Spacepod

Paulo Younse has spent over 5 years studying hermetic seals for tubes. But these aren’t just any tubes— there the tubes that will travel to Mars and carry rocks back to Earth. He describes the challe…

Dr. Heather Kaluna talks about space weathering, which changes the surfaces of the moon, asteroids, and Mercury. She studies space weathering in a laboratory, where she can reproduce hundreds of mill…

The James Webb Space Telescope is the biggest astronomy project in the world right now. It’s an amazingly complex robot, and some of its sensors need to be kept cool. Dr Kris Stone talks about the co…

Dr. Lauren White talks about designing and building instruments for the International Space Station (ISS). She shares a secret about designing instruments for the outside of the space station, and al…

Dr Morgan Cable comes back on the podcast to tell us about how she and a team of scientists searched a fresh lava field in Iceland to look for signs of life. They pretended to see the landscape like …

Dr. James "Gerbs" Bauer talks about comets, the icy dirtballs (or dirty iceballs) that orbit the Sun. We talk about the ancient Egyptian term for comets, why you probably shouldn't eat a comet, and a…

The New Horizons mission revealed Pluto's jaw-dropping vistas and geophysical mysteries. One listener wanted to know why the spacecraft didn't go into orbit around Pluto. Tom Spilker, interplanetary …

In part 2, engineers who worked on the Galileo probe discuss what it was like when the probe entered Jupiter's atmosphere. This episode includes a bonus story about Pioneer Venus.

Celebrating the 20th anniversary of the successful deployment of a probe into Jupiter's atmosphere, this episode is a series of interviews with the engineers who worked on this challenging, historic …

Dr. George Privon talks about what galaxies are and what happens when two galaxies merge.

Dr. Dan Petrizzo explains what isotopes are, and what isotopes in water can tell scientists about ancient climates. He also explains how he made Mars rocks in the lab.

Professor Amy Lovell talks about listening in on radio waves coming from comets, as well as the particular challenges of using the world's biggest radio telescopes.

Professor Bethany Ehlmann discusses how to pick a landing site for NASA's next Mars rover, Mars 2020. Over a particularly good beer, we also cover looking for life on Mars, and she answers the thorny…

Dr Bonnie Buratti talks about Pluto's big mystery: What is the source of energy that is causing all the active geology seen by New Horizons?

Dr. Jessica Watkins talks about enormous landslides on Mars that are millions of years old.

Dr. Michael Busch talks about the strange, low gravity surfaces of asteroids, and the challenges a visiting astronaut might face.

Dr. Britney Schmidt tells us about how she can learn about they icy, watery moon Europa by exploring giant Antarctic ice shelves with submarines.

Dr Jeff Rich talks about where elements come from, and the famous phrase, "We are all made of star stuff".

Dr. Linda Spilker discusses the Cassini Spacecraft; what it looks like, what it has discovered, and plans for the conclusion of the mission.

Emily Lakdawalla talks about UnmannedSpaceflight.com, a place where everyday people explore the solar system by processing images from robotic spacecraft.