Are We There Yet?

By 90.7 WMFE

Natural Sciences

What's Are We There Yet? about?

The Space Exploration Podcast

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The Rise Of The Space Age M...

03.24.2020

There’s a new generation leading the charge when it comes to space exploration — millennials. These 20 and 30 year olds are entering the workforce and academia, driving innovation and pushing humanity farther into the solar system. So what’s motivating ...

Are We There Yet? episodes:

03.24.2020 The Rise Of The Space Age Millennials There’s a new generation leading the charge when it comes to space exploration — millennials. These 20 and 30 year olds are entering the workforce and academia, driving innovation and pushing humanity farther into the solar system. So what’s motivating ...
03.18.2020 A New Dawn For Sun Science There are now two new spacecraft zooming around the sun exploring our closest star. NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is getting an up close and personal look at the sun and its corona — the wispy bits that radiate off the ...
03.10.2020 Discovering A New Star: Jocelyn Bell Burnell’s Advice For Astronomers And Women In Science Back in 1967, Dr. Jocelyn Bell Burnell observed a curious set of radio pulses from a new type of telescope. Her findings would lead to a new type of star — a pulsar — and begin a new chapter of ...
03.03.2020 The Race To Deep Space The race to deep space is on. NASA has its eyes set on the moon then Mars, and other private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin have ambitious plans to send humans into deep space. So just how close are ...
02.25.2020 Space: Marketing’s Final Frontier Space is open for business. NASA is loosening restrictions on the use of the space station for commercial companies, paving the way for new business opportunities in orbit. From music videos to commercials, companies are now looking to the cosmos ...
02.19.2020 BONUS INTERVIEW: The History Of Civilian Space This week we’re talking with Alan Ladwig about his new book “See You in Orbit.” It chronicles the efforts to get regular humans, not just astronauts, into space. You probably heard us talk about those efforts after the Challenger disaster ...
02.18.2020 The Future Of Ordinary People In Space Companies like Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are on the brink of launching a new class of astronauts into space — ordinary people. The experiences promise to give space tourists a new perspective on the world and experience the feeling ...
02.11.2020 Solar Orbiter Mission Heads To The Sun To Study Poles Of Our Closest Star A new mission to study the sun launched this week from Cape Canaveral. For the first time, scientists will get a look at the poles of the sun, thanks to the Solar Orbiter spacecraft. The mission is a joint venture ...
02.04.2020 Will Congress Steer NASA Away From The Moon? The House is moving through a new authorization bill. While these pieces of legislation are usually unremarkable, this one is getting a lot of attention. That’s because this bill would significantly alter NASA’s current plans to head to the moon ...
01.21.2020 Asteroid Return Mission Spacecraft OSRIRIS-REx Picks A Sample Site A spacecraft more than 160 million miles away is about to suck up some asteroid dust — then send it back to Earth. The OSIRIS-REx mission will collect the sample from Bennu this summer and mission managers are carefully planning ...
01.14.2020 Can Your Gut Leak In Space? Probably. Here’s What That Means For Astronatus Space travel could cause a leaky gut. A new medical study found that microgravity reduces an important barrier in the stomach which could mean nasty germs could get inside Astronaut’s bodies on deep-space missions. We’ll chat with UC Riverside medical ...
01.07.2020 Booze In Space? The Storied History And Bright Future Of Alcohol In The Final Frontier Alcohol has long been a staple of our cultures and civilizations but is there a place for it in space? Author Chris Carberry explores this history and future of booze in space in his new book Alcohol in Space: Past, ...
12.31.2019 A Decade of Commercial Space Innovation Over the last decade, there’s been a change in how things get to space. Since the end of the Space Shuttle program in 2011, NASA has been looking to commercial companies to fill the void. We’ll take a look at ...
12.17.2019 Interstellar Comet Visits Our Solar System, Awes Astronomers Astronomers have their eyes on a rare comet zooming 100,000 miles per hour through our solar system. It’s rare because it’s coming from outside our solar system. The comet named 2I/Borisov is the first confirmed interstellar comet. The Hubble space ...
12.10.2019 Designing The Next Spacesuit For future missions to the moon or Mars, astronauts are going to need a new suit. Engineers like MIT’s Dava Newman are hard at work — but it’s a big ask. Designing a suit that protects astronauts while still allowing ...
12.03.2019 From Cave To Cosmos: A History Of Human Exploration Exploration is hardwired into our DNA. From early humans in sub-Saharan Africa to the Apollo moon walkers, humans have always had a thirst for knowledge and the need to understand the world around them. Andrew Rader is a SpaceX mission ...
11.26.2019 Talking To Aliens Are we alone in the universe? Probably not. Scientists are hard at work looking for signs of life here in our solar system and beyond. But what will we say to those extraterrestrials when we find them? Author and journalist ...
