Jason Rhodes, a cosmologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, and the JPL Roman Space Telescope Project Scientist, discusses a proposed galaxy survey to end all galaxy surveys.  One that would wring as much information out of our universe’s trillion or so galaxies across cosmic time as humanly possible.  Astronomers are still at least half a century off from this final galaxy census, but the hope is that it will give cosmologists most of the answers they need about the makeup...

Astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City, discusses everything from pond scum to space aliens in this off-the-wall and very engaging episode.  It’s vintage Tyson.  We also touch on his latest book written with George Mason University physicist James Trefil --- “Cosmic Queries:  StarTalk’s Guide To Who We Are, How We Got Here, And Where We’re Going.” 

Award-winning NASA astrophysicist and author Sten Odenwald discusses several of the 100 objects featured in his 2019 book:  “Space Exploration:  A History in 100 Objects.”  I pick a few of the lesser known and underappreciated objects, which run the gamut in their differing ages.  In this compelling episode, it’s amazing to hear and understand just how far humanity has come in its technological quest to understand the cosmos.

I welcome renowned evolutionary paleobiologist Bruce S. Lieberman, a professor at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, who is an expert on how cosmic cataclysms have impacted the evolution of life here on Earth.  Massive nearby supernovae, gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) as well as asteroidal and cometary impactors have each played a role in our planet’s long tape of life.  And if we were able to rewind that tape and roll the die once more?  Would intelligent life have manifested itself here at...

NASA’s Rob Manning, JPL’s Chief Engineer, discusses management, logistics, innovation and the future of robotic Mars exploration in this unique episode.  With this week’s successful landing of the Perseverance rover on an ancient river delta, NASA ups its game at a time when the rest of the country badly needs some encouraging news.  Manning talks about how JPL keeps itself on track when finessing complicated billion-dollar initiatives. 

Nearly 25 years after its discovery, the mystery at the core of dark energy persists.  Astronomers are no closer to understanding what’s behind this cosmic repulsive force that counteracts gravity and causes the cosmos to expand at an accelerating rate than when it was first discovered in 1998.  Guest Alexei Filippenko is a member of the Nobel Prize-winning team that detected dark energy via supernovae surveys. He gives us the inside scoop on how dark energy was detected; what it means for...

Did an alien lightsail traverse our solar system in 2017?  Harvard University astronomer Avi Loeb thinks so.  In today’s episode, I welcome Loeb to discuss his bestselling book --- “Extraterrestrial:  The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth.”  We chat about why he thinks this object, Oumuamua, is likely to be artificial and why the scientific community at large remains so unreceptive to progressive scientific thinking when it comes to the subject of extraterrestrial intelligence.

I welcome Bruce Banerdt, the principal investigator for NASA’s Mars InSight lander, which has been operating on the Martian surface for two years now.  Although it’s had some technical issues, it’s offered a sea change in how geophysicists are interpreting the dynamics and makeup of the Martian core.  In this episode, we talk about what we currently understand about Mars’ geophysical makeup and, among other things, whether it ever had plate tectonics which was so crucial for the evolution of...

Few if any of you will have ever heard of Ploesti.  But it’s a Romanian city that was what Winston Churchill called the taproot of Nazi might due to its many oil high-quality oil refineries overtaken by Germany during World War II.  Because of its strategic importance, in 1943, the U.S Army Air Force at the time launched a daring, heroic, and ultimately very costly low-level bombing raid on these refineries.  Using some 160 B-24 Liberator medium-range bombers, the Americans were met with...

Planetary geophysicist Erik Asphaug of the University of Arizona discusses what we really know about our solar system; its age; its formation; and its evolution. Asphaug also addresses some major puzzles. Is our solar system truly anomalous? Is the composition and spacing of our eight planets also anomalous? And what we need to do to further planetary science.

The spectacular rise and fall of Pan Am from flying boats to 747s.  International best-selling author and former Pan Am captain Robert Gandt gives me the inside scoop on Pan American World Airways, from its humble beginnings to global empire. 

Deep space navigator Coralie Adam explains the tricky navigation needed to guide NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft on its flyby of the Pluto system in 2015.  The spacecraft continues operation today.  Meanwhile, Adam and colleagues are awaiting the arrival of a touch-and-go sample garnered from the asteroid Bennu which is expected back at Earth in 2023.  We discuss how deep space navigation is facilitating the precise exploration of the solar system. 

Propulsion physicist Marc Millis talks about the prospects for fast, efficient interstellar travel.  Millis was head of NASA’s Breakthrough Propulsion Program at Glenn Research Center outside Cleveland for years beginning in the mid-1990s.  We discuss why the problem of traveling to the stars is so difficult and what would need to happen to help such dreams become a reality.  It’s a lively and irreverent discussion! 

