We start off our sixth anniversary show with an update on the recent Soyuz missions and NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko’s one year mission on the International Space Station, which has just passed the halfway point. From there, we bring things back down to Earth with a discussion on Aerojet Rocketdyne’s unsolicited $2B offer to purchase United Launch Alliance and the Department of Defense’s likely position on the offer.

Heading back off planet, we then jump into a discussion about the release of the most recent New Horizons photographs including one particular picture that shows a fantastic contrast between old and new geography on Pluto.

After wrapping up the news for this week, we all took some time to reflect on six years of Talking Space. We talk about the first show, and our favorite moments, including a live broadcast from STS-135, the final shuttle mission, a live interview with then relatively unknown CSA Astronaut Chris Hadfield from that same broadcast, meditate on some thoughts from NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden and NASA Kennedy Space Center Director Bob Cabana, and on the future of space travel and Talking Space. We conclude the episode with a request to you, our audience - we want to hear your memories of the last six years too! Share with us on Twitter, Facebook, and G+ using the hashtag #TS6 or send us an email or audio clip to [email protected].

Thank you for six years of Talking Space, and we look forward to many more!

Show Recorded 9/14/2015

Host this week: Sawyer Rosenstein

Panel members: Gene Mikulka, Mark Ratterman, Kat Robison, and Kassy Tamanini (CraftLass)

Audio Engineer: Kassy Tamanini (CraftLass)