Are We There Yet?

Some troubling times for spacecraft around our solar systems over the past few weeks. Juno, the Jupiter orbiter, entered safe mode after engine troubles. And the ExoMars lander crashed hard onto the martian surface. But there’s much to be learned in the wake of disasters, at least that’s what mission managers are saying. It wouldn’t be a conversation about robotic spacecraft without a call to Emilee Speck. 

If you picked up this month’s copy of National Geographic, you’ll see a composite photo of Mars, taken by India’s Mars Orbiter Mission Probe. It’s a sneak peak at what’s to come this month from National Geographic: an in-depth look at colonizing the red planet.

Inside this issue is a cover story titled “Elon Musk Want to Go to Mars.” The piece looks at the challenges of sending humans to Mars, the competing plans between the private space industry and NASA and how the two might work together to accomplish such a feat.

Joining us to talk about the piece is the author of that cover story, Joel Achenbach. Along with contributing to National Geographic, he’s a staff writer at the Washington Post.

We’re about to see things in the universe never before seen. The James Webb Space Telescope is huge and it’s going to give us a peek at things from a perspective we haven’t seen before.

The Webb as the call it will look at objects in the universe unfiltered by our atmosphere and by using infrared sensors. We’re going to be able to see through clouds of gas and dust and look at stars that have gone undiscovered.

The telescope is a collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency. It’s being assembled now  with a launch scheduled in 2018.

Watching over that development effort is NASA’s John Mather. He joins us via skype from the Goddard Spaceflight Center in Maryland.

John F. Kennedy’s speech sent the U.S. on a moonshot and by the end of the decade, just as he said, we put men on the moon.

Now, we’re looking to Mars as our next moon-shot with visionaries like NASA’s Charlie Bolden and SpaceX’s Elon Musk promising to send humans to the red planet.

But it takes more than just a speech, and there’s speed bumps along the way. We’re going to shift gears a bit here and take a historical look at the programs that achieved enormous goals but also look at some of the low points in space history.

Joining us this week is Michael McConville. He has an interesting perspective to bring to the program. Michael is a space geek, and coordinator at the Buehler Planetarium and Seminole State College here in Central Florida. He’s also a professor of History at the University of Central Florida.

Did you know there are earthquakes on Mars. Or would you call them Mars-quakes?

Bruce Banerdt wants to study the seismic activity on Mars. To do that, he’s leading the Mars InSight mission — it’s a lander heading to the red planet in 2018. The mission was delayed due to a leak in one of the sensors. But it’s back on track, targeting a launch in 2018 to head to the red planet.

Banerdy joins us from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab out in Pasadena to brings us up to speed on this martian-quake hunter.

Elon Musk wants to go to Mars.

The SpaceX founder and multi-planetary visionary outlined his plan to colonize Mars at a talk at the International Astronautical Congress.His plan included an interplanetary space ship system capable of taking people by the hundreds to the red planet as early as the next decade.

Elon Musk gave the talk in front of space industry experts, journalist and exploration enthusiasts. Robin Seemangal, a reporter for The Observer, was in the audience. He joins us from Guadalajara, Mexico

What’s it like to walk on Mars? I’m sure if you listen to this podcast you’ve at least thought about that question.

Thanks to Microsoft’s HoloLens, and the incredible engineers over at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, you can now experience what it’s like to walk on Mars.

Destination: Mars uses an augmented reality headset — and images from the Mars rovers — to put people on the surface on Mars. Not going to lie, I was a bit sceptical at first. But the folks at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor’s Complex invited me down to try it out, and let me tell you, it was incredible.

It really gives you a sense of scale, just how massive things are, and how incredibly similar the martian surface is to ours. Also, hologram Buzz Aldrin guides you through the experience.

I learned that the exhibit at KSC was based on real technology that scientist use to determine where Curiosity should explore next.

I spoke with Doug Ellison, he’s a visualization producer at NASA’s JPL, about the technology  and how it went from the noggins of scientists to visitors at KSC.

At the Kennedy Space Center, there’s a groups of scientists and engineers that think outside the box when it comes building the tools that will one day take us to Mars. I’m calling them the Renegades of Research and Development — but they call themselves Swamp Works.

One of the biggest challenges in space exploration is fuel. It’s kind of important, right? But it’s also really heavy. And we’ll need fuel to get astronauts back from Mars. That means, we’ve got to pack extra fuel. That takes more fuel to send the fuel…Ah, it gets so crazy!

But what if we can make fuel when we get there? The term scientists use for that is in-situ resource utilization — or in-situ for short. I met some of the folks at Swamp Works to find out their crazy, out of the box plans for exploring places like Mars.

Commander Chris Hadfield has been to space three times. On the Shuttle twice, and he served as Commander on the International Space Station. He was the first Canadian astronaut to walk in space and produced a rendition of David Bowie’s Space Oddity from orbit.

Now that he’s back here on Earth, Commander Hadfield continues to promote space exploration by speaking publicly at events across the globe, producing YouTube videos and writing. His newest book, “The Darkest Dark” is meant for youngsters, and tackles the worries of childhood like fear.

He’s visiting Florida’s Space Coast September 16th at the Kennedy Space Center — where Commander Hadfield launch twice into space.

Find more details about the event at Kennedy Space Center  

Commander Hadfield joins the podcast from New York to talk about his career, trips to Mars, and his life back here on Earth.

NASA and its academic partners are about to do something they’ve never done before: launch a spacecraft, rendezvous with an asteroid, collect a sample of regolith, or dust, from the surface and return it to Earth.

OSIRIS-REx is set to launch from Florida’s Space Coast September 8th on a seven year mission. Dante Lauretta, Principle Investigation of the mission, gives us a tour of OSIRIS-REx and the the science equipment on board.

But just what are they hoping to find? And how in the world are they going to pull this one off? To give us the details of this historic mission we chat with Robin Seemangal, a reporter at The New York Observer, where he covers space and contributor to Popular Science.