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 Mat Kaplan and Planetary Society colleagues including Bill Nye the Science Guy, Bruce Betts, and Emily Lakdawalla as they dive deep into the latest space news. The monthly Space Policy Edition takes you inside the DC beltway where the future of the US space program hangs in the balance. Visit planetary.org/radio for the space trivia contest, an episode guide, and much more.
Canada was the third country in history to launch a satellite into space, but now lags in its space ambitions, capability, and spending. What happened?
67 Min
Dec 7, 2018
The InSight lander has only just arrived on Mars. Now, OSIRIS REx has reached asteroid Bennu.
40 Min
Dec 5, 2018
Join 1,000 anxious yet thrilled space fans at Caltech for our live InSight landing party.
59 Min
Nov 28, 2018
NASA announced on November 19th that the multi-billion dollar 2020 Mars rover will land in Jezero crater, where it will begin the search for the signature of past life.
Planetary Society Chief Advocate Casey Dreier welcomes back space policy expert Marcia Smith for an insider’s look at the aftermath and what may be ahead.
You haven’t seen the best pictures from the Apollo era and other great space achievements till you’ve seen them in 3D. Queen guitarist and astrophysicist Brian May is also mad about stereoscopic imagery.
They may be the most important questions in all of science: Where do we come from? Are we alone?
The Kepler mission has ended. Listen to highlights of the October 30th media briefing that included the father of the fantastically successful planet finder, William Borucki.
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and the Jet Propulsion Lab are preparing to send NEA Scout on a long, light-propelled journey to a near Earth asteroid
Linda Spilker returns with exciting, just-published research enabled by the 20-year mission’s enormous success
We salute humankind’s long history of stargazing by checking in on what will be our planet’s largest telescope.
It's NASA's 60th birthday! On October 1st, 1958 NASA began operations. We provide the audio equivalent of looking at the space program's baby pictures as we explore its origin story
The Dean of space policy, John Logsdon, returns with stories and a new book of original documents that shaped the US space program from the birth of NASA to SpaceX
A mostly SpaceX episode as the ambitious company provides updated details regarding its huge new rocket and introduces its first astronauts
Mat Kaplan’s Huntsville, Alabama trip wraps up with a tour of the historic and history-making Marshall Space Flight Center
Host Mat Kaplan begins a two-episode visit to Huntsville and the Marshall Space Flight Center, recorded this week at the US Space and Rocket Center
Pluto passed in front of a star on the evening of August 14. Mat Kaplan joined pro and amateur astronomers on a mountain to observe this rare event.
Space exploration leaders at the 2018 Committee on Space Research Assembly in Pasadena, California
The Planetary Society's new principles for human spaceflight, and serious questions about whether we are on the path to Mars
Our world was rocked by last week’s announcement of good radar evidence for a liquid water “lake” under the Red Planet’s south pole.
Japanese probe is just 20 kilometers from asteroid Ryugu as it prepares to snatch samples of the space rock for return to Earth
One of the Planetary Society’s 2018 Shoemaker Near-Earth Object grants has gone to astronomers searching the sky from a mountaintop in the North African nation of Morocco
18th century sailors would know how to use a sextant just sent to the ISS, along with an amazing tool for basic science called the Cold Atom Lab.
National security expert Dr. Brian Weeden joins the show to explain President Donald Trump's announcement regarding a Space Force.
Ceres is the queen of the asteroid belt. Her first Earthly visitor is nearing its last days in spectacular style.
Watch for falling rocks! Asteroid Week comes to Planetary Radio, bringing you the best of space exploration and astronomy.
Mat talks with former astronaut and NOAA Administrator Kathryn Sullivan, leaders of the Cassini mission, an expert on dental care in space and others on the Planetary Society's weekly space development and astronomy podcast.
The great mathematician, physicist, futurist and author talks with host Mat Kaplan. Planetary Radio brings you the best of space exploration and astronomy.
President Trump just signed a new space policy directive targeting the regulations surrounding commercial spaceflight. Casey Dreier, Jason Davis and Mat Kaplan dive into the implications.
Planetary geologist Ellen Stofan has just become Director of the most popular museum in the United States. Planetary Radio brings you the best of space exploration and astronomy.
The entire dramatic tale of the New Horizons mission has now been told by Principal Investigator Alan Stern and his co-author, astrobiologist David Grinspoon.
The great adventure awaits! Mat Kaplan hosts an entertaining panel discussion at the 2018 Humans to Mars Summit in Washington DC.
NEOWISE Principal Investigator Amy Mainzer returns with an update on this phenomenal success and a look ahead toward a much more powerful asteroid and comet hunter called NEOCam.
Join us for an utterly fascinating live conversation with Emily Lakdawalla about her brand new book, The Design and Engineering of Curiosity: How the Mars Rover Performs Its Job.
We have begun to understand the composition of worlds that are hundreds of trillions of kilometers from Earth. Astronomer Nikole Lewis has used the Hubble Space Telescope to do this with four planets circling a star called TRAPPIST-1.
Planetary Society Director of Space Policy Casey Dreier sits down with Lori Garver for a fascinating insider’s view of the world’s largest and most successful space agency.
The multi-award winning science fiction author, futurist and speaker returns to Planetary Radio for a wide-ranging conversation about robots and humans in space, empathetic artificial intelligences, how we can survive the Singularity and much more.
Space is hard. Sample collection and return is harder still. That’s why the radically-simplified PlanetVac system from Honeybee Robotics is so intriguing.
Space Policy Edition #20: Looking back on the year in space policy. Also, your questions!
Space Policy Edition #19: When did the private space age begin? Much earlier than you think.
Space Policy Edition #18: Jim Bridenstine vs. the Senate and First Meeting of the National Space Council
Space Policy Edition #17: The 75th Anniversary of the Rocket Age, with Dr. Michael Neufeld
Cassini Project Scientist Linda Spilker’s Last Appearance Before the Grand Finale
Space Policy Edition #13 – The 2018 Budget Proposal and Is Mars Exploration in Retrograde?
Space Policy Edition #12 – Is Space Policy Stagnant? With Special Guest Marcia Smith
