Space Curious

This year has been awful for a lot of reasons: a global pandemic, racial injustice, wildfires and the list goes on but an asteroid crashing into Earth will not be the cherry on top of humanity’s punishment.

Simply put, we won’t be going out with a bang this year, 2020 rages on. In this week’s episode of WKMG’s podcast Space Curious planetary scientists help explain how we know where asteroids are and why we’re not all going to get squashed by one this year or anytime soon.

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On this episode of Space Curious, we're talking about our fascination with astronauts, an elite class of humans who have trained years for spaceflight but they are also people with families, hobbies --and --bodily functions.

This year marked the first-time astronauts have launched from Florida since 2011 when astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken successfully launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in the Dragon spacecraft, made it to the space station -- and returned home, splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico. It was an epic return for American human space exploration.

The astronauts -- affectionately known as “The Space Dads” -- answered a lot of questions about their journey, including about the Crew Dragon bathroom.

To ask the question about why we want to know about the little oddities of space life, Space Curious host Emilee Speck spoke to space journalists Marina Koren, of The Atlantic, and Brendan Byrne, of WMFE, along with retired NASA astronaut Terry Virts.

Virts offered his perspective of living in space, including some details you might not expect like giving his space station crew mate a haircut and the sounds he misses most from his spaceflights.

While, Byrne and Koren both remind us that astronauts' families are also heroes of spaceflight.

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Billionaire and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is getting closer with every launch to providing internet to the world-- including remote communities-- by using a fleet of thousands of satellites.

BUT he’s not alone, Amazon, Samsung and other private companies plan to follow his lead.

And that means low-Earth orbit is about to get even more crowded.

In the latest episode of Space Curious, we’ll look at what massive constellations of satellites will mean for our view of the night sky, the research of astronomers who study it and what companies like SpaceX are doing to help mitigate these issues.

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Humans have been launching spacecraft into low-Earth orbit and out into the universe for more than six decades. 

Those spacecraft include satellites that provide GPS and weather forecasting down on Earth but they have limited lifespans. After a spacecraft is no longer serving a purpose it becomes junk.

This week’s episodes answers the question: Who’s gonna take out all that space trash?

To help explain the issues behind space debris Space Curious host Emilee Speck spoke to experts from the Florida Institute of Technology who know a lot about space junk and what challenges humans face in cleaning up the mess we make.

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This year marks the 20th year humans have been living in space. That means most college students today have never known a day without an astronaut orbiting above them on the International Space Station.

For the very first episode of WKMG-TV and Graham Media’s new podcast, Space Curious, we go back to the beginning and learn how the International Space Station came to be with someone who was there at the beginning: Kennedy Space Center Director and former astronaut Robert “Bob” Cabana.

The first two pieces of the ISS were built across the world but connected in space.

"You know, as a team, we need unity in anything that we do if we're going to be successful. So unity is a name for node one was outstanding," Cabana said.

Every episode of Space Curious is inspired by a question from a listener. Submit questions at ClickOrlando.com/space. New episodes drop every other Wednesday.

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Coming soon, a podcast from WKMG and Graham Media that answers your intergalactic questions.

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