The Discussion: Jeni talking exoplanets and aliens at Cardiff Museum and we take a no spoiler look at the Neil Armstrong biopic, First Man.

The News: Rounding up the space and astronomy news this month we have:

- Commercial spaceflight update

- New Zealand’s Rocket Lab build a new launch site in the US

- The winners & losers in USAF’s launcher funding competition

- China’s Long March 5 rocket failure induces delays

- The death of the Kepler space telescope

- Russian Soyuz failures risk human access to space

- Hubble dead? Don’t believe the hype

- OSIRIS-Rex begins its final manoeuvres to land on an asteroid

Main news story: Europe and Japan’s Bepicolumbo mission to Mercury.

The Interview: Jeni interviews Bethan James, astronomer & astrophysicist currently working as an ESA/AURA Astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) on the Hubble instrument team.

Q&A: Listeners’ questions via email, Facebook & Twitter take us on a journey into the astronomy issues that have always plagued our understanding or stretched our credulity. This month we take a look USAF’s rocket funding decision:

Why wasn’t SpaceX funded in the latest US military space funding round while Blue Origin was? Mark De Vrij, UK.

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Bio: Awesome Astronomy is a podcast beamed direct from an underground bunker on Mars to promote science, space and astronomy (and enslave Earth if all goes well).

 

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