Ed Weiler only answered to one person when he was the Associate Administrator for Science at NASA Headquarters- the President of the United States. And after a decades long career in astronomy, working on everything from the Hubble telescope to the Mars program, he’s now spending his retirement playing tennis and raising a puppy. We talked to Ed about building a telescope at age 13, finding life outside of Earth in the near future, and leading a team of scientists at NASA- and that’s just the tip of the iceberg!

This episode was produced by Shane M Hanlon and Nisha Mital, and mixed by Collin Warren. Artwork by Karen Romano Young.