Renowned planetary astronomer Heidi Hammel and I chat about our solar system’s mysterious ice giant planets, Uranus and Neptune.  There’s only been one flyby of these giant planets by NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft back in the late 1980s.  Hammel, who was part of the Voyager 2 science team, explains what that mission taught us about these objects and why we need to go back.   

The age of supersonic flight officially began after World War II, when the late Chuck Yeager pushed the Bell X-1 test aircraft beyond the speed of sound (Mach 1) in October 1947.  But bestselling author and highly-decorated fighter pilot Dan Hampton contends that Yeager wasn’t the first pilot to go supersonic in controlled flight.  On this week’s episode, Hampton and I discuss how the Cold War spurred the quest for speed and why Yeager might not have been the first American fighter pilot to...

Big band historian and author Dennis Spragg talks about the music, the legacy, and the tragic disappearance of the American big band icon, Glenn Miller.  We cover what shaped his unique sound; his driving passion to give back to America’s Greatest Generation in their hour of wartime need; and the tragic disappearance of his December 1944 flight from England to France. 

NASA’s MAVEN orbiter has arguably done more to document how and why Mars lost its atmosphere and much of its water than any spacecraft ever sent to the red planet.  The mission’s principal investigator, planetary scientist Bruce Jakosky is this week’s featured guest and we discuss the current paradigm on why Mars went so horribly wrong.  Jakosky offers a candid and inside look at how such missions work and what we can expect from Mars science in the next few years.

The earliest days of robotic space exploration, to the Moon, Venus, Mars, and even Mercury, likely would never have played out in such dramatic fashion in the late 1950s and early 1960s without the Cold War.  Despite a steep learning curve with lots of rocket misfires and mission malfunctions, it was a hair-trigger era of interplanetary exploration that offered the world its first close up views of our nearest planetary neighbors.  Former NASA Chief Historian Roger Launius and I discuss the...

First cataloged by Al Sufi as a mere optical smudge high in the winter sky, the Andromeda Galaxy has lately been a cornerstone of everything we know about contemporary astronomy and the cosmos as a whole.  Join Lowell Observatory astronomer Philip Massey as he outlines how this grand spiral neighbor changed what we know about cosmology.  And if you happen to be in the Northern hemisphere, by the end of the episode, you may be ready to try and spot the galaxy with just your naked eyes.

From Pachyderms to Cetaceans, the largest mammals on Earth would arguably never have evolved to their gargantuan sizes without the third most abundant element in the Cosmos --- Oxygen.  Of course, life, even photosynthesis is possible without Oxygen, but for the cosmos to evolve the big-headed space aliens of our sci-fi dreams will likely take Oxygen --- the most efficient energy carrier in the periodic table.  How Oxygen became dominant on our own planet is the focus of today’s episode with...

China is building on a decade of lunar exploration with this month’s launch of its Chang’e 5 sample return mission; China has an orbiter and lander halfway to Mars; and by 2022 plans on putting a permanently crewed 60-ton space station in low-Earth orbit.  They even have long term plans for mining Helium-3 on the Moon.  In this episode, China space expert David Burbach of the U.S. Naval War College discusses these and other issues, in particular, how the current election will affect NASA’s...

What happens when all the stars in our cosmos’ galaxies burn out; with little or no hydrogen gas left to fuel star formation; and everything pretty much turns to toast?  It will presage an age of black holes where extremely low temperatures and fundamental particle decay will alleviate life as we know it.  This universal endgame in an almost infinite far future may actually be a Dark Age where little or nothing can happen.  And if it does, only on the longest timescales.  Yale University...

Without the lowly propeller, global trade and commerce and freedom of movement as we knew it prior to Covid would have never had the opportunity to flourish.  Special guest Jeremy R. Kinney, Chair of the Aeronautics Department at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., provides a fascinating narrative to how and why advances in aircraft propeller technology enabled aerospace to revolutionize global warfare, travel, and trade.  Author of “Reinventing...

Notre Dame Planetary Geologist Clive Neal stops by the podcast for a terrifically candid discussion of why the Moon has to be the first stop en route to Mars.  We talk about why the Moon holds the key to the new Space Economy; the prospects for NASA making its 2024 Artemis mission deadline; and, why lunar samples are still being analyzed 50 years hence.  Why more lunar samples and lunar seismometers are keys to understanding our inner solar system.  And why it’s imperative that we revisit the...

Guest Catherine Johnson, a planetary geophysicist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, discusses this bizarre little world; the innermost planet in our solar system.  A planet that’s so close to our Sun that its surface temperatures can hit 800 F.  But surprisingly, its poles harbor enough water ice to completely bury a major metropolis.  Some have even argued that Mercury may have once been habitable.  Where it formed still remains a mystery, but it does have a tiny magnetic...