Aspiring Martians

This week on Aspiring Martians , we're back with another installment of Inside the Habitat , our ongoing series exploring the remarkable places around the world where researchers are preparing humans for life on the Moon and Mars. And this month, we're heading somewhere a little unexpected: Grand Forks, North Dakota. Joining me is Dr. Pablo de León , an aerospace engineer, spacesuit design...

Houston, we have a litter box problem. We’re figuring out how to send people to Mars. But can we bring our cats? For National Cat Day, Everyday Mars explores life on the Red Planet with humanity’s most independent, occasionally affectionate, and almost certainly most judgmental companions. After Dogs on Mars with Dr. Clive Wynne and Pets on Mars with Dr. Jamie Foster, it’s finally the cats’ turn....

What if you spent your entire life preparing to become an astronaut, only to realize that reaching space might not change who you are? This week on Aspiring Martians , I'm joined by Makiah Eustice , an aerospace engineer, U.S. Air Force officer, creative, and three-time analog astronaut whose journey toward space has taken her through military flight testing, engineering, research, and simulat...

Mars is going to need scientists, doctors, engineers and astronauts. It is also going to need people who know how to fix things. This week on Aspiring Martians , I’m joined by Matthias Beach , a U.S. Air Force Space Command veteran, builder, researcher and analog astronaut whose work sits firmly on the hands-on side of human space exploration. Matthias became the Master Builder for the Space Analo...

What if students did not have to wait until they became scientists, engineers, or astronauts to find out what working on Mars might actually feel like? This month on Inside the Habitat , we travel to eastern Slovakia to explore Cosmic Region / Kozmický región , the country’s first dedicated analog habitat for simulated missions to the Moon and Mars. Located at the Rožňava Observatory, COSMIC REGIO...

Could we actually grow coffee on Mars? And even if we could, would it be worth the space, water, energy, and years of patience required to get a single coffee plant producing? This month on Everyday Mars , I’m joined by Peter Giuliano , Senior Advisor for Scientific Communication and Engagement Strategy at the Specialty Coffee Association and one of the world’s leading voices on coffee science. Pe...

Carlota Keimer originally applied to spend time at a Mars analog in the Utah desert. Then the mission moved considerably farther north. This week on Aspiring Martians , I’m joined by Carlota Keimer , a mechanical and aerospace engineer, pilot trainee, science communicator, and backup engineer for Hypatia III , the next mission from the Hypatia Mars Association. Hypatia III is now preparing to cond...

This week on Aspiring Martians , I’m joined by Dr. Eiman Jahangir , a cardiologist, author, speaker, and astronaut whose new book, A Heart for Space: An Astronaut’s Guide to Achieving the Impossible , traces the winding path between two lifelong ambitions. Eiman was born in Iran and came to the United States as a young child. After visiting the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville at age s...

This week on Aspiring Martians , I’m joined by Dr. Alexandra Kemp , aka The Singing Space Traveler, an aerospace human-factors engineer, bioastronautics researcher, educator, opera singer, NASA Solar System Ambassador and aspiring commercial astronaut. Alex currently works as an Advanced Human Factors Systems Engineer at Honeywell Aerospace Technologies, where she helps tackle a deceptively compli...

This week on Inside the Habitat , Aspiring Martians takes a closer look at SOLIS100 , a European Space Agency isolation study conducted by the German Aerospace Center at its :envihab aerospace medicine research facility in Cologne. SOLIS100, short for Study of Long-term Isolation , placed six carefully selected participants from six European countries into a closed, controlled environment for 100...

Who owns your house on Mars? What happens if somebody steals your solar panels? Which laws apply if astronauts from several different countries are living together? And what happens when the first child is actually born there? This month on our special Everyday Mars episode, space lawyer Michelle Hanlon joins Aspiring Martians to explore one of the strangest and most important questions surroundin...

What kind of person do we actually need to send to Mars? Someone technically brilliant, certainly. But future Martian crews will also need people capable of communicating through frustration, relinquishing control when someone else knows better, remaining calm during emergencies, living without privacy, managing relationships across millions of miles, and somehow still volunteering to clean the to...

What can Antarctica teach us about Mars? This week on Aspiring Martians , I sit down with biologist, data scientist, educator, and Mars analog astronaut Pacifica Sommers to explore how some of Earth’s most extreme environments are shaping the future of human space exploration. Pacifica’s career has taken her from the blistering deserts of Arizona to the frozen Dry Valleys of Antarctica, studying e...

