The Planetary Society
500 episodes listed below
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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 planetary.org/radio...
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Planetary Radio connects planetary research and astronaut health with the policy choices that turn space science into missions.
Planetary Radio keeps spaceflight tied to the questions behind the hardware. Sarah Al-Ahmed conducts focused interviews with scientists working on lunar missions and planetary research, while Casey Dreyer's Space Policy Edition examines the institutional choices shaping those…
Apollo moon dust takes the stand when you want Earth's water story tested, not merely told.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A clear, practical space conversation that makes kids' books and planetary defense feel accessible.
Bruce Betts turns a book-club conversation into something roomy without making it feel remote. The episode moves through his two young-reader books, The Size of Space and Are We Alone?, and keeps circling back to the ideas that shape his work: scale, life elsewhere, LightSail,…
IMAP turns the heliosphere into a mission with visible edges.
Planetary Radio takes IMAP and turns it into a focused look at the heliosphere, the invisible bubble around the sun and planets that keeps out much of the galaxy's radiation.
A measured leadership transition story about a long-running space organization.
The Planetary Society uses this episode to frame a real leadership handoff: Bill Nye steps into a new Chief Ambassador role, and Jennifer Vaughn takes over as incoming CEO.
A broad look at Europe's lunar strategy, with policy, competitiveness, Moonlight, and Artemis II in view.
Planetary Radio takes a broad, steady look at the 18th European Space Conference in Brussels, where European space leaders lay out what comes next.
A measured, evidence-first look at how alien life might leave a detectable trace.
Adam Frank uses the book-club setting to frame alien life as a practical problem: what would a technological civilization leave behind, and how could it be found?
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.
A careful look at how a single impact may have briefly reawakened Umbriel.
Planetary Radio treats Umbriel as a tidy scientific puzzle: could the Wanda impact crater have briefly set off cryovolcanism beneath the moon's ice shell?
A measured policy conversation about U.S.-China space competition, risk, and NASA decision-making.
Planetary Radio's Space Policy Edition treats the U.S.-China space question as a policy problem first, and a geopolitical one second. Casey Dreyer brings Patrick Bisha into a conversation that feels grounded in experience, from NASA to work on Asia and China, plus the Global…
History, myth, and skepticism under pressure.
Curious talks beyond the explainer.
One cosmic question at a time, reasoned through.
Real astrobiology, with Star Trek as the common language.
Night-sky physics and photo technique, taught side by side.
Sarah El-Ahmad opens with IMAP and the heliosphere.
Planetary Radio’s Artemis II episode focuses on the health experiments NASA is flying around the Moon, including radiation sensors, wearable monitoring, saliva biomarkers, and ultrasound.
This episode segment discusses the Voyager spacecraft's exploration beyond the heliopause into interstellar space, featuring insights from NASA's Linda Spilker on its scientific impact.
Casey Dreyer opens a Space Policy Edition of Planetary Radio with Patrick Bisha, a longtime NASA strategic advisor and space policy expert with deep experience on China and Asia.
This episode reflects on the pivotal year 2025 for U.S.
NASA science is saved, at least for now.
Bill Nye steps away from the CEO role at the Planetary Society and becomes Chief Ambassador, while Jennifer Vaughn takes over as the organization’s next CEO.
NASA updates its Artemis plans.
Planetary Radio covers the 18th European Space Conference in Brussels on January 27-28, 2026, where more than 2,000 people from over 50 countries gathered after ESA members pledged 22.3 billion euros, the largest funding commitment in ESA history.
Will spreading across the solar system change us?
Sarah Al-Ahmed turns the spotlight on Umbriel, one of the outer solar system’s more overlooked moons.
It didn't just say NASA should build a big rocket. It said NASA shall make a space launch system.
Humans are getting ready to return to the moon.
This episode of Planetary Radio reviews space exploration in 2025, featuring discussions on major achievements like lunar landings and exoplanet discoveries, with insights from Planetary Society experts and a look ahead to 2026.
Matt Kaplan opens the book-club edition with a familiar welcome.
Sarah Al-Ahmed opens with a question that reaches from the Moon to Earth itself.
Sarah El-Ahmed sits down with Gentry Lee one day after his retirement from JPL.
Planetary Radio host Sarah Al-Ahmed interviews Paul Byrne of Washington University in St.
Adam Frank returns to talk aliens.
This episode segment revisits discussions on the challenges of change and disruption at NASA, considering recent events in 2025 and looking ahead to 2026.
Interview with Rocket Lab founder Peter Beck about the company's history and space exploration.
This episode covers the historic Artemis II mission and discusses the proposed cuts to NASA's science budget.
A book club edition discussing Kate Howells' new book about moons in the solar system, featuring an interview with the author.
Celebrating the 30th anniversary of Galileo's orbital insertion around Jupiter, featuring stories from the mission's scientists and engineers.
This episode of the Space Policy Edition reflects on the worst proposed NASA budget in history and its potential impacts on space science missions.
This episode covers the 2025 Mars Society Conference with interviews on Mars exploration, sample return, AI, bioengineering, and 3D-printed habitats.
This episode covers the launch of NASA's Escapade mission to Mars, with interviews about the mission's science goals and personal experiences at the launch.
Host Sarah Al-Ahmed interviews Mark McCorkran about his new space travel guide book and discusses breaking news about a potential biosignature on Mars.
An interview with author Frank White about his book on the Overview Effect and how space exploration changes human perspective.
An interview with former NASA Chief Economist Akhil Rao discussing orbital debris economics, analogies, and the role of economists at NASA.