On this episode, We discuss the return of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA)  Hayabusa probe after a 7 year voyage to obtain a piece of Asteroid Itokawa. We discuss the Mars 500 experiment and answer two questions from our mailbag, and a thanks to @QuantumG and @racshot653 for the questions. Keep them coming! After that we look at NASA's  Expedition 24 to the International Space Station,  and review an  interesting editorial from MSNBC's James Oberg on reliance on the Russian Soyuz vehicle.

We comment on relatively breaking news of President Obama's plan to take $100 million out of NASA's budget to put toward job training for NASA contractors who will be losing their jobs as a result of the Project Constellation shutdown on the space coast and elsewhere.  We end with a discussion of a mystery on board Atlantis, NASA giving you a chance to send your face into space, and a brand new exhibit opened at the Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum honoring the crew of Apollo 1 called "27 Seconds".

A special thank you to CraftLass for "pinch hitting" for Gina Herlihy as a guest panel member this week! Follow CraftLass on Twitter: @CraftLass.

To see the video blog for day 1 for the Mars 500, you can check it out here on YouTube. You can also follow Diego Urbina on Twitter at @diegou.

You can see that the Falcon 9 launched at T-0 here on YouTube, the roll of the vehicle at launch here on YouTube, and the UFO "sighting" in Australia here on YouTube.

The op-ed article written by James Oberg can be read here on MSNBC

To send your "Face in Space", you can visit http://faceinspace.nasa.gov/

As well, here is the surprise which was left by the STS-132 crew aboard locker A-16 on Atlantis: A picture was inserted here. To view the picture, please visit http://talkingspaceonline.com

Host this week: Sawyer Rosenstein. Panel Members: Gene Mikulka, Mark Ratterman, and special guest panelist CraftLass

Show Recorded - 6/18/2010