Episode 31 --- Interstellar Propulsion --- What We Need to Make Star Trek Real

Episode 1 --- How to Find Microfossils on Mars: A conversation with astrobiologist Lara Maldanis about how to identify very ancient microfossils here on Earth and the potential for detecting them on Mars. by The Cosmic Controversy Podcast

55 min listen

Episode 4 --- Is the Sun an Oddball Star?: Is the Sun an Oddball Star? A fascinating conversation with Kepler and TESS astronomer Travis Metcalfe, of the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo., about how our Sun stacks up against other sunlike stars in the galaxy. We cover the history of our... by The Cosmic Controversy Podcast

56 min listen

Episode 19 --- The Trouble With Mercury: Our Solar System's Bizarre Innermost Planet: Guest Catherine Johnson, a planetary geophysicist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, discusses this bizarre little world; the innermost planet in our solar system. A planet that’s so close to our Sun that its surface temperatures can hi... by The Cosmic Controversy Podcast

66 min listen

Episode 11 --- Betelgeuse Dimming Mystery Might Be Solved, Says Edward Guinan: In a stroke of serendipity during a wide-ranging podcast interview, Villanova University astronomer Edward Guinan explains the paper behind today's news flap about the red supergiant star's inexplicable dimming. The most recent explanation is that dust g... by The Cosmic Controversy Podcast

82 min listen

Episode 15 --- Amelia Earhart Disappearance Is Likely Very Close To Being Solved: Amelia Earhart, arguably the most famous woman in the world at the time of her 1937 disappearance, was on a second attempt to fly around the world when something went horribly wrong. However, what actually happened to the famed aviator and her navigator... by The Cosmic Controversy Podcast

83 min listen

Episode 7 --- After Pearl Harbor, Were the Japanese Planning to Strike the U.S. West Coast?: Guest Michel Paradis on his fascinating new book "Last Mission To Tokyo" and how the ingenuity and success of Doolittle's raid marked a crucial turning point in America's war in the Pacific. Paradis argues that Jimmy Doolittle and his men's bombing raid... by The Cosmic Controversy Podcast

54 min listen

Episode 2 --- The Mysteries of Our Planet Venus: In this wide-ranging interview, planetary scientist Stephen Kane of the University of California, Riverside, delves into the mysteries of our neighbor planet Venus. We discuss how Venus went wrong and why understanding its evolution is so important in c... by The Cosmic Controversy Podcast

65 min listen

Episode 8 --- How NASA’s $10 Billion Webb Telescope Will Help Us Figure Out Our Own Solar System: When first conceived, the 6.5 meter James Webb Space Telescope was all about galaxy surveys, the deep sky, and cosmology; it still is. But it’s also about solar system science in surprising ways. This infrared behemoth will virtually revolutionize the ... by The Cosmic Controversy Podcast

69 min listen

Episode 3 ---- Will We Get Back to the Moon By 2024?: Episode 3’s special guest is John Logsdon, the founder of George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute, author and celebrated space analyst. We discuss everything from how the pandemic is impacting current space operations to NASA’s Artemis mis... by The Cosmic Controversy Podcast

52 min listen

Episode 5 --- The Trouble with Dark Matter: Episode 5 --- The Trouble with Dark Matter. This important hour-long interview with astronomer and dark matter expert Stacy McGaugh, Chair of the Dept. of Astronomy at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, covers the conundrums surrounding... by The Cosmic Controversy Podcast

59 min listen

Episode 12 --- Understanding Potential Alien Technosignatures: This week’s guest is Adam Frank, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Rochester in New York, who has received the first-ever NASA grant to begin cataloging potential alien techno-signatures in a non-radio spectrum. The hunt for pote... by The Cosmic Controversy Podcast

57 min listen

Episode 17 --- How We All Got Here --- Galaxy Evolution over Cosmic Time: For anyone who’s ever wondered how our own star happened to be caught up in the midst of a grand spiral beauty like our Milky Way, this episode should at least provide some clues. It’s a big cosmological subject and of course, we just skim the surface b... by The Cosmic Controversy Podcast

46 min listen

Episode 10 --- Why Mars Remains So Misunderstood: Three spacecraft are currently en route to Mars, but none will visit the poles. Yet Mars’ poles drive much of the Martian climate. And their understanding is key to deciphering what might have been happening on the Red planet some 3.5 billion years ago... by The Cosmic Controversy Podcast

60 min listen

Episode 13 --- Why Future Space-Based Arrays Of Optical Telescopes Will Likely Be 3-D Printed In Orbit: Lowell Observatory astronomer Gerard van Belle, Chief Scientist at the Navy Precision Optical Interferometer (NPOI) in Flagstaff. Arizona talks about the possibility of arrays of space telescopes that are 3-D printed after launch. We also discuss the hi... by The Cosmic Controversy Podcast

81 min listen

Episode 9 --- How ESA's GAIA Satellite Is Revolutionizing Our Understanding of the Milky Way: Dutch astronomer Anthony Brown of Leiden University explains how the European Space Agency's GAIA satellite is revolutionizing what we know about the Milky Way. This all-sky survey mission revisits each target 70 times over the course of the years-long ... by The Cosmic Controversy Podcast

