Shows / Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science
Planetary Radio brings you the human adventure across our Solar System and beyond. We visit each week with the scientists, engineers, leaders, advocates, and astronauts who are taking us across the final frontier. Regular features raise your space IQ while they put a smile on your face. Join host Sarah Al-Ahmed and Planetary Society colleagues including Bill Nye the Science Guy and Bruce Betts as they dive deep into space science and exploration. The monthly Space Policy Edition takes you…
Episodes
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceSpace Policy Edition: Inside the Planetary Science Decadal Survey Process with Bethany Ehlmann
Caltech planetary scientist and Planetary Society president Bethany Ehlmann was a key player in the creation of the recently released recommendations that may…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and SciencePlanetary Radio Live in London: The Moons Symphony
Host Mat Kaplan has returned from the UK and the recording of The Moons Symphony by the London Symphony Orchestra. You’ll hear excerpts from our…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceCassini’s Dramatic End: A Planetary Radio Reprise
With Mat Kaplan in London for Planetary Radio Live, we bring back one of the most moving events in the history of our show. The Cassini orbiter plunged into…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceLife, the Universe and Britney Schmidt
Our in-depth, fascinating conversation with Cornell University professor Britney Schmidt touches on how we’ll recognize life when we find it elsewhere…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and SciencePerseverance Perseveres: A Mars rover update from Ken Farley
Perseverance, the Mars 2020 rover, has begun an exciting new phase of its mission. Project scientist Ken Farley tells us why the ancient river delta it has…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceSpace Policy Edition: How Russia's Invasion of Ukraine Has Changed Space, with Mariel Borowitz
It's not just the ISS partnership — commercial satellites, international cooperation, and managing space debris may all be impacted by the war in…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceHeavy Metal: An encounter with the Psyche spacecraft
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…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceThe End of Astronauts?
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…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceYuri’s Night: Join the party!
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…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceApollo 13 astronaut Fred Haise
“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…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceSpace Policy Edition: NASA's 2023 Budget Request
The Biden administration is proposing $26 billion for NASA next year, with significant increases benefiting the Artemis program, Mars Sample Return and Earth…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceNeptune Odyssey: why we need to visit an ice giant
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…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceX-raying the universe with Martin Weisskopf
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…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceLegendary Space Physics Pioneer Margaret Kivelson
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…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and SciencePlanetary Radio Special Edition: The Voyager Golden Record by Twenty Thousand Hertz
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…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceMeet the first STEP Grant awardees
Citizen scientists will soon have another opportunity to become part of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and an innovative project will use a…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceWater, water everywhere with Bethany Ehlmann
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…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceSpace Policy Edition: Why are outer planets missions so expensive?
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…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science5,000 worlds and counting: the success of TESS
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…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceAstrobiologist David Grinspoon on life, the universe and everything
Astrobiologist, planetary scientist, author and science communicator David Grinspoon has just been named a lifetime fellow of the American Association for the…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceSaving the world one telescope at a time: The Shoemaker NEO grant winne
The Planetary Society has awarded another eight Gene Shoemaker near-Earth object grants to outstanding amateur astronomers and observatories around the world…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceThe weather on brown dwarfs, and worlds on the eve of destruction
Astrophysicists Sam Grunblatt and Johanna Vos are colleagues at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Sam’s team has discovered giant…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceSpace Policy Edition: JWST and the politics of mega-science (with Robert Smith)
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…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceNobel laureate John Mather: The promise of the James Webb Space Telescope
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…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceWorlds of snow and ice
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…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceCuriosity rolls on: Mars Science Laboratory project scientist Ashwin Vasavada
We are approaching the 10th anniversary of Curiosity’s arrival in the Red Planet’s Gale crater. The rolling laboratory is still making profound…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceWe have touched the Sun: The Parker Solar Probe’s triumph
The Parker Solar Probe dipped within the corona on its eighth encounter with our star. It found phenomena that have surprised and delighted heliophysicists…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceSpace Policy Edition: What We're Watching in 2022
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…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceReturn to the Moon: Spacesuits and preparing for splashdown in the Pacific
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…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceA good year for space: Planetary Society all-stars review 2021
Mat Kaplan and six Planetary Society colleagues review a year full of accomplishments, firsts and exciting discoveries. Society CEO Bill Nye opens the show…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceDiscovering Mars with Jim Bell and William Sheehan
Space historian William Sheehan and planetary scientist Jim Bell have written a fascinating history of humankind’s at least 5,000-year relationship with…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceJWST is ready for launch and amazing science
The James Webb Space Telescope will begin its mission of discovery as soon as Dec. 24. René Doyon, Heidi Hammel and Mike McElwain join us for a…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceA conversation with the director of “Don’t Look Up”
The plot of the great new movie “Don’t Look Up” is driven by a giant comet speeding toward Earth and the scientists who want to divert it…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceSpace Policy Edition: Astronomy Goes Big, with Heidi Hammel
The search for biosignatures on hundreds of exoplanets is the top goal for U.S. astronomers. That's the conclusion from the new, once-per-decade report from…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceDiscovering life elsewhere: How can we be sure?
