Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science

Psyche is a 279 kilometer-wide (173 mile-wide) hunk of metal in space. Psyche is also a magnificent spacecraft that will soon head toward its namesake in the asteroid belt. Host Mat Kaplan recently visited the JPL clean room where the probe was in final preparation for launch. You’ll hear conversations with mission leaders including principal investigator Lindy Elkins-Tanton and project mana...

Do we need to send humans into space? Won't robots soon be smart enough and capable enough to do this dangerous work for us? These and other questions are explored by Martin Rees, Britain's Astronomer Royal, and astrophysicist/science author Donald Goldsmith in their thought-provoking new book, "The End of Astronauts: Why Robots are the Future of Exploration." They present their arguments in this...

Host Mat Kaplan joined the Los Angeles celebration of humanity becoming a spacefaring species. He talked with the Yuri’s Night founders and others under the Space Shuttle Endeavour.  The much-anticipated Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey was issued as we finished this week’s show. Planetary Society senior space policy adviser Casey Dreier will give us a brief overv...

“Never panic early” is both Fred Haise’s motto and the title of his new memoir. Join us for a wonderful hour of stories about the Moon mission that almost didn’t make it home, along with Fred’s memories of the early days of the space shuttle, the International Space Station and much more. You’ll also have the chance to win a copy of his book when Bruce Betts arr...

The Biden administration is proposing $26 billion for NASA next year, with significant increases benefiting the Artemis program, Mars Sample Return and Earth Science missions. But not everything is good news: NEO Surveyor and Mars Ice Mapper are both slated for significant cuts, and inflation may take a bite out of any increases NASA would receive on paper. With Congress facing elections in the fa...

Recommendations made in the 2023-2032 Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey will be revealed on April 19. One of the 11 design studies commissioned for the survey explores a flagship mission to Neptune. The Neptune Odyssey project engineer is Brenda Clyde. Her colleague, Kirby Runyon, is the project scientist. They’ll take us inside this exciting concept and remind us of why an i...

He helped invent X-ray astronomy more than 50 years ago. Martin Weisskopf still leads the field as project scientist for the spectacular Chandra X-ray Observatory and principal investigator for the brand new Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer or IXPE. He’ll help us zero in on the most energetic and enigmatic objects in the cosmos. NASA’s fiscal year 2023 budget proposal has just been u...

At 93, Margaret Kivelson is still at the center of space science and policy. In this charming conversation she shares anecdotes about her early life, how she entered the new field of space physics and some of her groundbreaking work, including discovery of convincing evidence for a saltwater ocean under the ice on Jupiter’s moon Europa. Bruce and Mat offer another great prize from Chop Shop...

We are honored to offer you this outstanding episode of one of our favorite podcasts. Twenty Thousand Hertz reveals the stories behind the world's most recognizable and interesting sounds. Here they present the Voyager Golden Record carried by those beloved spacecraft that have departed our solar system on a journey to the stars. We hope you'll enjoy it as much as we have. We'll be back with a reg...

Citizen scientists will soon have another opportunity to become part of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and an innovative project will use a subtle effect of sunlight to learn about near-Earth objects. These are the projects funded in the first round of The Planetary Society’s Science and Technology Empowered by the Public (STEP) grant program. We’ll meet the awardees aft...

Planetary scientist Bethany Ehlmann has co-authored a paper presenting evidence that liquid surface water flowed on Mars as much as a billion years more recently than previously thought. That’s an extra billion years for possible life to have formed and thrived. We’ll also join Planetary Society editor Rae Paoletta as she explores water worlds throughout our solar system in a new artic...

It's the 50th anniversary of Pioneer 10, the first spacecraft to the outer planets. Pioneers 10 and 11 were scrappy, low-cost endeavors that blazed the path for future exploration. But the future has been expensive: outer planets missions are some of the priciest planetary probes in history. Can we get back to a pioneering spirit and increase the frequency of outer planet exploration? To find out,...

Michelle Kunimoto was one of Forbes magazine’s 30 Under 30 in science. Now she leads the most successful search for exoplanets that relies on data delivered by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite or TESS. She shares this fast-growing catalog of worlds in her first Planetary Radio conversation. Bruce Betts and Mat Kaplan also kick off a new series of great prizes in the What’s Up...