57 min listen

Episode 6 --- The Evolution of Intelligence on Earth and Beyond: We hear a lot of talk about the possibility of intelligent E.T.s, but in this episode, neuroscientist Lori Marino gives us the nuts and bolts of what intelligence really is; how it manifests itself on our own Earth; and why intelligent aliens won't neces... by The Cosmic Controversy Podcast

61 min listen

Episode 21 --- How Aircraft Propellers Drove The Aeronautical Revolution: Without the lowly propeller, global trade and commerce and freedom of movement as we knew it prior to Covid would have never had the opportunity to flourish. Special guest Jeremy R. Kinney, Chair of the Aeronautics Department at the Smithsonian Institut... by The Cosmic Controversy Podcast

67 min listen

Episode 22 --- The Far Future Of Our Universe (Turtles All the Way Down): What happens when all the stars in our cosmos’ galaxies burn out; with little or no hydrogen gas left to fuel star formation; and everything pretty much turns to toast? It will presage an age of black holes where extremely low temperatures and fundament... by The Cosmic Controversy Podcast

59 min listen

Episode 20 --- The Case for a Lunar Science Moon Rush: Notre Dame Planetary Geologist Clive Neal stops by the podcast for a terrifically candid discussion of why the Moon has to be the first stop en route to Mars. We talk about why the Moon holds the key to the new Space Economy; the prospects for NASA maki... by The Cosmic Controversy Podcast

76 min listen

Episode 23 --- China’s Space Agenda Gets Serious: China is building on a decade of lunar exploration with this month’s launch of its Chang’e 5 sample return mission; China has an orbiter and lander halfway to Mars; and by 2022 plans on putting a permanently crewed 60-ton space station in low-Earth orbit... by The Cosmic Controversy Podcast

70 min listen

Episode 14 --- Does the Dwarf Planet Ceres Harbor Life?: This week's guest is NASA Dawn project scientist Julie Castillo-Rogez who led the hugely successful robotic mission on the first in-depth look at the asteroid Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres. Castillo talks about why there's a growing consensus that Ce... by The Cosmic Controversy Podcast

58 min listen

Episode 16 --- Deciphering Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs), arguably the most bizarre radio emissions ever detected.: Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) have hogged the headlines for the last decade or so; prompting many news organizations to question whether they are produced by far-flung alien civilizations in the midst of some sort of bizarre intergalactic transport mechanism.... by The Cosmic Controversy Podcast

67 min listen

Episode 27 --- Why Mars Went Wrong: NASA’s MAVEN orbiter has arguably done more to document how and why Mars lost its atmosphere and much of its water than any spacecraft ever sent to the red planet. The mission’s principal investigator, planetary scientist Bruce Jakosky is this week’s fe... by The Cosmic Controversy Podcast

60 min listen

Episode 24 --- How Oxygen Transformed Our Planet Earth: From Pachyderms to Cetaceans, the largest mammals on Earth would arguably never have evolved to their gargantuan sizes without the third most abundant element in the Cosmos --- Oxygen. Of course, life, even photosynthesis is possible without Oxygen, but... by The Cosmic Controversy Podcast

67 min listen

Episode 26 --- How The Cold War Spurred The Earliest Days Of Interplanetary Exploration: The earliest days of robotic space exploration, to the Moon, Venus, Mars, and even Mercury, likely would never have played out in such dramatic fashion in the late 1950s and early 1960s without the Cold War. Despite a steep learning curve with lots of r... by The Cosmic Controversy Podcast

62 min listen

Episode 18 --- The Heyday of Flying by the Stars: Retired commercial pilot, crash investigator, and aviation attorney Gary LaPook joins me to discuss the development and practice of celestial air navigation in passenger aircraft; how it worked; why it was replaced; where it could go wrong, and why celes... by The Cosmic Controversy Podcast

62 min listen

Episode 34 --- Why Geology Is Crucial To Unlocking The Mysteries Of Our Solar System: Planetary geophysicist Erik Asphaug of the University of Arizona discusses what we really know about our solar system; its age; its formation; and its evolution. Asphaug also addresses some major puzzles. Is our solar system truly anomalous? Is the compo... by The Cosmic Controversy Podcast

60 min listen

Episode 28 --- The Glenn Miller Disappearance: One of World War II’s Greatest Aviation Mysteries: Big band historian and author Dennis Spragg talks about the music, the legacy, and the tragic disappearance of the American big band icon, Glenn Miller. We cover what shaped his unique sound; his driving passion to give back to America’s Greatest Genera... by The Cosmic Controversy Podcast

69 min listen

Episode 38 --- The Trouble With Dark Energy: Nearly 25 years after its discovery, the mystery at the core of dark energy persists. Astronomers are no closer to understanding what’s behind this cosmic repulsive force that counteracts gravity and causes the cosmos to expand at an accelerating rate t... by The Cosmic Controversy Podcast

54 min listen

Episode 31 --- Interstellar Propulsion --- What We Need to Make Star Trek Real: Propulsion physicist Marc Millis talks about the prospects for fast, efficient interstellar travel. Millis was head of NASA’s Breakthrough Propulsion Program at Glenn Research Center outside Cleveland for years beginning in the mid-1990s. We discuss wh... by The Cosmic Controversy Podcast

64 min listen

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Episode 31 --- Interstellar Propulsion --- What We Need to Make Star Trek Real

Episode 31 --- Interstellar Propulsion --- What We Need to Make Star Trek Real

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