In this month’s Inside the Habitat , I traveled to NASA’s Johnson Space Center to explore the agency’s human exploration analogs. From the year-long Mars missions of CHAPEA, to the behavioral research of HERA, and beyond to a look toward the future with the upcoming Moon and Mars Exploration Analog (MMEA). First, I sit down with Dr. Grace Douglas , Principal Investigator for CHAPEA and NASA’s lead...

Human beings have created art for tens of thousands of years. From prehistoric cave paintings to Renaissance masterpieces, photography, music, sculpture, and now even paintings created aboard the International Space Station, creativity has followed us everywhere we’ve gone. So what happens when humanity reaches Mars? This month on Everyday Mars , retired NASA astronaut, artist, engineer, and autho...

What does it look like to pursue multiple impossible dreams at the same time? For Dr. Banu Cole , it means leading cutting-edge cancer research during the week, flying helicopters, editing one of the world’s first journals dedicated to analog astronaut research, and helping prepare humanity for future missions to Mars. Banu earned her PhD in Cell Biology from Harvard before building a career leadi...

What happens when the traditional path to becoming an astronaut closes before you even get the chance to prove yourself? For Dr. Dirk Raiser, it meant finding another way forward. Dirk is a German experimental physicist, optical-instrumentation specialist, analog astronaut, commercial astronaut candidate, and founder of Razzor Tech, a startup developing spacesuits and mobility systems for astronau...

This month on Inside the Habitat, we’re traveling to northeastern Brazil to explore Habitat Marte, the Southern Hemisphere’s only continuously operating Mars analog station. Founded by professor, researcher, and analog astronaut Julio Rezende, Habitat Marte has welcomed more than 1,000 participants from over 40 countries and conducted nearly 190 simulated space missions. Built in Brazil’s rugged s...

Imagine we've landed on Mars, set up shop, and are absolutely thriving. Now what? It’s a question that rarely gets asked. We spend countless hours talking about rockets, habitats, food production, and surviving the journey to the Red Planet—but if humanity truly plans to build permanent settlements beyond Earth, another challenge inevitably awaits us: creating the next generation. In this epis...

In this special bonus episode of Aspiring Martians , I caught up with NASA astronaut Dr. Anil Menon just weeks before his first journey to space aboard Soyuz MS-29 , where he’ll spend roughly eight months aboard the International Space Station as part of Expeditions 74 and 75. Although Anil has served as a NASA flight surgeon, SpaceX’s first medical director, an Air Force physician, engineer, pilo...

Most people imagine a straight line into the space industry. Mason Robbins’ story is anything but. After beginning his career in international relations and conflict studies, Mason worked with organizations including the United Nations, Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, and innovation hubs across Europe before eventually finding his way back to his childhood passion for space exploration. Today, he serve...

What does it take to pursue a dream that feels bigger than the world around you? This week, Joe sits down with Hajar Azizi, a 20-year-old engineering student at École Centrale Casablanca and an active member of the Moroccan Association for Space Studies (MASS), to explore how curiosity, determination, and community can help turn seemingly impossible ambitions into tangible steps forward. Hajar is...

What does it take to build a space community where one barely exists? This week, I sit down with Ismail El Omari , a Moroccan space architect, analog astronaut, educator, and founder of the Moroccan Association for Space Studies (MASS). From his childhood fascination with space to participating in analog astronaut missions and becoming one of Morocco’s leading space advocates, Ismail shares how he...

For this month’s Inside the Habitat , we’re heading to the slopes of Mauna Loa in Hawaii to explore one of the most iconic analog habitats on Earth: HI-SEAS. For more than a decade, HI-SEAS has helped researchers study what it takes to keep future astronauts healthy, productive, and sane during long-duration missions to Mars. Crews have spent months, and even an entire year, living in isolation in...

This month’s special Everyday Mars episode heads into the alternate-history universe of For All Mankind with former NASA astronaut, SpaceX engineer, and series technical advisor Garrett Reisman. If you somehow haven’t started the show yet… first of all, what are you doing? And second: fair warning, this conversation contains spoilers for Seasons 1 through 4. At this point though, you’ve had years...