This Week in Space (Audio)

Mike Hecht is the main man behind the MOXIE oxygen-making experiment on the Perseverance rover. Mars won't be much fun to explore if we can't find a way to breathe there, and we'll need fuel to come home. MOXIE was designed to make oxygen from Martian air... and it works! We'll learn how on this episode of This Week in Space.

Image credit: NASA

Hosts: Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik

Guest: Michael Hecht

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The future is here! Regular citizens are starting to fly into space, and we caught up with Dylan Taylor, serial entrepreneur, president and CEO of space exploration firm Voyager Space, and most recently, private astronaut. Shortly after his flight on Blue Origin's New Shepard, he dove to the Titanic and the bottom of the Challenger Deep. Oh, and his company is building their own space station! Join us for the amazing armchair adventure with one of the newspace doers, Dylan Taylor.

Host: Rod Pyle

Co-Host: Geoffrey Notkin

Guest: Dylan Taylor

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Dale Skran of the National Space Society joins Rod Pyle and Geoff Notkin to discuss the NSS and commercial space efforts. What is the new space age and why is it important. It's a great conversation on This Week in Space.

Host: Rod Pyle

Co-Host: Geoffrey Notkin

Guest: Dale Skran

Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-space.

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Dr. Bill Tarver joins Rod Pyle and Geoff Notkin on This Week in Space to discuss loss of life. Whether during launch, an extended journey, or on the Moon, Mars, or in orbit, there will be human casualties. How will we deal with a death in space? What do you do with a body you might not be able to return to Earth? Do we set them adrift like a burial at sea or stuff them into a refrigerator for later? Great conversation with Tarver covering this topic and more.

Host: Rod Pyle

Co-Host: Geoffrey Notkin

Guest: Dr. Bill Tarver

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NASA is 64 years old and has sometimes acted like it. Back in 2010, when Lori Garver became the number two at the space agency, commercial space was just a glimmer on the horizon, and it was business as usual. The week we talk to Lori about her new book about her time at NASA, "Escaping Gravity," and how she helped to reinvent the world's favorite space agency for a new space age.

Get "Escaping Gravity: My Quest to Transform NASA and Launch a New Space Age" on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3QsCZE8

Host: Rod Pyle

Co-Host: Geoffrey Notkin

Guest: Lori Garver

Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-space.

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We've seen grandiose visions of our future in space in science fiction since the early 20th century. The Golden Age of pulp sci-fi ramped this up, then came Star Trek and other, more realistic depictions. While fiction and reality don't often align, there's more here than meets the eye. Join us for this fascinating look into the future.

Host: Rod Pyle

Co-Host: Geoffrey Notkin

Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-space.

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America's supply of technically-educated workers is drying up, and the space industry scrambles to find qualified candidates. Engaging more kids, especially girls and diverse populations, in science and engineering is critical. Janet Ivey, creator and host of the hit PBS show "Janet's Planet," has some ideas on how!

Host: Rod Pyle

Co-Host: Geoffrey Notkin

Guest: Janet Ivey

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Isaac Arthur joins Rod Pyle to discuss alien megastructures in detail. If an alien civilization is sufficiently advanced, physicist and visionary futurist Freeman Dyson theorized they might build a livable structure that would be large enough to encompass their own star. Called a Dyson Sphere, the idea was popularized in episodes of Star Trek.

Credit: Adam Burn

Host: Rod Pyle

Guest: Isaac Arthur

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You've all seen the recent first images from the James Webb Space Telescope. Now join This Week in Space to learn more about these spectacular photos from former Chief Astronomical Observer at the Griffith Observatory, Tony Cook! We'll slice and dice each image as we dive deep into what made them special, and talk about what's coming in the summer night sky.

Host: Rod Pyle

Guest: Anthony Cook

Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-space.

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The space beat has never been hotter. With routine updates from NASA and JPL on their great missions, to international space news, to America's space race with China, to all the latest from SpaceX and the other newspace entrepreneurs, there's never been more to say--or wonder about--in spaceflight. It's a hot ticket, and there will be jobs... sorta.

Hosts: Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik

Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-space.

Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit