Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science · The Planetary Society

Starman: Looking back on a life exploring the Solar System

·1 hr 2 min·4 clips

Gentry Lee says, "I believe that there is life and intelligence out there. I have no proof."

Planetary Radio opens with a life shaped by exploration and a broad view of history. Sarah El-Ahmed speaks with Gentry Lee at the Planetary Society’s headquarters, just after he has retired from JPL. That timing gives the conversation a reflective edge. Lee’s career spans nearly five decades at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He helped land the first spacecraft on Mars. He served on the Voyager review board. He also helped create Cosmos with Carl Sagan. Later, he co-authored science fiction novels with Arthur C. Clarke. The episode uses that range as a path into a single theme. Lee talks about the search for life in our solar system. He keeps returning to the meaning of being part of the only generation that would ever explore it for the first time. For him, that was not just a technical career. It was a historical moment. He describes choosing work that might still matter centuries from now. That sense of scale runs through the interview. The conversation also touches the engineering history behind missions that changed what humanity knows about nearby worlds. Mars, Voyager, Galileo, Psyche, and Europa all come into view. Lee speaks with the confidence of someone who has lived inside that history. His reflections are practical as well as philosophical. The episode does not treat exploration as abstract wonder. It ties wonder to the people and missions behind the work. It also leaves room for the possibility that life elsewhere would be the greatest scientific discovery in history. That idea anchors the emotional center of the interview. Bruce Betts then joins for the regular What’s Up segment. His contribution places the conversation inside the Planetary Society’s broader commitment to the search for life beyond Earth. The result is a measured portrait of a mission-minded career and the era that made it possible.

As heard by us

A thoughtful career portrait that treats solar-system exploration as lived history, not legend.

This episode uses Gentry Lee's career to ask what it meant to help open the solar system, and why the search for life beyond Earth still matters.

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Press play for a calm, career-spanning look at the search for life beyond Earth.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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