Did an alien lightsail traverse our solar system in 2017? Harvard University astronomer Avi Loeb thinks so. In today’s episode, I welcome Loeb to discuss his bestselling book --- “Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth.” We chat about why he thinks this object, Oumuamua, is likely to be artificial and why the scientific community at large remains so unreceptive to progressive scientific thinking when it comes to the subject of extraterrestrial intelligence.
Feb 12, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 37
I welcome Bruce Banerdt, the principal investigator for NASA’s Mars InSight lander, which has been operating on the Martian surface for two years now. Although it’s had some technical issues, it’s offered a sea change in how geophysicists are interpreting the dynamics and makeup of the Martian core. In this episode, we talk about what we currently understand about Mars’ geophysical makeup and, among other things, whether it ever had plate tectonics which was so crucial for the evolution of senti...
Feb 05, 2021•52 min•Ep. 36
Few if any of you will have ever heard of Ploesti. But it’s a Romanian city that was what Winston Churchill called the taproot of Nazi might due to its many oil high-quality oil refineries overtaken by Germany during World War II. Because of its strategic importance, in 1943, the U.S Army Air Force at the time launched a daring, heroic, and ultimately very costly low-level bombing raid on these refineries. Using some 160 B-24 Liberator medium-range bombers, the Americans were met with heavy anti...
Jan 30, 2021•55 min•Ep. 35
Planetary geophysicist Erik Asphaug of the University of Arizona discusses what we really know about our solar system; its age; its formation; and its evolution. Asphaug also addresses some major puzzles. Is our solar system truly anomalous? Is the composition and spacing of our eight planets also anomalous? And what we need to do to further planetary science.
Jan 22, 2021•1 hr•Ep. 34
The spectacular rise and fall of Pan Am from flying boats to 747s. International best-selling author and former Pan Am captain Robert Gandt gives me the inside scoop on Pan American World Airways, from its humble beginnings to global empire.
Jan 14, 2021•59 min•Ep. 33
Deep space navigator Coralie Adam explains the tricky navigation needed to guide NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft on its flyby of the Pluto system in 2015. The spacecraft continues operation today. Meanwhile, Adam and colleagues are awaiting the arrival of a touch-and-go sample garnered from the asteroid Bennu which is expected back at Earth in 2023. We discuss how deep space navigation is facilitating the precise exploration of the solar system.
Jan 08, 2021•55 min•Ep. 32
Propulsion physicist Marc Millis talks about the prospects for fast, efficient interstellar travel. Millis was head of NASA’s Breakthrough Propulsion Program at Glenn Research Center outside Cleveland for years beginning in the mid-1990s. We discuss why the problem of traveling to the stars is so difficult and what would need to happen to help such dreams become a reality. It’s a lively and irreverent discussion!
Jan 02, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 31
Renowned planetary astronomer Heidi Hammel and I chat about our solar system’s mysterious ice giant planets, Uranus and Neptune. There’s only been one flyby of these giant planets by NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft back in the late 1980s. Hammel, who was part of the Voyager 2 science team, explains what that mission taught us about these objects and why we need to go back.
Dec 23, 2020•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 30
The age of supersonic flight officially began after World War II, when the late Chuck Yeager pushed the Bell X-1 test aircraft beyond the speed of sound (Mach 1) in October 1947. But bestselling author and highly-decorated fighter pilot Dan Hampton contends that Yeager wasn’t the first pilot to go supersonic in controlled flight. On this week’s episode, Hampton and I discuss how the Cold War spurred the quest for speed and why Yeager might not have been the first American fighter pilot to break ...
Dec 17, 2020•54 min•Ep. 29
Big band historian and author Dennis Spragg talks about the music, the legacy, and the tragic disappearance of the American big band icon, Glenn Miller. We cover what shaped his unique sound; his driving passion to give back to America’s Greatest Generation in their hour of wartime need; and the tragic disappearance of his December 1944 flight from England to France.
Dec 11, 2020•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 28
NASA’s MAVEN orbiter has arguably done more to document how and why Mars lost its atmosphere and much of its water than any spacecraft ever sent to the red planet. The mission’s principal investigator, planetary scientist Bruce Jakosky is this week’s featured guest and we discuss the current paradigm on why Mars went so horribly wrong. Jakosky offers a candid and inside look at how such missions work and what we can expect from Mars science in the next few years.
