April 9, 2026 - Cady Coleman on Artemis II, Pedro Alonzo's London Dispatch, and Igor Golyak on "Our Class"

April 9, 2026·56 min·5 clips

Cady Coleman describes Artemis II as a relay race, with Artemis III already on the starting line.

The program opens with a polished public-radio rhythm. Sponsor credits from the Peabody Essex Museum and PNC Bank lead into Jared Bowen's mapped-out cultural agenda. Artemis II gets the first serious stretch. Bowen describes it as NASA's first astronaut-driven mission around the moon in more than half a century, with meaning beyond the machinery. Coleman answers with the calm of someone who has lived near this work. She talks through the close review of flight conditions and the outside experts whose role is to say, plainly, whether the mission is ready. The tone is careful, not fearful. Her confidence comes from keeping the mission inside conditions that can get the crew home safely. Bowen picks up the emotional side too, picturing smiling faces and waves once the astronauts are out of the capsule. Coleman is then reintroduced in full: retired NASA astronaut, US Air Force colonel, scientist, musician, International Space Station veteran, and author of Sharing Space. From there, the show shifts cleanly. Pedro Alonso comes in with a curator's notebook on London's museum scene and Wes Anderson's unmistakable film world. The Grand Budapest Hotel gets a playful nod. His segment feels like an art-world dispatch, not a loose travel aside. The close moves back to the calendar: Boston Public Library, a coming week-in-review conversation, and a CBS note about life after Colbert. It is a tidy mix of spaceflight caution, museum talk, and station-minded arts coverage.

As heard by us

Spaceflight, London art, and wartime theater are folded into a steady, well paced hour.

The Culture Show treats Artemis II as more than a flight plan. It frames NASA's first astronaut-driven lunar flight in more than half a century as a test of the spacecraft, the crew, and the idea that deep space exploration can still pull people toward something bigger than the…

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Why you'd press play

A polished route from Artemis II to London art scene dispatches to a searing wartime play.

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