Space Curious

Florida: Where some of the best stories in the country are born.  Based in Orlando, journalist Katrina Scales voices a selection of the day's top headlines, along with a nugget of Florida knowledge you may have never heard before.  Ready by 7:00 a.m. every weekday morning. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

SpaceX has been paid to launch four civilians into low-Earth orbit on a multi-day trip. Three of those passengers just learned they’d be going less than a year ago. The mission is called Inspiration4 and it's the first time regular people, not NASA astronauts, will make up the entirety of a space crew. To go into orbit and return home the crew will experience up to 6 G-forces, use a tiny spacecraft toilet for three days and essentially become a meteor crashing through the Earth’s atmosphere on their way back down. Axios space reporter Miriam Kramer and Inspiration4 mission photographer John Kraus join Space Curious to talk about what sets this mission apart and how the ragtag crew was assembled. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

NASA is trying to land boots on the moon in the next three years but the current spacesuits American and European astronauts wear haven’t been updated since 1978. And when it comes to moonwalking ... these old-school suits just won’t do.  Moonwalkers of the Artemis generation are going to need some new gear and very soon if NASA plans to achieve its goal. In this episode of Space Curious, we’ll hear from the experts developing the very first spacesuits designed for the lunar surface since the 1970s.  Retired NASA astronaut Dan Burbank, now with Collins Aerospace, and NASA engineer Kavya Manyapu, a spacewalk planning expert, help explain why a whole new spacesuit is needed and what we learned from the first time humans walked on the moon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of Space Curious experts help explain what it means to go Interstellar, how do we define the vastness of space and who’s making these decisions. This episode was inspired by David Mostardi, of Berkley, California, who wanted to know if the Voyager spacecraft didn't reach the Oort cloud did it really reach interstellar space? Alive Bowman, New Horizons missions operations manager and Stella Ocker, Cornell University planetary scientist, are this week's guests breaking down this fascinating topic. Original music from Rhein was used for this episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Animal spaceflights paved the way for the first human astronauts and today creatures big and small continue to space travel advancing our knowledge of how the zero-gravity environment impacts all beings and aiding research down on Earth. Supercluster.com’s Astronaut Database is a compellation of every human and creature with a spaceflight experience. Chief creative officer Jamie Carreiro joins the show this week to talk about how Supercluster compiled all the non-human space travelers which includes hundreds of fruit flies, 40 dogs, 30 primates, seven bats and one cat. This episode was inspired by Maureen Coral, a listener who wanted to know what happened to a spider after its journey to the International Space Station. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Americans have not stepped foot on the moon in nearly 50 years but that’s going to change very soon. This week on Space Curious Astralytical founder Laura Forcyzk helps explain why the U.S. left the moon after the final Apollo mission and hasn't been back. Intuitive Machines co-founder Tim Crain also joins the show to talk about the company's robotic moon lander Nova-C launching to the moon with NASA science this fall. In the next decade private companies like Intuitive Machines will pave the way for NASA to return humans to the moon but this time the U.S. plans to stay with a sustainable presence. Forcyzk said during the Apollo-era no one could have predicted the commercial space boom fueling today's growing industry. Had NASA continued with a human presence on the moon for more than 50 years without commercial support it likely would not have been sustainable financially or politically. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The commercial space industry has completely changed the game for how NASA is planning to send astronauts back to the moon. It won’t even be NASA-owned landers to put boots on the moon when that does happen and the robotic missions ahead of humans are also commercial. NASA is just along for the ride. Two private American companies are launching moon landers later this year from Florida...kicking off a grand campaign to better understand our nearest neighbor. This week we’ll meet the first of two robots laying the groundwork for astronauts to return to the moon. Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic will launch its Peregrine moon lander with ULA later this year.  Astrobotic CEO John Thornton joins Space Curious to explain how it plans to land its first robot on the moon and what it's carrying. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jacqueline Cochran turns out to be the most fascinating woman you’ve never heard of. She was the lead the women's Air Force service pilots in World War II and the first woman to break the sound barrier and held more records than any pilot male or female the world over when she died in 1980. In this episode of Space Curious, "Fighting for Space" author and spaceflight historian Amy Shira-Teitel explains how Cochran and fellow pilot Jerri Cobb both wanted to see women become astronauts but went about it in two different ways. Though Jackie Cochran never made it to space her story is one of entrepreneurship and determination that led her to try to reach for the stars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mars has been the bell of the planetary ball in the last few decades but that’s not to say other planets in our solar system, like Venus haven't had a fair share of attention over the years.  NASA last sent a spacecraft to orbit the planet in 1990. Russia, formerly the Soviet Union, sent a whole slew of mostly successful missions to Venus, and Japan has an orbiter there now.  The tricky part is sending a robotic mission to the surface. Most have only survived for a few hours. So why send a robot to a planet that will destroy it? As we learned in the last episode of Space Curious, Venus eats spacecraft for lunch. It used to be -- in the U.S.-- NASA was the only way to fund and send a spacecraft to another world but not anymore.  Commercial space companies are taking planetary science on, funding and planning their own missions in record time. In this episode we’ll find out how NASA makes the tough choices-- selecting which missions to send to other worlds and how Rocket Lab plans to be the first private company to go to Venus. Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck, NASA Discovery Program lead scientist Thomas Wagner and Johns Hopkins planetary scientist Sarah Horst join Space Curious Host Emilee Speck to breakdown the process of sending a spacecraft to another world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Earlier this year, Venus was in the spotlight because a group of international scientists said they found something peculiar in the Venusian clouds, the discovery would lead to new interest and excitement about potential robotic missions to Earth’s nearest neighbor. A study published in the journal Nature Astronomy reported a potential bio signature, or something that might indicate life is present, had been found in the clouds of Venus. The team of astronomers, led by Professor Jane Greaves of Cardiff University, said they had found a gas called phosphine in the clouds of Venus. It was a big deal because this particular kind of gas is thought to be made in only a few ways on rocky planets and those usually involve life. But then things got complicated. This week on WKMG and Graham Media's Space Curious podcast, National Geographic contributor Nadia Drake and Johns Hopkins University planetary scientist Dr. Sarah Horst help break down this complicated topic and what it takes to confirm great discoveries. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices