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Here’s our sampling of the leading edge research presented by NIAC Fellows at NASA’s 2021 virtual gathering.
NASA has approved development of the NEO Surveyor space telescope. Project lead Amy Mainzer shares her hopes for this vital planetary defense tool.
The Pentagon has released its assessment of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena. Casey Dreier and science journalist Sarah Scoles talk about what’s behind the renewed interest in UFOs and Sarah’s book, They Are Already Here.
University of Glasgow chemist Lee Cronin believes he and his collaborators have found a way to recognize life as we know it and as we don’t know it.
Atmospheric scientist Mark Lemmon discusses the beautiful clouds on Mars imaged by NASA's Curiosity rover.
Planetary Society grants have enabled amateur astronomers to discover and track asteroids that cross Earth’s path. We’ll meet two of them.
Astrophysicist Grant Tremblay describes how four proposed space telescopes could reveal our solar system and the universe as never before.
Six planetary defense leaders report on progress toward protecting Earth from near-Earth objects.
NASA chose SpaceX’s Starship as the sole winner of its human lunar lander development contract in a move that may also take us closer to Mars.
Gerard K. O’Neill envisioned vast, magnificent human settlements in space. His followers, including Jeff Bezos, are working to turn his vision into reality.
Robert Crippen and John Young became the first humans to fly a space shuttle into orbit when Columbia launched on April 12, 1981.
NASA engineer and scientist Troy Hudson shares the sad but ultimately inspiring story of a two-year attempt to dig deep beneath the surface of Mars.
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.