Is it life? NASA chief scientist Jim Green and Mary Voytek, leader of the agency’s astrobiology program, are two authors of a paper that calls for a…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceInto the anthropocosmos with Ariel Ekblaw
Ariel Ekblaw and her Space Exploration Initiative colleagues believe we are at the cusp of interplanetary civilization. They are building the tools…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceThe DART asteroid impact mission begins, with Nancy Chabot
DART coordination lead Nancy Chabot and the rest of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test team will see their spacecraft rocket toward asteroids Didymos and…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceSpacecraft communications and navigation with Badri Younes
Badri Younes says that a spacecraft that can’t communicate or find its way is worthless. He leads SCaN, NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceSpace Policy Edition: We're entering a new era of planetary defense (with Lindley Johnson)
The first in-space test of asteroid deflection technology, DART, launches this month. Lindley Johnson, NASA's planetary defense coordination officer, joins the…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceSarah Al Amiri and the new UAE mission to the asteroid belt
The chair of the United Arab Emirates space agency returns with news of an ambitious mission to explore seven asteroids. Sarah also shares the latest science…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceSally Ride: Revisiting our 2005 conversation
Host Mat Kaplan has wanted to reshare his first conversation with the great Sally Ride for years. Sally talks about women in space, the loss of space shuttle…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceAmazing Technology at the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts Symposium
Planetary Radio host Mat Kaplan interviewed NIAC Fellows about their revolutionary projects as part of the 2021 virtual symposium. You’ll hear highlights…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceLeaders of the Lucy asteroid mission
A delightful, exclusive conversation with principal investigator Hal Levison, deputy principal investigator Cathy Olkin and deputy project systems engineer…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceWhy didn’t Dawn land on dwarf planet Ceres?
It started with a question from a listener. The answer comes from Dawn mission chief engineer and mission director Marc Rayman. Marc also tells us about his…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceSpace Policy Edition: NASA's Congressional Logjam
A polarized U.S. Congress is juggling nearly half a dozen pieces of major legislation, several of which face time-sensitive deadlines that, if missed, could…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceMars Beckons: The 2021 Humans to Mars Summit
Mars all-stars gathered online for September’s annual Humans to Mars summit produced by Explore Mars. Planetary Radio host Mat Kaplan moderated three…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceThe Wonderful: a new documentary about the International Space Station
Clare Lewins has created a film that takes us inside the lives of people who have lived and worked on the International Space Station. Cady Coleman is one of…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceThe Case for a Return to Enceladus
Morgan Cable of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is lead author of a paper that makes a compelling argument for a mission to Saturn’s small but…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceAn ESCAPADE to Mars, on the cheap
NASA hopes to radically reduce the price tag for exploring Mars with a mission called ESCAPADE. Principal investigator Rob Lillis and his team will send two…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceSpace Policy Edition: The cultural rituals of space advocacy, with Linda Billings
Communication is culture, says Dr. Linda Billings, an expert in social science and space outreach. So what culture is summed by the types of space advocacy…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceLiquid Water Under the Martian Polar Ice? Maybe Not
It was one of the most exciting planetary science announcements in 2018: Radar from an orbiting spacecraft might have found large pools of liquid water under…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceEuropa Clipper Sails Toward Launch
Jupiter’s moon Europa hides a vast water ocean under a protective layer of ice. The Europa Clipper mission will send a powerful orbiter to investigate…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceCassini, Voyager and beyond with Linda Spilker
Cassini project scientist Linda Spilker is back to describe how data from the Saturn mission that ended four years ago is behind new, trailblazing science…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceHow Perseverance drives itself around Mars
NASA’s Perseverance is driving farther and faster than any previous Mars rover, thanks to its advanced AutoNav system. Vandi Verma, the mission’s…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceSpace Policy Edition: Mars via the Nuclear Option
Can nuclear propulsion fundamentally transform our ability to send humans to Mars? Bhavya Lal, a policy and nuclear engineering expert now working at NASA…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceAlan Stern Says It’s Time for Suborbital Science
An experiment rode next to Richard Branson when he rocketed to the edge of space on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo last month. Planetary scientist Alan…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceAndy Chaikin on Apollo 15 and the lessons of Apollo
Apollo 17 commander Gene Cernan said of Andy Chaikin’s book A Man on the Moon, “I’ve been there. Chaikin took me back.” Andy returns to…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceAmy Mainzer and a New Asteroid-Hunting Space Telescope
We may finally get the powerful telescope we’ve needed to find almost all of the near-Earth objects that are big enough to destroy a city. University of…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceWe’re Going Back to Venus
Sue Smrekar and Jim Garvin woke up in June to some of the best news a planetary scientist can receive. Their complementary missions to Venus had just been…
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and ScienceVisiting the James Webb Space Telescope
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is expected to be 100 times as powerful as its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope. We talk with three leaders of…