Are We There Yet?

By 90.7 WMFE

Natural Sciences Science & Medicine

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LAST EPISODE

NASA Needs New Space Suits

05.24.2019

Astronauts on the International Space Station use a specialized suit called the Extravehicular Mobility Unit, or EMU, to work outside the space station safely. The suits were delivered to the station in the 1980s and are in need of an ...

Are We There Yet? episodes:

05.24.2019 NASA Needs New Space Suits Astronauts on the International Space Station use a specialized suit called the Extravehicular Mobility Unit, or EMU, to work outside the space station safely. The suits were delivered to the station in the 1980s and are in need of an ...
05.10.2019 When We Leave This Planet As opportunities grow, space philosopher Frank White says it’s time to starting thinking about issues arising out of the human expansion into our solar system. White is the author of “The Overview Effect” which chronicles the cognitive shift in awareness ...
04.18.2019 Private Landers And Human Astronauts: A New Focus On The Moon It has been a busy few weeks for moon news. Just last week, the Israeli non-profit SpaceIL attempted to land on the surface on the moon — a first for a private group. While the landing wasn’t successful, the attempt ...
04.09.2019 What’s New At Bennu? Latest Findings Raising More Questions About Asteroids An asteroid some 50 million miles away is spewing pebble and rock-sized debris — and scientists don’t know why. The findings are the latest from a robotic spacecraft on a mission to visit the asteroid. The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft took images ...
03.21.2019 Just How Close Are We To Putting Humans On Mars? UCF’s Phil Metzger, WMFE’s Brendan Byrne and WKMG’s Emilee Speck For the past three years, WMFE’s podcast Are We There Yet? has asked “when it comes to putting humans on Mars, are we there yet?” As the program reaches its ...
03.15.2019 What’s Next For NASA’s Commercial Crew Program? SpaceX successfully launched its Crew Dragon capsule to the International Space Station, docked it to the orbiting outpost, and returned it safely to Earth. While the capsule didn’t have a crew — just a test-dummy named Ripley — It was ...
02.15.2019 Farewell, Opportunity After 15 years, NASA has declared Opportunity’s mission complete. Earlier this week, the agency tried to contact the Mars rover one last. The rover had been radio silent since June. Designed to only spend 90 days exploring, the mission far ...
01.11.2019 Meet The Leader Of “The Mars Generation” Abigail Harrison wants to be the first person on Mars, and she’s on a mission to inspire others to help with those efforts. That’s why she stated The Mars Generation, a non-profit dedicated to getting young people involved in STEM ...
12.21.2018 After 50 Years, Apollo 8’s “Earthrise” Continues To Inspire Fifty years ago today, Frank Boreman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders launch from the Kennedy Space Center atop a Saturn V rocket on humanity’s first mission to the moon. The trio was the first to leave Earth’s orbit and see ...
12.04.2018 What’s Ahead For NASA’s Martian Robot Geologist? The red planet just go another robot inhabitant. NASA’s Mars InSight lander touched down on November 26 after a six month trip through our solar system. The mission aims to understand what’s going on UNDER the martian surface using a ...
11.20.2018 Launching Rockets With The Air Force’s 45th Space Wing Every rocket that launches from Cape Canaveral falls under the watchful eye of the Air Force’s 45th Space Wing. Headquartered at Patrick Air Force Base, the Wing is responsible for the safety of the rocket by monitoring thing like weather, ...
10.12.2018 The Moon, Mars & Cowboy Hats: A Conversation With ULA’s Tory Bruno Tory Bruno. His social media presence is almost as large as the rockets he launches. He’s the CEO of United Launch Alliance, the rocket giant responsible for Delta and Atlas rockets. Recently, ULA launched NASA’s Parker Solar Probe on a ...
09.21.2018 Astronaut Chris Ferguson Ready To Return To Space Chris Ferguson is a Boeing astronaut and soon he’ll command the first crewed mission of Boeing’s Starliner on a trip to the International Space Station. It’s a bit symbolic that Chris is heading back to space. As a NASA astronaut, ...
09.14.2018 The Great Pluto Debate The debate over Pluto’s planethood has been reinvigorated once again, thanks to a new paper co-authored by a University of Central Florida planetary scientist. Back in 2006, the International Astronomical Union adopted new classification rules. In order for an object ...
08.10.2018 NASA’s Next Generation Of Astronauts Last week, NASA announced Commercial Crew mission assignments. The Commercial Crew program will launch astronauts to the International Space Station from U.S. soil for the first time since 2011. NASA is doing it with private companies SpaceX and Boeing. In ...
