing and the revelations that followed, including the first s...
Planetfest ’21: To Mars and Back Again
17 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Planetary Society’s Planetfest ’21 celebrated Mars and the newest visitors to the Red Planet. Mat Kaplan shares some of his Plan...
The Big Book of Mars: Our Obsession with the Red Planet
10 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Mars has commanded our attention and stimulated our imaginations for millenia. Now, as 3 more spacecraft arrive, we talk with author Marc Hartzman abo...
Space Policy Edition: The Big Picture on U.S. Science Funding
05 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Matt Hourihan is perhaps the world's most knowledgeable expert in how the U.S. government funds basic science and development activities. He joins the...
A Cosmic Odyssey: Decades of Discovery at the Palomar Observatory
03 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Astronomer Linda Schweizer spent countless hours interviewing the explorers who revolutionized astronomy through observations made at California&rsquo...
‘Oumuamua: Avi Loeb says it may have been artificial
27 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Could the first object shown to have originated outside our solar system be a light sail built by an alien civilization? That’s the very controversi...
7 More Minutes of Terror: Perseverance Arrives at Mars
20 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The 2020 Mars Rover will reach the Red Planet on February 18th after many months in the relative quiet of space. It will then undergo a true trial by ...
Space Policy Edition: A Mob at the U.S. Capitol
15 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This is not your normal episode of the Space Policy Edition, but these are not normal times. The centuries-old U.S. tradition of the peaceful transfer...
A Symphony for 7 Moons
13 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Composer Amanda Lee Falkenberg has created The Moons Symphony. You’ll hear excerpts from each of its 7 movements. They are inspired by and evok...
Solar Cruiser: A Giant Sail Prepares for Space
06 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It is many times larger than any previous solar sail, and it will pave the way for even bigger spacecraft propelled by light. Solar Cruiser principal ...
Planetary Society All-Stars Review 2020 Space Milestones
30 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Chief Scientist Bruce Betts, Editorial Director Jason Davis, Chief Advocate and Senior Space Policy Advisor Casey Dreier, and Communications Strategy ...
Astronaut Stephanie Wilson Might Walk on the Moon
23 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Engineer and astronaut Stephanie Wilson was a toddler when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin visited the Moon. She may someday almost literally walk in t...
What Do You Need to Make Martian Oxygen? MOXIE!
16 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Mike Hecht is in charge of the MOXIE experiment on NASA’s Perseverance rover, arriving on Mars in February. The tiny device will test our ability to...
Welcoming a New Leader, and China on the Final Frontier
09 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Carl Sagan was first in the job. Now it has been handed to Caltech planetary scientist Bethany Ehlmann. We’ll talk with the Planetary Society’s ne...
Space Policy Edition: Operation Moonglow and the Global Impact of Apollo
04 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Apollo was seen as a triumph of, not for, all mankind, argues Dr. Teasel Muir-Harmony, author of the new book Operation Moonglow: A Political History ...
Observatory Director Francisco Córdova on the Devastating Loss of Arecibo
02 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The 900-ton instrument platform suspended high above the giant Arecibo dish crashed downward in the early morning hours of December 1st. Host Mat Kapl...
More Moon Water and an Update from Venus on Our 18th Anniversary!
25 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We celebrate 18 years of Planetary Radio with two great features and 10 personal questions for host Mat Kaplan from Planetary Society Chief Scientist ...
Revealing Mars From Above, and Crew Dragon is Go!
18 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Jeffrey Plaut and Richard Zurek are the project scientists for two of the most successful and long-lived Mars missions. Their orbiters, Mars Odyssey a...
Space Policy Edition: NASA's Post-Election Landscape
13 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The United States' 2020 elections are over. What do the results mean for NASA in the years ahead? To help answer that question, we welcome back Brenda...
A Rogue World Wanders as PlanetVac Heads for the Moon and Mars
11 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In a jam-packed episode, we’ll talk to a discoverer of a distant, lonely planet that wanders the galaxy, and then turn to plans to send a radically-...
A Return to Asteroid Mining, and Digging Into Space Ethics with Joel Sercel
04 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
At least two ambitious, smart asteroid mining companies have gone bust. Joel Sercel makes the case that his new effort comes at a much better time, an...
A Deep Dive into Asteroid Bennu With Dante Lauretta
28 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We are joined by the leader of the OSIRIS-REx mission that sampled an asteroid last week. Dante reveals just how brilliantly successful the encounter ...
We Have Sampled an Asteroid! And the Search for Life Above Venus
21 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
OSIRIS-REx has done it! We have special coverage of the spacecraft’s successful collection of a sample from asteroid Bennu. Then we talk with Jane G...
Beyond Earth’s Edge: A Celebrity Space Poetry Jam!
14 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Beyond Earth’s Edge: The Poetry of Spaceflight is the new and outstanding collection of poems edited by Julie Swarstad Johnson and Christopher Cokin...
Protectors of Earth! (and Other Worlds)
07 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Protecting worlds like Earth and Mars from microscopic invaders carried by human and robot visitors was just one of the scores of topics covered at th...
Space Policy Edition: Divining Biden's Space Policy with Jeff Foust
02 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A month before the U.S. election Joe Biden's campaign has yet to state its goals for space and NASA. We asked Jeff Foust, one of the best space report...
Exploring the Cosmos With Heidi Hammel and AURA
30 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
AURA, the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, is the organization that oversees operation of many of our world’s most powerful te...
A Fond Farewell: Solar System Specialist Emily Lakdawalla
23 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Emily Lakdawalla was on the very first episode of Planetary Radio, and has been heard on hundreds since then. The planetary evangelist returns for a c...
Have We Found Evidence of Life on Venus?
