Artemis II launches to the Moon

Four astronauts — Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen — are on their way around the Moon, on a journey that will take them farther from Earth than any human has gone before. This week on Planetary Radio, we bring you the sounds of launch…

Space Policy Edition: Return to Launch — Cape Canaveral's unlikely history

What makes Cape Canaveral the center of U.S. spaceflight? The answer is a fascinating mix of geography, military strategy, Cold War politics, and a fair amount of historical accident. In this episode of the Space Policy Edition of Planetary Radio, host Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at The Pl…

Artemis II’s AVATAR and a sungrazing comet

Artemis II is the first crewed lunar mission since Apollo 17, and riding alongside the crew is one of the most ambitious biology experiments ever sent to space. It's called AVATAR, short for A Virtual Astronaut Tissue Analog Response: tiny organ chips grown from the astronauts' own cells, flying th…

The astronaut health experiments of Artemis II

Artemis II is about more than getting four humans to the Moon and back. It's an opportunity to gather data on human health in deep space that we haven’t had in over 50 years. This week, we’re joined by Steve Platts, chief scientist of NASA's Human Research Program, who walks us through the suite o…

Book Club Edition: The Giant Leap: Why Space is the Next Frontier in the Evolution of Life

Join us for an awe-inspiring conversation with astrobiologist and astronomer Caleb Scharf as he eloquently makes the case for "dispersal," the nearly inevitable advance of life and humanity across our solar neighborhood.  From the book: "The idea of Dispersal is one where the sheer scale and scope …

The 18th European Space Conference: Dreaming of European boots on the Moon

Humanity is going back to the Moon, and Europe is already playing a critical role in making it happen. This week, Planetary Radio brings you voices straight from the 18th European Space Conference in Brussels, Belgium, where more than 2,000 of the world’s top space leaders gathered to shape the fut…

Starman: Looking back on a life exploring the Solar System

Gentry Lee spent nearly five decades at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and in that time he helped shape some of the most ambitious missions in the history of space exploration. A new documentary, “Starman,” chronicles his career and the big question that runs through it: is there life beyond Ear…

Space Policy Edition: Is there really a space race between the US and China?

Is the United States really in a new space race with China? Or is that framing missing the bigger picture? In this Space Policy Edition of Planetary Radio, Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at The Planetary Society, sits down with Patrick Besha, former NASA strategic advisor on China, to explore…

Artemis update: NASA reshapes the road back to the Moon

NASA has announced a major restructuring of the Artemis program, reshaping the roadmap for returning humans to the Moon. At a February 27 press conference, agency leadership addressed the rollback of Artemis II following post–wet–dress–rehearsal testing and unveiled significant changes to upcoming…

Did an impact trigger cryovolcanism on Umbriel?

Could a single ancient impact have briefly transformed one of the Solar System’s darkest moons into a cryovolcanic world? When Voyager 2 flew past Uranus in 1986, it captured the only close-up images we have of Umbriel, a heavily cratered, charcoal-dark satellite long considered geologically inact…