08.03.2018 A Mission To Touch The Sun A spacecraft is about to launch on a mission to the sun, coming closer than any other spacecraft has ever come before and zooming through the solar system with mind-boggling speed. The Parker Solar Probe is being sent to our ...
07.27.2018 Water On Mars I’m sure you saw the headlines this week: “Water on Mars.” It’s a huge discovery on the red planet but what does it mean for our future exploration on Mars? A study published this week in Science unveiled the discovery ...
07.16.2018 Now Is A Great Time To Check Out Mars Like all planets, the Earth and Mars orbit the sun but they do it at different speeds. Earth orbits about twice as fast as Mars, so every two years or so, they catch up to each other. The Mars Opposition ...
07.06.2018 Trouble On The HI-SEAS A simulated Mars mission was cut short earlier this year after a crew member was injured. Just what happened in the fake Mars habitat in Hawaii and what does that mean for future experiments? Last year we spoke with a ...
06.27.2018 Bringing Gemini Home: Programming Re-entry In the 1960s, it was up to programmers like Alice Schmidt to help bring Gemini capsules safely home. Schmidt was a member of an IBM programming team hired by NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center to analyze re-entry trajectories and guidance navigation ...
05.11.2018 Humans To Mars Summit The Humans to Mars Summit wrapped up this week in Washington, D.C. It’s a yearly meeting of the minds to chat all things Mars and what it’s going to take to get people there. It included panels of folks talking ...
05.04.2018 Planning A Trip To Mars NASA is poised to launch a robotic geologist to Mars. Before it blasts off, what goes into planning that trip? Caley Burke is a Trajectory Analyst for NASA’s Launch Services Program. Her job is to map out InSight’s trip to ...
04.27.2018 To Pluto And Beyond! Where were you when you first saw Pluto? The New Horizons flyby back in the summer of 2015 had all eyes on the deep spacecraft exploring the outermost parts of our solar system. New Horizons launched in 2006 but it ...
04.10.2018 Searching For Alien Worlds A new space telescope will help scientists identify alien worlds. NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, launches on a Falcon 9 rocket from Florida’s Space Coast. Once in space, it will look for planets outside our solar system by ...
04.02.2018 The Space Barons Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, Paul Allen. Our guest calls them the space barons. Washington Post reporter Christian Davenport interviewed the four space entrepreneurs for his book “The Space Barons: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the Quest to Colonize ...
03.21.2018 Designing A Mission Patch To celebrate the second year of the podcast “Are We There Yet?”, we commissioned designer Tim Gagnon to create a mission patch. Gagnon has designed mission patches for NASA since the shuttle days and joins the program to talk about ...
03.16.2018 What’s Ahead For Space Exploration In Florida? Florida’s Space Coast is roaring back to life. Nearly a decade after the shuttle was retired, we’re on the brink of a new age of space exploration that leverages commercial and academic partnerships to send humans farther into the solar ...
03.02.2018 Astronaut Story Musgrave Talks Imagination And Ingenuity There has only been one person who has flown on all five space shuttles. His name is Story Musgrave. He’s been to space six times. Musgrave led the team that serviced the Hubble space telescope in orbit, fixing a flaw ...
02.23.2018 Hunting For Exoplanets You’ve probably heard about exoplanets, right? They’re planets that live outside of our solar system. The Kepler spacecraft has identified thousands of these things, and some of those planets it discovered are similar to Earth and reside in a zone ...
02.09.2018 Tracking Rockets I’m sure you’ve watch rocket launches on TV or streaming, right? You know those tight shots that follow the rocket into space and in SpaceX’s case the ones that follow them back down to earth? Well, someone like Rick Wetherington ...
01.05.2018 Exciting Year Ahead For Space Exploration There’s a bunch of exciting space exploration mission slated for 2018. From SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy to NASA’s next Mars lander, space enthusiasts have a lot to look forward to in the new year. Chris Gebhardt, NASASpaceflight.com‘s managing editor, joins the ...
12.15.2017 Life On The HI-SEAS Before we send humans to Mars, it’s probably a smart idea to do a few test runs first, right? That’s what analogs are for. They’re a great way to test the human aspect of space exploration. HI-SEAS is one of ...
12.05.2017 Curiosity’s Drill Broke. Now what? Last year, Curiosity’s drill broke. The Mars rover had used the drill to acquire sample material from Martian rocks 15 times so far. But a sensor that monitors the amount of force used on the arm that hold the drill ...
