Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science

Four astronauts — Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen — are on their way around the Moon, on a journey that will take them farther from Earth than any human has gone before. This week on Planetary Radio, we bring you the sounds of launch day and the voices of the people who lived it.
You’ll hear from the engineers who built the spacecraft, including Mark Tobias, chief engineer at Northrop Grumman, Jan-Henrik Horstmann, European Service Module team leader at ESA, and Debbie Korth, deputy manager of NASA's Orion Program. U.S. Representative Mike Haridopolos and Senator and former astronaut Mark Kelly share their perspectives from the ground. Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk reflects on what it means for Canada to have one of their own heading to deep space for the very first time. NASA Chief Exploration Scientist Jake Bleacher and Lisa Carnell, director of Biological and Physical Sciences at NASA's Science Mission Directorate, break down some of the research happening on this mission. NASA astronaut Steve Bowen shares what it feels like to watch a crew launch knowing exactly what they're about to experience. And Joel Kearns, NASA's deputy associate administrator for exploration, reflects on what this moment means for the future of human spaceflight.
Plus, Planetary Society Science Editor Asa Stahl and Digital Community Manager Ambre Rose Trujillo, share what it was actually like to be there on launch day. And Planetary Society Chief Scientist Bruce Betts joins us for What's Up, with a look at what we've learned about the Moon since the Apollo era.
Discover more at: https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/2026-artemis-ii-launch
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What makes Cape Canaveral the center of U.S. spaceflight? The answer is a fascinating mix of geography, military strategy, Cold War politics, and a fair amount of historical accident.
In this episode of the Space Policy Edition of Planetary Radio, host Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at The Planetary Society, sits down with Stephen C. Smith, author and writer behind the Substack The Space Pundit, to discuss his book Return to Launch: Florida and America's Space Industry. A longtime Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex communicator and Merritt Island resident, Smith brings a unique perspective to the story of how a remote Florida peninsula became the gateway to the Cosmos.
The conversation spans the full arc of Cape Canaveral's history, from captured Nazi V-2 rockets fired off a concrete slab in 1950, the Apollo era's dramatic economic boom and bust, and the rise of commercial spaceflight. Along the way, Smith and Dreier explore why Mexico's president inadvertently shaped U.S. launch site selection, how eminent domain built a spaceport, and what Space Florida did to help break the region's cycle of economic dependence on government programs.
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Artemis II is the first crewed lunar mission since Apollo 17, and riding alongside the crew is one of the most ambitious biology experiments ever sent to space. It's called AVATAR, short for A Virtual Astronaut Tissue Analog Response: tiny organ chips grown from the astronauts' own cells, flying the same trajectory around the Moon, exposed to the same deep-space radiation and microgravity as the crew themselves. Lisa Carnell, director of NASA's Biological and Physical Sciences Division, explains what this experiment could mean for the future of human exploration.
Then, Alain Maury, asteroid hunter and Planetary Society Shoemaker Near-Earth Object grant recipient, tells the story of how his MAPS survey in Chile's Atacama Desert spotted a faint, fuzzy object that turned out to be something extraordinary. C/2026 A1 (MAPS) is a sungrazing comet now falling toward the Sun on a path that will bring it within 162,000 kilometers (100,000 miles) of the solar surface on April 4th. If it survives that encounter, it could become one of the most spectacular comets in decades.
And finally, Planetary Society Chief Scientist Bruce Betts joins us for What's Up, including how to spot the comet yourself, if it makes it through.
Discover more at: https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/2026-avatar-and-sungrazer
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Artemis II is about more than getting four humans to the Moon and back. It's an opportunity to gather data on human health in deep space that we haven’t had in over 50 years.
This week, we’re joined by Steve Platts, chief scientist of NASA's Human Research Program, who walks us through the suite of human health experiments flying aboard Artemis II, from the ARCHER wearable sensors tracking crew health and team dynamics, to dry saliva swabs measuring stress hormones. Then Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at The Planetary Society, helps us make sense of NASA's Ignition Day, a major press event held on March 24 in which the agency unveiled sweeping changes to its lunar exploration plans and beyond.
And we close with Bruce Betts, chief scientist of The Planetary Society, in our weekly What's Up, where we explore one of the stranger phenomena in human spaceflight, the flashes of light astronauts sometimes see when cosmic rays pass through their eyes.
Discover more at: https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/2026-astronaut-health-experiments-artemis-ii
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Join us for an awe-inspiring conversation with astrobiologist and astronomer Caleb Scharf as he eloquently makes the case for "dispersal," the nearly inevitable advance of life and humanity across our solar neighborhood. From the book: "The idea of Dispersal is one where the sheer scale and scope of life’s future extension into the solar system profoundly changes things: not because of some new (and unlikely) cultural enlightenment from within but because of what the enormous expanse of space will do to dilute and change our species and all others.” Adam Frank says of the book, “If we can make it through the many crises of the next century, then the Solar System and the stars beyond await us. In The Giant Leap, Caleb Scharf demonstrates how becoming a true space-faring species is more than just humanity’s future.”
Discover more at: https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/book-club-caleb-scharf
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