11.20.2019 The Interstellar Travels Of The Twin Voyager Spacecraft Ken Chang: Science From Beyond Our Solar System. Voyager 2 punched a hole through our heliosphere sending it into interstellar space. The space probe launched more than 40 years ago along with its twin, Voyager 1, on a mission to ...
11.12.2019 Astronaut & Spacewalker Nicole Stott Talks Gender Equality, Art In Space and Efforts To Inspire The Next Generation Of Explorers Nicole Stott: Spacewalker, artists and advocate for all explorers. Last month, Astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch made history by conducting the first all-female spacewalk. While women have been space walking since 1984, this marks the first time a team ...
10.29.2019 Moon Shots & Mars Rovers: What You Missed At IAC 2019 The International Astronautical Congress was last week in Washington D.C. It’s a global assembly of movers and shakers in the space industry — from government agencies to private partners. We’ll chat with the host of the We Martians podcast Jake ...
10.22.2019 3D Printers On Mars? One Company’s Plan To Establish Manufacturing On The Red Planet Private company Relativity Space is designing and manufacturing 3D printed rockets to launch from Cape Canaveral but one day hopes to see the technology building parts on places like the moon or Mars. We’ll talk with Relativity Space’s Jordan Noone ...
10.15.2019 Dealing With Moon Dust NASA is going back to the moon but before it does, it has to figure out how to work with the dirt on the lunar surface. Moon dust is nasty stuff. It’s sharp, sticky and can really mess up your ...
10.08.2019 Space News Roundup: Commercial Crew, SLS & Elon’s Stainless Steel Starship Hardware for SpaceX’s Commercial Crew program and NASA’s SLS rocket have arrived at Kennedy Space. Elon Musk continues work on his Starship rockets. It’s been a busy few weeks in space news. We’ll talk with space reporters Emre Kelly and ...
10.01.2019 Black Holes & Gravitational Waves: Shedding Light On The Darkest Places In The Universe Scientists have captured an image of a black hole swallowing a star. The findings are shedding light on the mystery of black holes. How does this event help us better understand our universe? We’ll speak with NASA scientists Knicole Colon ...
09.24.2019 Martian Colonists Will Have To Eat Bugs If you want to live on Mars, you’ll have to eat bugs. That’s according to new research published by a team of University of Central Florida scientists in the journal New Space. Companies like SpaceX are looking to send the ...
09.17.2019 Why Is It So Hard To Land On The Moon? India’s attempt to land a rover on the moon appears to have ended in failure. The Indian space agency lost contact with the lander during a touchdown attempt earlier this month. It follows the landing failure of another mission — ...
09.09.2019 Space Force, The Politics Of Exploration & Tiny Stow-Aways On Israel’s Moon Mission Last week, the Space Command came online. It’s what’s known as a combatant command group within the U.S. military and serves as a way to streamline the nation’s space military assets. It’s also seen as the precursor to the Space ...
08.20.2019 The Mysteries At Asteroid Bennu A spacecraft the size of a passenger van is orbiting an asteroid nearly 100 million miles away and will soon snag a sample of dirt from the surface and send it back to Earth. OSIRIS-REx launched from Cape Canaveral three ...
08.05.2019 Space News Round Table: Starship, Exoplanets & Human Space Flight It’s been a busy few days for space news. We’re unrolling a new segment on the podcast this week — a round table of space journalists based here in Florida to break down the latest headlines and offer insight and ...
08.01.2019 NASA’s TESS Space Telescope Uncovers Hundreds Of New Worlds Outside Our Solar System NASA’s planet hunting satellite has completed its first year of science in space. The spacecraft searched the southern sky for signs of so-called exoplanets. The mission seeks to answer one of science’s age-old questions: are we alone in the universe? ...
07.20.2019 Apollo Then & Now: Photo Series Captures Space Coast Change Fifty Years After Moon Missions In the 1960’s, NASA’s Apollo program spurred growth and development on Florida’s SpaceCoast. Fifty years later, the lasting impact of the program can still be seen. Photographer Jim Hobart set out to document those changes for a special photo project ...
07.19.2019 Apollo Missions Inspired Generation Of Engineers, Scientists When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon, millions tuned in live to watch the event. The moon landing inspired many to pursue an education and career in aerospace in what is now called the Apollo effect. Phil ...
07.18.2019 Apollo Flight Controllers: The People Who Made Moon Missions Happen After launching from Kennedy Space Center, controllers in Houston, Texas took over the operation of the Apollo missions — keeping a watchful eye on the crew and vehicle as it made the nearly quarter-million mile trip to the moon. One ...
07.12.2019 The Bills: What Does NASA’s Leadership Shakeup Mean For Moon Plans? Two senior NASA officials have been ousted from their positions. NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said associate administrator Bill Gerstenmaier and deputy associate administrator Bill Hill have been reassigned within the agency. Bridenstine said the move is meant to help meet ...
06.10.2019 Cosmic Couple Takes Space “On Tour” MaryLiz Bender and Ryan Chylinski didn’t know it at the time, but they were both embarking on a similar mission — selling all their stuff, hoping in a camper and touring the country documenting the latest space events. The two ...
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 start 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 ...

