AstrotalkUK

Founded in 1958, COSPAR organises Scientific Assemblies and Symposia in different countries where thousands of scientists, engineers and researchers gather over several days to share their latest work. This interview was recorded on 8 August 2026, on the final day of the 46th Scientific Assembly in Florence, Italy. Dr Pascale Ehrenfreund, a former president of the International Astronautical Feder...

Dr Lev Zelenyi talks about his long career in many roles, including 17 years as the Director of the Space Research Institute (IKI), contributing to structural reforms within the Russian Academy of Sciences and his deep conviction in cultivating global partnerships in several key Russian space missions.

Our Staggering, Invisible Space Dependency: Approximately 8% to 10% of all global socioeconomic activity is now directly dependent on space-based assets. Dr Plattard shares his concerns on the absence of international rules and potential long term impact.

The ambitious Martian Moons Exploration (MMX) mission is expected to launch to Mars on 20th October 2026 and return a sample from the surface of Phobos by 2031. Several years in the making, it is a collaborative venture between CNES, DLR, NASA and led by JAXA.

Every national space programme rests on four pillars: visionary leadership, unwavering political and economic commitment, realistic ambitions, and a deep acknowledgement that fundamental science is the essential bedrock for a successful and enduring space programme. Professor Wu, Ji has continued that tradition of putting science first. In this interview, recorded during COSPAR2026 in Florence. He...

Just between you and me, one of the best parts of this podcast is the opportunity it gives me to meet some very unique and special people, like today's guest, Dame Jocelyn Bell-Burnell. Last summer I met and recorded this interview in Oxford. We covered a range of topics, including Pulsars (of course), women in science, her many awards and her faith. As part of her PhD in Cambridge in the late 196...

The European Solar Telescope is a project to build ever laregr telescope on Earth but this time for a solar telescope. This interview was recorded in Tenerife but the EST will be built on the negighboring Island of Las Palmas.

The Toliman Space Telescope. A small, novel spacecraft looking for Earth-like planets in our nearest neighbour star system, Alpha Centauri.

Imagine a giant vertical railway stretching 100,000 km from the equator, somewhere in the Pacific, straight up into space. Instead of expensive, polluting rockets, the space elevator offers a smooth, slow electric ascent to Earth orbit. This "bridge to the stars" connects a floating Earth platform at 36,000 km to a massive counterweight located 64,000 km farther out. It is held taut by the Earth's...

We are increasingly aware of the impact of space weather on spacecraft in space and, occasionally, on electrical power transmission on Earth, but what about its impact on the Earth's atmosphere? That is exactly the research interest of Professor Pallam Raju, Dean of the Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad, India. Founded in 1947, the PRL is one of India's most prestigious scientific institut...

Space Power Ltd, founded in 2019, is developing a novel solution for contactless power delivery using high-intensity lasers to extend the lifespans of ageing satellites in space. I spoke with its founder, Keval Dattani, in Nicosia during Cospar2025.org.

Professor Kai-Uwe Schrogl is a space law expert with experience in many roles, including working with the European Space Agency ESA, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and as the Director of the European Space Policy Institute (ESPI) in Vienna. In this interview, recorded in Nicosia during cospar2025.org in November 2025, he discusses concerns about increasing commercialisation of sp...

Cyprus is a small country with a small population and a small economy. But it has big ambitions in space. In this episode, recorded at Cospar 2025 in Nicosia, George Danos, who has been championing this case for Cyprus for years and can be considered Cyprus's Carl Sagan, explains the rise of Cyprus's space activities in communication services, small satellites, and collaboration with ESA and more.

From centruries of weaving in the state of Kerala in India to automated AI controlled machines weaving Graphene coated fibres in Manchester. A modern day Cottonopolis.

rofessor James Baker, CEO of Graphene@Manchester, describes Manchester’s journey to commercialise the Nobel Prize-winning discovery of Graphene.

You may have seen the BBC documentary Britain's Greatest Pilot. Yes, he was an outstanding pilot, but there was much more to him than just that. I published extracts from an interview with Captain Eric Brown in April 2011. Much of that interview was not published .. until now.

Just as the Moon was the first stepping stone for our interplanetary exploration, our nearest star, the Alpha Centauri System will inevitably become our stepping stone for our Interstellar Journey. That is in the distance. A new mission, The Toliman Space Telescope, is launching soon will target the Alpha-Centauri System from Earth orbit.

It is December 2034. A spacecraft launched from Earth in July 2028, enters Titan's atmosphere at 5km/s. Around 2 hours later, it softly lands on the surface at less than 1m /s. Over the next three years, NASA's Dragonfly mission, a rotorcraft the size of a small car, will chemically analyse the Titan's atmosphere, ground and a little of its subsurface. It's called Dragonfly

A two-day Breakthrough Discuss conference held on 23rd and 24th April 2025 in Oxford England, took stock of the latest developments through three main sessions: "Forms of Non-Terrestrial Life", "The Nature of Consciousness and Intelligence", and "Detecting Life As We Do Not Know It". Breakthough Discuss was overseen by the Chairman of the Breakthrough Foundation, in this interview Dr Pete Worden....

The story of Teide-1 (the first brown dwarf to be observed) is the story at the other end of a star's life cycle. That early stage is when stars transition from a huge cloud of dust and gas (billions of km across). to the size of a large planet (150,000 km). This is way smaller than the size of the sun and only a little larger than Jupiter.

On Thursday, 3rd January 2019, some water was added to some seeds in a tiny greenhouse. The seeds, cotton, potato, Rape and Arabidopsis sprouted. This was an experiment fonducted on the lunar surface

A brief but fascinating life and work of Professor Ivan Almar. he and his wife's contributions to asttronautics in Hungary during and after the Soviet era.

Did you know our galaxy (the Milky Way) has a magnetic field? News to me! Dr Vasu Shaw explains how astronomers go about understanding such phenomena. We also speak her fascinating international journey to becoming an astrophysicist.

Its not just cotton, trains and computers that Manchester is known for its innovation but aviation too. Frank Pleszak shares his insights in to the role Manchester played in aviation more than 100 years ago.

In this episode, Professor Rene Breton, originally from Quebec, has been working at the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics for over a decade. We discuss only a small part of his current research, including how Pulsars may one day be used as a GPS for interstellar travel.