Are We There Yet?

Fight and flight -- the battle over NASA’s lunar lander and new software for the agency’s moon rocket.

Blue Origin, the aerospace company founded by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, is suing NASA over its selection of rival company SpaceX to design and develop the agency’s next moon lander.It’s the latest in Blue’s protest efforts over the April decision by NASA to contract SpaceX to build a spacecraft to take humans to the lunar surface.

We’ll talk with Anthony Colangelo, a commercial space analyst and host of the podcast Main Engine Cutoff, about the protest -- and what’s ahead for NASA’s Human Landing System. We’ll also chat about the burgeoning space tourism market and the latest delay of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft.

Then, as the fight over NASA’s lunar lander rolls on, software that will launch the agency’s next moon rocket is getting installed. We’ll talk with NASA’s Anton Kiriwas about the software that will fly SLS to the moon and back.

Fight and flight -- the battle over NASA’s lunar lander and new software for the agency’s moon rocket.

Fight and flight -- the battle over NASA’s lunar lander and new software for the agency’s moon rocket.

Can you print things on the moon? Redwire Space wants to find out using a 3D printer installed on the International Space Station.

Can you print things on the moon? Redwire Space wants to find out using a 3D printer installed on the International Space Station.

The soundtrack of space. From Gustov Holtz’s suite "The Planets" to Kubrick’s choice of "Blue Danube" in 2001: A Space Odyssey, certain pieces of music are just cosmic. Now, a new project by a space entrepreneur and musician is building upon the soundtrack of space by beaming songs into the cosmos, starting from the International Space Station.

The soundtrack of space. From Gustov Holtz’s suite "The Planets" to Kubrick’s choice of "Blue Danube" in 2001: A Space Odyssey, certain pieces of music are just cosmic. Now, a new project by a space entrepreneur and musician is building upon the soundtrack of space by beaming songs into the cosmos, starting from the International Space Station.

Boeing’s Starliner is set to launch on an uncrewed mission from Cape Canaveral to the International Space Station later this week on a critical test mission to certify the vehicle to fly astronauts.

It’s a redo of a previous test attempt in late 2019 that failed to reach the space station. We’ll speak with Michelle Parker, Boeing’s space and launch chief engineer about the mission and what the team learned from the previous attempt.

Then, a robot on Mars is measuring the pulse of the planet. NASA’s InSight mission is listening to seismic activity and its findings are shedding some light on what’s happening below the surface of Mars.

We’ll speak with space journalist and WeMartians podcast host Jake Robins about the findings and what’s below the rust colored surface of Mars.

Boeing’s Starliner is set to launch on an uncrewed mission from Cape Canaveral to the International Space Station later this week on a critical test mission to certify the vehicle to fly astronauts. It’s a redo of a previous test attempt in late 2019 that failed to reach the space station. We’ll speak with Michelle Parker, Boeing’s space and launch chief engineer about the mission and what the team learned from the previous attempt.

Boeing’s Starliner is set to launch on an uncrewed mission from Cape Canaveral to the International Space Station later this week on a critical test mission to certify the vehicle to fly astronauts. It’s a redo of a previous test attempt in late 2019 that failed to reach the space station. We’ll speak with Michelle Parker, Boeing’s space and launch chief engineer about the mission and what the team learned from the previous attempt.