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:

The Rise Of The Space Age Millennials

A New Dawn For Sun Science

Discovering A New Star: Jocelyn Bell Burnell’s Advice For Astronomers And Women In Science

The Race To Deep Space

Space: Marketing’s Final Frontier

BONUS INTERVIEW: The History Of Civilian Space

The Future Of Ordinary People In Space

Solar Orbiter Mission Heads To The Sun To Study Poles Of Our Closest Star

Will Congress Steer NASA Away From The Moon?

Asteroid Return Mission Spacecraft OSRIRIS-REx Picks A Sample Site

Can Your Gut Leak In Space? Probably. Here’s What That Means For Astronatus

Booze In Space? The Storied History And Bright Future Of Alcohol In The Final Frontier

A Decade of Commercial Space Innovation

Interstellar Comet Visits Our Solar System, Awes Astronomers

Designing The Next Spacesuit

From Cave To Cosmos: A History Of Human Exploration

Talking To Aliens

The Interstellar Travels Of The Twin Voyager Spacecraft

Astronaut & Spacewalker Nicole Stott Talks Gender Equality, Art In Space and Efforts To Inspire The Next Generation Of Explorers

Moon Shots & Mars Rovers: What You Missed At IAC 2019

3D Printers On Mars? One Company’s Plan To Establish Manufacturing On The Red Planet

Dealing With Moon Dust

Space News Roundup: Commercial Crew, SLS & Elon’s Stainless Steel Starship

Black Holes & Gravitational Waves: Shedding Light On The Darkest Places In The Universe

Martian Colonists Will Have To Eat Bugs

Why Is It So Hard To Land On The Moon?

Space Force, The Politics Of Exploration & Tiny Stow-Aways On Israel’s Moon Mission

The Mysteries At Asteroid Bennu

Space News Round Table: Starship, Exoplanets & Human Space Flight

NASA’s TESS Space Telescope Uncovers Hundreds Of New Worlds Outside Our Solar System

Apollo Then & Now: Photo Series Captures Space Coast Change Fifty Years After Moon Missions

Apollo Missions Inspired Generation Of Engineers, Scientists

Apollo Flight Controllers: The People Who Made Moon Missions Happen

The Bills: What Does NASA’s Leadership Shakeup Mean For Moon Plans?

Cosmic Couple Takes Space “On Tour”

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

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