11.22.2017 After Scott Kelly’s Year In Space, What’s Next? As scientist continue to sift through all that data from Scott Kelly’s year in space, the next generation of astronauts are beginning to look to longer missions in deep space and more extreme environments like the surface of Mars. So ...
11.02.2017 Scott Kelly’s Year In Space If we’re going to go to Mars, we’re going to have to figure out how to live in space for a really long time. NASA ran an experiment on astronauts and twins Scott and Mark Kelly. They sent Scott up ...
10.13.2017 Chasing Triton: A Night On NASA’s SOFIA Aerial Observatory When it comes to taking a clear picture of the sky it helps to be isolated. That’s why astronomers have telescopes in remote locationsaway from light pollution and at a high altitude. But sometimes ground based telescopes aren’t enough. There’s ...
10.06.2017 Musk Updates Mars Plans, Pence Sends US To The Moon Elon Musk has a new plan for Mars. The SpaceX founder unveiled his updated vision for Mars and more at this year’s International Astronautical Conference. It’s a bit more scaled down than before but still ambitious, in true Elon fashion. ...
09.26.2017 Web Series Explores What It Takes To Become An Astronaut What does it take to become an astronaut? That’s the question Loren Grush asked ahead of the production of the new web series “Space Craft.” Loren is The Verge’s space reporter and host of the new web series that explores ...
08.22.2017 Building A Mobile Launch Pad The building of NASA’s SLS rocket starts on the Mobile Launcher. It’s a giant piece of machinery that is towed into the Vehicle Assemble Building. When the rocket is ready for launch, it’s towed across Kennedy Space Center to the ...
08.02.2017 Piecing Together A Rocket Inside The Vehicle Assembly Building Before NASA can launch its next big rocket, the Space Launch System, it has to put it together. That happens in the Vehicle Assembly Building. The VAB is this gigantic building that towers over everything at Kennedy Space Center. It’s ...
07.07.2017 Launching NASA’s Next Big Rocket NASA is in the process of developing a rocket system that will take humans past low-earth orbit and into deep space. Astronauts will explore places like cis-lunar space, or maybe even Mars, from the safety of the Orion space capsule. ...
06.22.2017 Buzz Aldrin Is Obsessed With Mars. His Son Is Helping Get Humans There. Listen to the podcast episode by clicking on the audio player above. Buzz Aldrin is obsessed with Mars. The Apollo 11 astronaut and second person to walk on the moon is now developing a plan to send humans to live ...
06.02.2017 On The Way To An Asteroid OSIRIS-REx is zooming towards the asteroid Bennu. It’s on a mission to collect a sample of asteroid “dirt” and send it back to Earth. Scientists hope to uncover the building blocks of life in the solar system. The spacecraft launched ...
05.18.2017 First “Space Painter” Inspires With Art Nicole Stott calls herself the Artistic Astronaut — and for good reason. She’s the first person to paint in space. Stott was in the NASA astronaut corp and flew in space for over 100 days, flying on shuttle and spending ...
05.12.2017 How To Survive On Mars When the first Martians arrive on the red planet, not much awaits them. There’s no food, no breathable air, no fuel. All they’ll have is what they brought with them — not much. That’s why researchers and engineers are developing ...
04.27.2017 How To Land A Rocket Booster SpaceX successful launched and landed a “flight proven” rocket booster, the second time this particular booster has seen action and making space flight history. It’s an important step in the company’s effort to utilize rocket re-usability to lower the cost ...
04.14.2017 What To Do With Space Waste? A few months ago, NASA asked the internet for ideas on how to deal with poop and pee inside a flight suit. You see, astronauts need to wear a spacesuit during launch and when the return back to earth. It’s ...
04.05.2017 How A Recycled Rocket Will Take Us To Mars SpaceX’s ability to launch, land and recycle a rocket could lower the cost of access to space, and pave the way for founder Elon Musk’s to reach his ambitious goal of colonizing the red planet. “This was really the first ...
03.29.2017 Mars Landing Sites & CubeSat Planetary Exploration The 48th Lunar and Planetary Science conference wrapped up last week in The Woodlands, Texas. The annual meeting connected specialists from all sorts of Earth and planetary fields like geology, astronomy and geochemistry to talk about what’s ahead for science ...
03.21.2017 The Sights And Smells Of Space Travel Bruce Melnick has been to space twice. Once on Space Shuttle Discovery and again on Endeavor’s’ first flight. Now, he spends his days talking to folks at the Kennedy Space Center’s Visitor complex about his time as an astronaut and ...

