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Since 2002, Planetary Radio has visited with a scientist, engineer, project manager, advocate, or writer who provides a unique perspective on the quest for knowledge about our solar system and beyond. The full show archive is available for free.
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Elon Musk’s SpaceX nearly failed 15 years ago as it struggled to launch its first rocket. Eric Berger has written about this challenging early era and how it helped create today’s successful, innovative company.
We examine a few of the thousands of technologies and innovations developed by NASA that are making lives better around our planet.
Composer Amanda Lee Falkenberg is joined by Cassini project scientist Linda Spilker and retired astronaut Nicole Stott as she shares excerpts from The Moons Symphony.
NASA has given the green light to Principal Investigator Les Johnson and his team for construction of a solar sail that dwarfs all that have come before.
18 astronauts on the Artemis Team have a shot at walking on the Moon, and Stephanie Wilson is one of them.
Astronomer Jane Greaves returns with an update on the phosphine gas floating above Venus, before Casey Honnibal takes us through her team’s discovery of water right out under the Sun on Earth’s Moon.
The leader of the OSIRIS REx asteroid sample return mission shares more details of last week’s encounter in an exclusive interview, while we also learn about the proposed mission to look for life on Saturn’s moon Enceladus.
NASA’s planetary protection officer joined Mat Kaplan’s Humans to Mars summit panel for a great conversation about protecting worlds throughout the solar system from what could be devastating contamination.
It could be a profound and historic discovery made on Earth’s nearest planetary neighbor.
Georgetown University planetary scientist Sarah Stewart Johnson chronicles the long history of our fascination with Mars and the possibility of life there, culminating with Perseverance, the new rover now headed there.
New research reveals why Earth is on its own in this solar system’s habitable zone where liquid surface water flows, but the same isn’t true across the galaxy.
The Coalition for Deep Space Exploration’s Mary Lynne Dittmar talks with Casey Dreier about how and why spacefaring nations prioritize funding for space development and exploration.
Astrophysicist and former astronaut John “Hubble Repairman” Grunsfeld looks back over three decades of beautiful science and inspiration delivered by the Hubble Space Telescope.
JPL scientist Kevin Hand is endlessly fascinated by the possibility of life in the hidden oceans of the outer solar system’s moons, and now he has written a great book about the quest to discover it.
The search for life on Mars is at a critical stage. What will come next if we find it?
Physicist and author Paul Davies returns to talk about his new book that explores the defining role information plays in life on Earth and perhaps elsewhere.
We talk with two of our 2019 Shoemaker NEO Grant winners, who received funding to help find, track, and characterize potentially hazardous asteroids.
As the 2010s come to a close, Marcia Smith, the founder of Space Policy Online, rejoins the show to explore the most significant and impactful space policy decisions of the 2010s.
How can a simple report—just words on a page—lead to creation of a spacecraft? We explore how a 2019 report on the need for a dedicated, space-based telescope to find threatening near-Earth asteroids motivated NASA to pursue that very mission.
Planetary scientist Vishnu Reddy studies space objects ranging from satellite debris to planet-killing asteroids. He shares the status of our effort to avoid the fate of the dinosaurs in a conversation with host Mat Kaplan. Did you know fruit flies were first in space? That’s just one of the random space facts you’ll absorb in this week’s What’s Up segment with Bruce.