The Cosmic Controversy Podcast

Guest Benjamin Greenhagen, a planetary scientist at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland, outlines the lunar surface’s remaining mysteries --- everything from permanently…

Guest Paul Davies, a theoretical physicist and director of the BEYOND Center at Arizona State University, gives an enlightening and fascinating interview on the true nature of the Cosmos and why ther…

Guest Christopher Combs, an assistant professor of aerodynamics at the University of Texas at San Antonio, discusses current prospects for supersonic. hypersonic and even suborbital spaceplane passen…

Acclaimed U.K. journalist Mark Piesing chats about his first book N-4 DOWN:  THE HUNT FOR THE ARCTIC AIRSHIP ITALIA (Harper-Collins) which tracks the long-forgotten history of how airship and early a…

Guest Sheryl L. Bishop, a social psychologist and professor emeritus at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston gets real about what we need to make happen if astronauts are going to be a…

Guest Edwin (Ted) Bergin, professor of astronomy and Chair of the Dept. of Astronomy at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, discusses whether our existence in this solar system is directly relat…

University of Chicago associate professor Dorian Abbot chats about his research on the controversial Snowball Earth Hypothesis.  That is, the idea that at least twice in Earth’s geological past, our …

Our civilization and technology as we know it owes itself to a fluke of evolution that enabled the development of human intelligence.  It’s a marvelous and nuanced intelligence that cannot be replica…

Darren DePoy, Professor of Astronomy and Associate Dean for Research at Texas A&M University in College Station, talks about using one of Einstein’s little-known and underappreciated method of microl…

Guest Earl Swift, a former reporter for The Virginian-Pilot and New York Times bestselling author of “Chesapeake Requiem” discusses his brand-new book “Across the Airless Wilds---the Lunar Rover and …

University of Washington paleontologist Peter Ward, co-author of the famed non-fiction title, “Rare Earth:  Why Complex Life Is Uncommon In The Universe" is my guest.  He and University of Washington…

Guest Gerald Jackson, former Fermilab physicist and advanced propulsion entrepreneur chats about his plans for an Antimatter Propulsion interstellar robotic probe.  First stop would be Proxima Centau…

Matt Anderson, the John and Horace Dodge Curator of Transportation at The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, speaks candidly about the early days of The Ford Motor Company and its foray into av…

Marc Pinsonneault, a professor of astronomy at The Ohio State University in Columbus, and an expert on stellar open clusters, chats about some of the most famous star clusters in the sky, including t…

Historian and former Clinton presidential speechwriter Jeff Shesol chats about his new book, “Mercury Rising: John Glenn, John Kennedy and the New Battleground of the Cold War” just out from W.W. Nor…

Guest Ben K.D. Pearce, a Ph.D student in astrophysics and astrobiology at McMaster University in Toronto, and an expert on the origins of life’s building blocks here on Earth.  We discuss the idea th…

Villanova University astrophysicist Edward Sion, an expert on stellar white dwarfs chats about our Sun’s own endgame and planet Earth’s ultimate future which may end in cinders.   We also discuss the…

Geneticist Christopher Mason chats about his new book, “The Next 500 Years:  Engineering Life to Reach New Worlds” from MIT Press.  We discuss both the nuts and bolts and the philosophy driving our e…

Guest commercial pilot and author Jack Hersch talks about his 2020 book, “The Dangers of Automation in Airliners:  Accidents Waiting to Happen.”  It’s both a fascinating and harrowing read but prompt…

World-renowned, University of Hawaii cosmologist Brent Tully on 50 years of mapping the nearby universe which includes our own home supercluster ‘Laniakea.’  Tully candidly assesses the state of cosm…