Dec 04, 2020•1 hr•Ep. 27
The earliest days of robotic space exploration, to the Moon, Venus, Mars, and even Mercury, likely would never have played out in such dramatic fashion in the late 1950s and early 1960s without the Cold War. Despite a steep learning curve with lots of rocket misfires and mission malfunctions, it was a hair-trigger era of interplanetary exploration that offered the world its first close up views of our nearest planetary neighbors. Former NASA Chief Historian Roger Launius and I discuss the detail...
Nov 27, 2020•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 26
First cataloged by Al Sufi as a mere optical smudge high in the winter sky, the Andromeda Galaxy has lately been a cornerstone of everything we know about contemporary astronomy and the cosmos as a whole. Join Lowell Observatory astronomer Philip Massey as he outlines how this grand spiral neighbor changed what we know about cosmology. And if you happen to be in the Northern hemisphere, by the end of the episode, you may be ready to try and spot the galaxy with just your naked eyes.
Nov 20, 2020•54 min•Ep. 25
From Pachyderms to Cetaceans, the largest mammals on Earth would arguably never have evolved to their gargantuan sizes without the third most abundant element in the Cosmos --- Oxygen. Of course, life, even photosynthesis is possible without Oxygen, but for the cosmos to evolve the big-headed space aliens of our sci-fi dreams will likely take Oxygen --- the most efficient energy carrier in the periodic table. How Oxygen became dominant on our own planet is the focus of today’s episode with guest...
Nov 12, 2020•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 24
China is building on a decade of lunar exploration with this month’s launch of its Chang’e 5 sample return mission; China has an orbiter and lander halfway to Mars; and by 2022 plans on putting a permanently crewed 60-ton space station in low-Earth orbit. They even have long term plans for mining Helium-3 on the Moon. In this episode, China space expert David Burbach of the U.S. Naval War College discusses these and other issues, in particular, how the current election will affect NASA’s own Art...
Nov 06, 2020•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 23
What happens when all the stars in our cosmos’ galaxies burn out; with little or no hydrogen gas left to fuel star formation; and everything pretty much turns to toast? It will presage an age of black holes where extremely low temperatures and fundamental particle decay will alleviate life as we know it. This universal endgame in an almost infinite far future may actually be a Dark Age where little or nothing can happen. And if it does, only on the longest timescales. Yale University astrophysic...
Oct 30, 2020•59 min•Ep. 22
Without the lowly propeller, global trade and commerce and freedom of movement as we knew it prior to Covid would have never had the opportunity to flourish. Special guest Jeremy R. Kinney, Chair of the Aeronautics Department at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., provides a fascinating narrative to how and why advances in aircraft propeller technology enabled aerospace to revolutionize global warfare, travel, and trade. Author of “Reinventing the Pro...
Oct 23, 2020•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 21
Notre Dame Planetary Geologist Clive Neal stops by the podcast for a terrifically candid discussion of why the Moon has to be the first stop en route to Mars. We talk about why the Moon holds the key to the new Space Economy; the prospects for NASA making its 2024 Artemis mission deadline; and, why lunar samples are still being analyzed 50 years hence. Why more lunar samples and lunar seismometers are keys to understanding our inner solar system. And why it’s imperative that we revisit the Moon ...
Oct 16, 2020•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 20
Guest Catherine Johnson, a planetary geophysicist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, discusses this bizarre little world; the innermost planet in our solar system. A planet that’s so close to our Sun that its surface temperatures can hit 800 F. But surprisingly, its poles harbor enough water ice to completely bury a major metropolis. Some have even argued that Mercury may have once been habitable. Where it formed still remains a mystery, but it does have a tiny magnetic field, a...
Oct 08, 2020•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 19
Retired commercial pilot, crash investigator, and aviation attorney Gary LaPook joins me to discuss the development and practice of celestial air navigation in passenger aircraft; how it worked; why it was replaced; where it could go wrong, and why celestial air navigation is still vital to our national security.
Oct 03, 2020•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 18
For anyone who’s ever wondered how our own star happened to be caught up in the midst of a grand spiral beauty like our Milky Way, this episode should at least provide some clues. It’s a big cosmological subject and of course, we just skim the surface but for those curious as to how galaxies formed after the Big Bang to become home to oh so many stars, this podcast episode should be of interest. This week’s guest, Francesca Rizzo, a doctoral candidate at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Astrop...
