4th Floor Podcast

Calvin, Chris and Jason catch up with Perseverance and Ingenuity's experiments on Mars, namely, MOXIE whose primary purpose is to generate/reclaim oxygen on the red planet, and Ingenuity's flight test whose highest flight is at 5 meters. We also touch on the fun complaint that Mars' wifi just wasn't good enough to send us a video greater than 720p. What were the gang at NASA even thinking 7 years ago? 

Jason, Calvin, and Chris discuss what we know you didn't know you wanted but know you've needed in your life; space pirates. We chat about that one time a NASA employee hijacked a satellite to make sure that they would be the first in the world to get to a comet, that time there was a real concern that someone would try to steal the James Web Space Telescope, and that other time when someone stole a lens before they stayed a bougie hotel and tossed the super-heavy lens into the trashcan.

Jason, Calvin, and Chris are joined by our resident Astrobiologist, Annaliese Meyer to explore the possible consequences of Space Exploration today and in the future. When we explore the solar system, will we not be contaminating the places we visit by introducing biological competition that has had billions of years to evolve to a possibly fragile ecosystem? How will billionaires now and in the future allocate and/or control natural resources? Do current and future policies ensure ownership of sections of outer space that aren't currently claimed? This is why we need Annaliese.

With Women's day on the 8th, the gang shared their favorite female heroines along with some honourable mentions! Our list was so long, we had to clip it, so let us know your heroine from history! (Yes, it can be your mom)

In this episode, Jason, Calvin, and Chris chat about the recent Perseverance (Percy) Rover landing and the Ingenuity (Ginny) Mars Helicopter experiment that was onboard. We've sent a lot of metal there, and while the robots only live for around a decade or more, humans certainly wouldn't get through the day. We also take a jab at the Mars colonization hype and how (while we'll probably still try) it's near darn ridiculous to try to colonize... but baseball is probably really good there. 

This is the other half of our Planetary Exploration episode with Kali. Here we discuss the Kepler Space Mission, TESS, why old stars are great, the new Ingenuity Mars-copter that is attached to the Perseverance rover barreling towards Mars, arriving in a week from launching this episode! (Feb.18th)

In this episode we introduce one of our long-time, stellar space-pals Kali to discuss Exoplanets, the Kepler Space mission and it's big sister TESS. Later, we open up our old survey SWEEP, which examined planets around white dwarfs and the prognosis of white dwarf systems. Enjoy!

From it's inception in the summer '63, to it's untimely demise in December of 2020, we look at the past 57 years of service (and possible new future) that the noble Arecibo Telescope has given to the scientific community and the world as a whole. Oh yeah, it looked sharp in some movies too!