English
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science
by The Planetary Society
Planetary Radio brings you the human adventure across our Solar System and beyond. We visit each week with the scientists, engineers, leaders, advocates, and astronauts who are taking us across the final frontier. Regular features raise your space IQ while they put a smile on your face. Join host Sarah Al-Ahmed and Planetary Society colleagues including Bill Nye the Science Guy and Bruce Betts as they dive deep into space science and exploration. The monthly Space Policy Edition takes you inside the DC beltway where the future of the US space program hangs in the balance. Visit…
Episodes
How Perseverance drove itself into the record books
28 Oct 2026 · 1 h 00
Perseverance just set the record for the most distance driven on another world. We revisit Mat Kaplan’s 2021 conversation with Vandi Verma, JPL principal engineer and chief engineer of robotic operations for Perseverance, about how the rover drives itself across Mars.
Meet the Winners of The Planetary Society’s 2026 STEP Grants
21 Oct 2026 · 1 h 06
The Planetary Society’s 2026 STEP Grant winners are building tools to characterize asteroids and trans-Neptunian objects: a replicable polarimeter, a public photometry database, and an occultation prediction platform scaled for the Rubin era.
Book Club Edition: Dinner With an Astronaut by Leroy Chiao
16 Oct 2026 · 1 h 14
Former astronaut Leroy Chiao is our guest for a conversation about his book, “Dinner With an Astronaut,” and a lifetime of accomplishments on and off the planet.
From the Mojave to Phobos: PlanetVac rides with MMX
14 Oct 2026 · 1 h 04
Japan’s MMX mission is about to launch for the moons of Mars, carrying a sampler with deep Planetary Society roots. Asa Stahl, public outreach astronomer at The Planetary Society, and Kris Zacny, vice president and senior research scientist at Honeybee Robotics, tell the story.
Space Policy Edition: What does “science as a service” really mean?
9 Oct 2026 · 1 h 17
Jack Kiraly, chief of advocacy for The Planetary Society, and planetary scientist Britney Schmidt join Casey Dreier to examine NASA’s push toward “science as a service,” and why science is so much more than buying data.
2026 NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts Symposium: Part 2 — Solar sails and breathing beyond Earth
7 Oct 2026 · 1 h 00
More conversations from the 2026 NIAC Symposium, this time about the propulsion and life support breakthroughs that could carry us to the outer Solar System and keep us alive when we get there.
2026 NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts Symposium: Part 1 — Nuclear sensors and cave explorers
30 Sept 2026 · 1 h 01
Researchers at the 2026 NIAC Symposium share their bold concepts for exploring the most inaccessible places in our Solar System, from the Moon's permanently shadowed craters to caves on Titan and inside lunar lava tubes.
Hayabusa2 flies by asteroid Torifune
23 Sept 2026 · 1 h 01
NASA Chief Scientist for Small Body Exploration at Johnson Space Center, Paul Abell, takes us inside Hayabusa2's flyby of asteroid Torifune and the surprise discovery that it's a contact binary.
Book Club Edition: Alien Oceans by Kevin Hand
18 Sept 2026 · 1 h 07
Planetary scientist Kevin Hand joins us for a deep exploration of his excellent book about the search for life in the oceans of other worlds.
Star Trek at 60: What Vulcans and Klingons can teach us about being human (Part 2)
16 Sept 2026 · 1 h 07
In part two of our Star Trek 60th anniversary series, Tim Russ, Tuvok from Star Trek: Voyager, and Karim Diané, Jay-Den Kraag from Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, explore what the Vulcans and the Klingons can teach us about becoming the people who deserve to reach the stars.
Star Trek at 60: What do we value the most? (Part 1)
9 Sept 2026 · 60 min
Robert Picardo, the Emergency Medical Hologram from Star Trek: Voyager and now Starfleet Academy, traces the sixty-year bond between Star Trek and The Planetary Society, from Gene Roddenberry's 1980 letter to the halls of Congress.
Space Policy Edition: The Long Space Age with Alex MacDonald
4 Sept 2026 · 1 h 08
Alex MacDonald, former Chief Economist at NASA and author of "The Long Space Age," joins Casey Dreier to explore more than two centuries of privately funded space exploration in America.
World Space Week and farewell to Swift
2 Sept 2026 · 1 h 04
Dennis Stone, president and co-founder of the World Space Week Association, shares how the largest annual space event on Earth came to be and how you can join the celebration this October. Plus, Science Editor Asa Stahl walks us through the final chapter of the Swift space telescope.
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is ready to launch
26 Aug 2026 · 56 min
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is preparing to launch, promising to transform our understanding of dark energy and exoplanets. We talk with Julie McEnery, senior project scientist for Roman at NASA Goddard, and Jason Rhodes, project scientist for Roman at JPL, about what's ahead.
Book Club Edition: Becoming Martian by Scott Solomon
21 Aug 2026 · 1 h 18
How will living in space change our bodies and minds? That’s the sub-title of Scott Solomon’s great new book, “Becoming Martian”, and it’s the question he takes up this month on the book club edition of Planetary Radio.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 that crashed into the Moon
19 Aug 2026 · 1 h 04
Jared Head, museum facilitator at Columbia Memorial Space Center and co-host of All Space Considered at Griffith Observatory, breaks down how a SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage ended up crashing into the moon. Plus, Planetary Society staff reflect on the 2026 total solar eclipse in Spain and share an…
Total solar eclipse 2026: Astrophotography and birdsong
12 Aug 2026 · 57 min
Astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy and bioacoustics researcher David Mann, join Planetary Radio to talk about the August 12th total solar eclipse and how birds responded to totality.
Space Policy Edition: “Science: A New Golden Age” - Reimagining U.S. science policy
7 Aug 2026 · 1 h 11
Casey Dreier is joined by Zach Pirtle, deputy director of the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes at Arizona State University, and the Planetary Society's Chief of Advocacy Jack Kiraly to dissect the White House's "Science: A New Golden Age" report, which calls for a sweeping reimagining…
LHS 1140b: The first atmosphere detected on a rocky habitable-zone exoplanet
5 Aug 2026 · 57 min
Collin Cherubim, NASA Hubble Fellow at the University of Chicago, discusses his team's detection of an atmosphere on LHS 1140b, the first rocky exoplanet in a star's habitable zone confirmed to have one.
TERP RAPTOR: A student-built mission to asteroid Apophis
29 Jul 2026 · 1 h 02
A team of University of Maryland students is building a CubeSat to fly past asteroid Apophis during its historic close approach to Earth in 2029. Four members of the TERP RAPTOR team join us to share how they're turning a classroom project into a real space mission.