Sep 25, 2020•46 min•Ep. 17
Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) have hogged the headlines for the last decade or so; prompting many news organizations to question whether they are produced by far-flung alien civilizations in the midst of some sort of bizarre intergalactic transport mechanism. The truth however is likely much more mundane; they could be flashes from Hawking’s storied evaporating black holes or colliding neutron stars or something we have simply failed to imagine. But in this podcast episode, Duncan Lorimer, their co-d...
Sep 18, 2020•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 16
Amelia Earhart, arguably the most famous woman in the world at the time of her 1937 disappearance, was on a second attempt to fly around the world when something went horribly wrong. However, what actually happened to the famed aviator and her navigator Fred Noonan may finally be close to being solved. Or so says Chasing Earhart Project Director Chris Williamson in this fascinating episode in which we cover all the viable theories surrounding the Earhart mystery.
Sep 11, 2020•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 15
This week's guest is NASA Dawn project scientist Julie Castillo-Rogez who led the hugely successful robotic mission on the first in-depth look at the asteroid Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres. Castillo talks about why there's a growing consensus that Ceres may have long had habitable subsurface conditions and why we need a sample return mission to launch in 2033. We also discuss Mars' moons of Deimos and Phobos and the first interstellar asteroid, Oumuamua.
Sep 04, 2020•58 min•Ep. 14
Lowell Observatory astronomer Gerard van Belle, Chief Scientist at the Navy Precision Optical Interferometer (NPOI) in Flagstaff. Arizona talks about the possibility of arrays of space telescopes that are 3-D printed after launch. We also discuss the history of optical interferometry; why such interlinked telescopes are the key to America’s future in astronomy and why Arizona skies remain as vital today as they were a century ago.
Aug 28, 2020•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 13
This week’s guest is Adam Frank, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Rochester in New York, who has received the first-ever NASA grant to begin cataloging potential alien techno-signatures in a non-radio spectrum. The hunt for potential alien technology is one of the sexiest topics in astrophysics at the moment and Frank doesn’t disappoint. We cover everything from how we might find such technology in our own solar system to super-advanced civilizations that might harness s...
Aug 20, 2020•57 min•Ep. 12
In a stroke of serendipity during a wide-ranging podcast interview, Villanova University astronomer Edward Guinan explains the paper behind today's news flap about the red supergiant star's inexplicable dimming. The most recent explanation is that dust generated from cooling plasma spewed forth from the massive star's interior caused Betelgeuse to appear more dim than usual. While Guinan acknowledges this scenario is a possibility, he remains skeptical. Please listen to this candid and entertain...
Aug 14, 2020•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 11
Three spacecraft are currently en route to Mars, but none will visit the poles. Yet Mars’ poles drive much of the Martian climate. And their understanding is key to deciphering what might have been happening on the Red planet some 3.5 billion years ago when it had lakes, deltas, rivers, and perhaps even transient oceans. I’m very pleased to welcome planetary scientist Isaac B. Smith of York University in Toronto --- an expert on Mars polar science and exploration --- to discuss the need for a Ma...
Aug 07, 2020•1 hr•Ep. 10
Dutch astronomer Anthony Brown of Leiden University explains how the European Space Agency's GAIA satellite is revolutionizing what we know about the Milky Way. This all-sky survey mission revisits each target 70 times over the course of the years-long mission to give astronomers a real 3-D map of a large swath of our galaxy. Highlights include why are Milky Way is warped, the potential origins of our solar system's formation, and why Gaia is important to planet hunters. The next big data drop i...
Jul 31, 2020•57 min•Ep. 9
When first conceived, the 6.5 meter James Webb Space Telescope was all about galaxy surveys, the deep sky, and cosmology; it still is. But it’s also about solar system science in surprising ways. This infrared behemoth will virtually revolutionize the way we view asteroids, comets, and Kuiper Belt objects in the far reaches of our frozen outer solar system. This episode’s guest --- Stefanie Milam --- is the Webb telescope’s deputy project scientist for planetary science and gives us all the deta...
Jul 24, 2020•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 8