16 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
An international team has detected phosphine gas in the clouds above Venus. Naturally-produced phosphine on Earth is created by anaerobic bacteria. We...
Space Policy Edition: The Moon-to-Mars Strategy, with Dr. Scott Pace
11 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How spacefaring nations prioritize funding can be just as important, if not more so, than the capabilities of the commercial sector, says Dr. Mary Lyn...
A Planetary Mystery is Solved, and it’s Bill Nye’s Anniversary!
09 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
JPL’s Marc Rayman, former Dawn mission director, reveals the secrets of those bright spots on dwarf planet Ceres. First though we celebrate Bill Nye...
The Sirens of Mars Call to Us
02 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Georgetown University planetary scientist Sarah Stewart Johnson has written a beautiful book that chronicles our long quest for life on the Red Planet...
Katie Mack and The End of Everything
26 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Known as Astrokatie to her 370 thousand Twitter followers, astrophysicist and cosmologist Katie Mack has written a funny, fantastic guide to the end o...
Make Room! Worlds May Crowd Some Habitable Zones
19 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Newly-published research led by Stephen Kane finds room for as many as 6 habitable zone planets around some stars. Why then is Earth on its own? The U...
Another Ray Gun Heads for Mars. We Hear It Working.
12 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
First there was ChemCam on Mars rover Curiosity. Now, SuperCam is on its way to the Red Planet aboard Perseverance. We’ll talk with principal invest...
Space Policy Edition: Why the SLS is a National Asset, and Why That Matters
07 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How spacefaring nations prioritize funding can be just as important, if not more so, than the capabilities of the commercial sector, says Dr. Mary Lyn...
Crew Dragon Triumphant, and a Planetary Society Founder Remembers
05 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Astronaut and former SpaceX director of space operations Garrett Reisman returns to help us celebrate and appreciate the just-completed first crewed m...
Hope Leads the Way to Mars
29 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
An exclusive conversation with science lead Sarah Al Amiri and project director Omran Sharaf of the Emirates Mars Mission. Their Hope orbiter is ...
A Mars Mission Begins, a Comet Exits, and the Future of Planetary Science
22 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The United Arab Emirates Hope spacecraft has begun its journey to Mars. We’ll join a virtual launch party attended by mission leaders, NASA Administ...
3 Billion Years Ago: Was Mars Alive?
15 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Perseverance, NASA’s 2020 rover, leaves for the Red Planet in just days. Deputy project scientist Ken Williford tells us how it will look for signs ...
To Pluto and Beyond with Alan Stern
08 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It has been 5 years since the New Horizons probe revealed beautiful, surprising Pluto, and 18 months since it showed us the odd little body now known ...
Space Policy Edition: A Trillion-Dollar Space Economy?
03 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Bhavya Lal joins the show to discuss the size of the space economy, where it's going, and how the term itself can mean many different things to ma...
Jim Bell Sends New Eyes to Mars
01 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Mastcam-Z is the main camera system that will soon leave for Mars as part of the Perseverance rover. Mastcam-Z Principal Investigator Jim Bell is back...
China on the Final Frontier
24 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Low Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars, even Neptune and the edge of the solar system--China’s ambitious plans for space exploration and development are la...
LightSail 2: A Year of Solar Sailing
17 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The LightSail 2 team and 50,000 supporters around the world will celebrate the little spacecraft’s first anniversary on orbit in a few days. Planeta...
Staying Alive in Space
10 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Keeping humans alive and well in space is hard enough. How will this be accomplished on a 3-year journey to Mars and back? Paragon President and CEO G...
Space Policy Edition: NASA’s Gamble Pays Off
05 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
SpaceX's Crew Dragon safely carried 2 astronauts to the ISS, nearly a decade after NASA made a huge bet on commercial partnerships to solve a problem ...
Crew Dragon Thrills While Mars Chills
03 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This episode opens with a special message about The Planetary Society’s response to recent news, followed by a period of silence that marks the unju...
Celebrating 30 Years of Hubble with Astronaut John Grunsfeld
27 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Former astronaut and NASA Associate Administrator John Grunsfeld is often called the Hubble Repairman. He made three space shuttle trips to the space ...
Crew Dragon Deep Dive with Astronaut Garrett Reisman
20 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Engineer and former astronaut Garrett Reisman spent four months on the International Space Station before moving to SpaceX. Ten years of work at the c...
Looking for Life in Alien Oceans
13 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Jet Propulsion Lab astrobiologist Kevin Hand has just written Alien Oceans: The Search for Life in the Depths of Space. Kevin and Mat explore these se...
The Crew Dragon Countdown Begins, With Former NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver
06 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Lori Garver may have been the strongest advocate of commercial space development in her days at NASA. Now one of that program’s greatest goals is ab...
Space Policy Edition: Our Moral Obligation to Explore Space
01 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Are we morally obligated to pursue space exploration? What ethical considerations should we consider when creating space policy? Philosopher James Sch...
Life on Mars: Joining the Quest with Penny Boston and Jim Green
29 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Mat Kaplan recently hosted the first of a series of Explore Mars live and interactive events. NASA astrobiologist Penelope Boston and NASA Chief Scien...
The Royal Astronomical Society at 200
22 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
“The object of THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY shall be the encouragement and promotion of Astronomy, Solar-System Sciences, Geophysics and closely r...
NASA Administrator James Bridenstine Returns
15 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We talk with NASA’s leader about how the agency is meeting the challenge of the pandemic. He looks forward to the future with confidence as he offer...
The Slime Mold and the Universe
08 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How could a lowly slime mold help researchers understand the distribution of dark matter and galaxies across the cosmos? Joseph Burchett and Oskar Ele...