Older episodes

Are We There Yet?

What's Are We There Yet? about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Are We There Yet? episodes:

NASA Needs New Space Suits

When We Leave This Planet

Private Landers And Human Astronauts: A New Focus On The Moon

What’s New At Bennu? Latest Findings Raising More Questions About Asteroids

Just How Close Are We To Putting Humans On Mars?

What’s Next For NASA’s Commercial Crew Program?

Farewell, Opportunity

Meet The Leader Of “The Mars Generation”

After 50 Years, Apollo 8’s “Earthrise” Continues To Inspire

What’s Ahead For NASA’s Martian Robot Geologist?

Launching Rockets With The Air Force’s 45th Space Wing

The Moon, Mars & Cowboy Hats: A Conversation With ULA’s Tory Bruno

Astronaut Chris Ferguson Ready To Return To Space

The Great Pluto Debate

NASA’s Next Generation Of Astronauts

A Mission To Touch The Sun

Water On Mars

Now Is A Great Time To Check Out Mars

Trouble On The HI-SEAS

Bringing Gemini Home: Programming Re-entry

Humans To Mars Summit

Planning A Trip To Mars

To Pluto And Beyond!

Searching For Alien Worlds

The Space Barons

Designing A Mission Patch

What’s Ahead For Space Exploration In Florida?

Astronaut Story Musgrave Talks Imagination And Ingenuity

Hunting For Exoplanets

Tracking Rockets

Exciting Year Ahead For Space Exploration

Life On The HI-SEAS

Curiosity’s Drill Broke. Now what?

After Scott Kelly’s Year In Space, What’s Next?

Scott Kelly’s Year In Space

Chasing Triton: A Night On NASA’s SOFIA Aerial Observatory

Musk Updates Mars Plans, Pence Sends US To The Moon

Web Series Explores What It Takes To Become An Astronaut

Building A Mobile Launch Pad

Piecing Together A Rocket Inside The Vehicle Assembly Building

Launching NASA’s Next Big Rocket

Buzz Aldrin Is Obsessed With Mars. His Son Is Helping Get Humans There.

On The Way To An Asteroid

First “Space Painter” Inspires With Art

How To Survive On Mars

How To Land A Rocket Booster

What To Do With Space Waste?

How A Recycled Rocket Will Take Us To Mars

Mars Landing Sites & CubeSat Planetary Exploration

The Sights And Smells Of Space Travel

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