Astrobiologist, planetary scientist, author and science communicator David Grinspoon has just been named a lifetime fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He returns to Planetary Radio for a wide-ranging conversation about the state of our search for life across the solar system and beyond. We also learn what it was like to grow up in a home visited regularly by Carl Sa...

The Planetary Society has awarded another eight Gene Shoemaker near-Earth object grants to outstanding amateur astronomers and observatories around the world. We’ll meet recipients from Chile, Croatia and the United States after chief scientist Bruce Betts tells us about the program. Bruce will then return with Mat Kaplan for yet another What’s Up tour of the sky and a new space trivia...

Astrophysicists Sam Grunblatt and Johanna Vos are colleagues at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Sam’s team has discovered giant worlds that are about to be devoured by their expanding stars, while Johanna has detected weather on brown dwarfs, those plentiful worlds that are bigger than planets but smaller than stars. Later, Bruce Betts takes the Olympics beyond the edge o...

Robert Smith shares the story of how the astronomical community decided upon the JWST as the follow-up to the Hubble Space Telescope, the coalition politics required for mega-projects like Hubble and JWST, and how that dynamic shapes modern science. Dr. Smith holds a Ph. D. in the history and philosophy of science from the University of Cambridge. He  is a professor at the University of Alber...

The JWST’s instruments have been turned on. Now begins the months-long preparation for observations that will reveal our universe as never before. 2006 Nobel Prize for Physics laureate John Mather is the senior project scientist for the new telescope. He shares his hope for what’s to come and a look back at how this mighty instrument came to be. He and Mat Kaplan also take a deep dive...

From Venus to Pluto, our solar system contains a myriad of planets, moons and other bodies whose surfaces are covered in snow and ice made of water and other exotic stuff. Saturn’s moon Enceladus is among the most intriguing. Colin Meyer, Jacob Buffo and their associates have modeled its ice and the plumes that emanate from the moon’s south pole. These geysers may not originate in the...

We are approaching the 10th anniversary of Curiosity’s arrival in the Red Planet’s Gale crater. The rolling laboratory is still making profound discoveries as it reveals beautiful vistas and closeups. Project scientist Ashwin Vasavada shares some of the most significant finds in the last year. We’re deep into winter in the northern hemisphere, making Orion, Mat Kaplan’s fav...

The Parker Solar Probe dipped within the corona on its eighth encounter with our star. It found phenomena that have surprised and delighted heliophysicists, and it captured a movie that is one of the greatest space videos ever. We’ll talk about these and more with Nicola “Nicky” Fox, director of NASA’s Heliophysics Division, and Nour Raouafi, the mission’s project sci...

New rockets, new legislation, and a new direction for planetary exploration are just some of the major events happening in space in the coming year. D.C. Operations Chief Brendan Curry returns to the show to explore these and other issues that will shape the next decade of space exploration and occupy The Planetary Society's advocacy and policy team in 2022. Discover more here: https://www.planeta...

NASA’s Artemis program aims to return humans to the Moon for the first time since 1972. We visit Naval Base San Diego to board the USS John P. Murtha, the ship that may recover the uncrewed Artemis 1 Orion capsule when it returns from the Moon this year. Next, Daniel Kopp of ILC Dover tells us about work underway to create the next moonsuit. Every Apollo moonwalker wore an ILC Dover spacesui...

Mat Kaplan and six Planetary Society colleagues review a year full of accomplishments, firsts and exciting discoveries. Society CEO Bill Nye opens the show with a celebration of the James Webb Space Telescope’s launch. Next is a round robin discussion with Jason Davis, Casey Dreier, Kate Howells, and Rae Paoletta. We close with Bruce Betts’ recap of the LightSail 2 mission right after...

Space historian William Sheehan and planetary scientist Jim Bell have written a fascinating history of humankind’s at least 5,000-year relationship with the Red Planet. “Discovering Mars” is filled with anecdotes about the people who have revealed Mars. The chronicle includes Mars helicopter Ingenuity’s flights and then looks to the future of exploration. Someone will win t...