Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science

Episodes

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  Space artist Don Davis and a new view of Voyager 1 11.11.2026 59m

  Space artist Don Davis, protégé of Chesley Bonestell, shares his remarkable story as The Planetary Society unveils new artwork he created to mark Voyager 1 reaching one light-day from Earth.
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  Space Policy Edition: Whose JPL is it? A historian on the lab’s 90-year search for itself 06.11.2026 1h 1m

  Historian Peter Westwick joins Casey Dreier to explore JPL’s 90-year history, from Army rockets to planetary exploration, as NASA opens the lab’s management contract to competition for the first time.
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  The night the Universe got bigger: An event to honor Hubble’s discovery 04.11.2026 1h 6m

  California Rep. Judy Chu, Carnegie Science President John Mulchaey, and Jess Soto of Carnegie Science share the story behind the push to recognize Oct. 5 as National Beyond the Milky Way Day, honoring Edwin Hubble’s 1923 discovery of a Universe beyond our galaxy.
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  How Perseverance drove itself into the record books 28.10.2026 1h

  Perseverance just set the record for the most distance driven on another world. We revisit Mat Kaplan’s 2021 conversation with Vandi Verma, JPL principal engineer and chief engineer of robotic operations for Perseverance, about how the rover drives itself across Mars.
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  Meet the Winners of The Planetary Society’s 2026 STEP Grants 21.10.2026 1h 6m

  The Planetary Society’s 2026 STEP Grant winners are building tools to characterize asteroids and trans-Neptunian objects: a replicable polarimeter, a public photometry database, and an occultation prediction platform scaled for the Rubin era.
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  Book Club Edition: Dinner With an Astronaut by Leroy Chiao 16.10.2026 1h 14m

  Former astronaut Leroy Chiao is our guest for a conversation about his book, “Dinner With an Astronaut,” and a lifetime of accomplishments on and off the planet.
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  From the Mojave to Phobos: PlanetVac rides with MMX 14.10.2026 1h 4m

  Japan’s MMX mission is about to launch for the moons of Mars, carrying a sampler with deep Planetary Society roots. Asa Stahl, public outreach astronomer at The Planetary Society, and Kris Zacny, vice president and senior research scientist at Honeybee Robotics, tell the story.
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  Space Policy Edition: What does “science as a service” really mean? 09.10.2026 1h 17m

  Jack Kiraly, chief of advocacy for The Planetary Society, and planetary scientist Britney Schmidt join Casey Dreier to examine NASA’s push toward “science as a service,” and why science is so much more than buying data.
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  2026 NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts Symposium: Part 2 — Solar sails and breathing beyond Earth 07.10.2026 1h

  More conversations from the 2026 NIAC Symposium, this time about the propulsion and life support breakthroughs that could carry us to the outer Solar System and keep us alive when we get there.
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  2026 NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts Symposium: Part 1 — Nuclear sensors and cave explorers 30.09.2026 1h 1m

  Researchers at the 2026 NIAC Symposium share their bold concepts for exploring the most inaccessible places in our Solar System, from the Moon's permanently shadowed craters to caves on Titan and inside lunar lava tubes.
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  Hayabusa2 flies by asteroid Torifune 23.09.2026 1h

  NASA Chief Scientist for Small Body Exploration at Johnson Space Center, Paul Abell, takes us inside Hayabusa2's flyby of asteroid Torifune and the surprise discovery that it's a contact binary.
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  Book Club Edition: Alien Oceans by Kevin Hand 18.09.2026 1h 7m

  Planetary scientist Kevin Hand joins us for a deep exploration of his excellent book about the search for life in the oceans of other worlds.
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  Star Trek at 60: What Vulcans and Klingons can teach us about being human (Part 2) 16.09.2026 1h 7m

  In part two of our Star Trek 60th anniversary series, Tim Russ, Tuvok from Star Trek: Voyager, and Karim Diané, Jay-Den Kraag from Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, explore what the Vulcans and the Klingons can teach us about becoming the people who deserve to reach the stars.
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  Star Trek at 60: What do we value the most? (Part 1) 09.09.2026 59m

  Robert Picardo, the Emergency Medical Hologram from Star Trek: Voyager and now Starfleet Academy, traces the sixty-year bond between Star Trek and The Planetary Society, from Gene Roddenberry's 1980 letter to the halls of Congress.
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  Space Policy Edition: The Long Space Age with Alex MacDonald 04.09.2026 1h 7m

  Alex MacDonald, former Chief Economist at NASA and author of "The Long Space Age," joins Casey Dreier to explore more than two centuries of privately funded space exploration in America.
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  World Space Week and farewell to Swift 02.09.2026 1h 4m

  Dennis Stone, president and co-founder of the World Space Week Association, shares how the largest annual space event on Earth came to be and how you can join the celebration this October. Plus, Science Editor Asa Stahl walks us through the final chapter of the Swift space telescope.
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  The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is ready to launch 26.08.2026 56m

  The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is preparing to launch, promising to transform our understanding of dark energy and exoplanets. We talk with Julie McEnery, senior project scientist for Roman at NASA Goddard, and Jason Rhodes, project scientist for Roman at JPL, about what's ahead.
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  Book Club Edition: Becoming Martian by Scott Solomon 21.08.2026 1h 17m

  How will living in space change our bodies and minds? That’s the sub-title of Scott Solomon’s great new book, “Becoming Martian”, and it’s the question he takes up this month on the book club edition of Planetary Radio.
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  The SpaceX Falcon 9 that crashed into the Moon 19.08.2026 1h 3m

  Jared Head, museum facilitator at Columbia Memorial Space Center and co-host of All Space Considered at Griffith Observatory, breaks down how a SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage ended up crashing into the moon. Plus, Planetary Society staff reflect on the 2026 total solar eclipse in Spain and share an update on the fight to save NASA science.
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  Total solar eclipse 2026: Astrophotography and birdsong 12.08.2026 57m

  Astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy and bioacoustics researcher David Mann, join Planetary Radio to talk about the August 12th total solar eclipse and how birds responded to totality.