Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science

NASA’s Orion spacecraft has taken its first step toward Mars and an asteroid mission. The Planetary Society’s Jason Davis was at the Kennedy Space Center for the December 5 mission. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Spoiler alert. Famed physicist Kip Thorne says you might be able to survive a plunge into a black hole after all! That’s just one molecule of the fascinating science behind the science fiction film he helped create. We’ll talk about the movie and Kip’s new book, “The Science of Interstellar.”Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy info...

Not just landed. Orbited, too. European Space Agency Senior Science Advisor Mark McCaughrean helps us celebrate the Rosetta orbiter and the Philae lander. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Cassini is safe! Project scientist Linda Spilker returns with a regular update on Saturn, its moons and rings not long after learning that the mission is funded through its 2017 plunge into the planet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If there’s life on Mars, it’s probably deep beneath the surface. That’s just one reason we need a tool like Planetary Deep Drill on the red planet and other mysterious worlds around our solar system. Honeybee Robotics’ Kris Zacny introduces us to the innovative prototype. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystu...

It was a terrible, tragic week for commercial space development. Historian and space policy analyst John Logsdon helps up understand the greater meaning of the SpaceShipTwo and Antares disasters on this special edition of Planetary Radio, with additional thoughts from Bill Nye. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See o...

MESSENGER has been orbiting the innermost planet for more than three-and-half-years. Principal Investigator Sean Solomon returns with a status report as the mission enters its final phase. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ilse Cleeves is lead author of a paper that concludes up to half of our solar system’s water is older than the solar system itself. The implications for life across the galaxy are profound. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s terribly hard to find exoplanets that look like our homeworld. The search requires development of astoundingly powerful and precise instruments. That’s the job Debra Fischer and her team have taken on. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We welcomed 1,600 Canadian space enthusiasts to the University of Toronto for our October 1st celebration of Canada in space! Join Mat Kaplan and Bill Nye with their guests, Canadian space writer Elizabeth Howell, University of Western Ontario planetary scientist Gordon “Oz” Osinski, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen. Bruce Betts appeared via Skype to lead a rousing Random Space Fa...

The Chairman of the powerful Science, Space and Technology Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives joins us for a talk about planetary science, Europa, a human flyby of Mars and much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The latest guest of the Red Planet arrived in orbit on the evening of September 22, 2014. Planetary Radio Live was watching with fingers crossed in Pasadena, California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Planetary Scientist Jim Bell of Arizona State University joined other experts in front of the US House of Representatives Space Committee on September 10th. Get his report this week. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Inspired by Star Trek, distinguished physicist Miguel Alcubierre developed the general relativity-based model for warp drive 20 years ago. Hear why he doubts it will ever be a reality, and learn about his current research on gravitational waves. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privac...

Explore Mars wants to look for life on the Red Planet. Not past life. Life thriving under the Martian surface right now. Chris Carberry will tell us how the ExoLance project might find it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New Horizons passed through the orbit of Neptune on August 25th. By cosmic coincidence, this was the 25th anniversary of Voyager 2’s flyby of that big, blue world. We catch Principal Investigator Alan Stern right after a celebration in Washington. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for priv...

Physicist Gilbert "Rip" Collins of the Lawrence Livermore National Lab will tell us about recent use of the world’s most powerful lasers to recreate conditions at the cores of giant planets. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Harvard’s Henry Lin led work that determined the soon-to-be-launched James Webb Space Telescope may be able to detect an alien civilization by analyzing its atmosphere. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Venus Express Project Scientist Håkan Svedhem tells us about the spacecraft’s harrowing descent into the Venusian atmosphere, what it is currently up to, and what he’d like to see next at that forbidding planet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In his 55 years as NBC’s space correspondent, Jay Barbree has won the respect and friendship of many astronauts. Neil Armstrong stands above them all. Now Jay has created this very personal chronicle about his friend, with help from Neil and many of the other pioneering spacefarers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....

They have generated excitement, enthusiasm and support throughout the world. The ISEE-3 Reboot Project has succeeded in gaining control over the 36-year old spacecraft, but will they be able to move it? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

LightSail, the Planetary Society’s innovative solar sail cubesat, will ride into space on the huge SpaceX Falcon Heavy, now in development. Bill Nye and others join us for a live celebration of this announcement. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Cornell grad student Jason Hofgartner reports on the discovery of what appears (and disappears!) to be an island on one of Titan’s frigid lakes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There’s so much we don’t know about the origin of life here or anywhere else in the universe. But there must have been an energy source. Researcher Laurie Barge led work that simulated the natural formation of a fuel cell that may have taken place in Earth’s primordial oceans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See om...

Kepler-186f is the very first exoplanet that is both the size of our own world and in the habitable zone surrounding its star. SETI Institute scientist Elisa Quintana is lead author of the paper announcing its existence. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.