Landing On Mars With JPL's Matt Golombek

Air Date: 06/17/2013
Run Time: 38:05

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Guests:

Matt Golombek, Co-chair, Mars Exploration Rover Landing Site selection committee

Topics: mission status, podcasts and videos, interview, spacecraft, Planetary Society People, Bill Nye, Planetary Radio, Mars, Mars Pathfinder and Sojourner, Mars Exploration Rovers, Opportunity, Curiosity (Mars Science Laboratory), InSight, geology

Join us at JPL for a conversation with Mars landing site selection expert Matt Golombek. Matt is also now Project Scientist for the Mars Exploration Rover program, and share the great news from Opportunity about its latest discovery. Emily Lakdawalla presents a guest blog entry that features splendid images from Mars Express, while Bill Nye explains the convoluted ways of space science funding in Washington. Bruce Betts and Mat Kaplan are at a legendary Pasadena eatery for this week’s What’s Up. Cosmic hot dog, anyone?

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This week's question:
How many Plutos would fit inside Jupiter?

To submit your answer:
Complete the contest entry form at http:planetary.org/radiocontest or write to us at planetaryradio@planetary.org no later than Monday, June 24th, at 2pm Pacific Time. Be sure to include your name and mailing address.

Last week's question:
Who was James Webb, after whom the James Webb Space Telescope is named? (Be brief.)

Answer:
The answer will be revealed next week.

Question from the week before:
Approximately how many jellyfish flew on STS-40?

Answer:
Between 2,400 and 2,500 jellyfish.

Comments:

No trivia contest spoilers please!

Andrew Planet: 06/18/2013 02:37 CDT

Yeah, I agree with Bill, if half of the people are woman then half of the astronauts ought to be women. I keep asking myself would it make any difference sending astronauts in general that were selected for being small in stature? The smaller the humans that we send into outer space the more of them we could have out there for the same resource expenditure. As long as the same experiments can be carried out there doesn't seem any reason for sending them larger and therefore more resource consuming. Imagine in the future, huge posters celebrating some new frontier crossed in outer space and depicting the hero astronauts, large in view on the picture yet as representatives of our species the smallest of our kind.