The Space Shuttle: 3. Glass rocket

Nasa recruits women and ethnic minorities for the first time to its astronaut class. In the beginning of American spaceflight, all astronauts selected for the programme came from the same background. They were all male, all white – all test pilots.

But now, with a revol ...

President Ronald Reagan declares the space shuttle open for business. It’s Independence Day 1982. And we’re in the sweltering Mojave desert of California.

Carrying commercial satellites into orbit is one of the shuttle’s jobs. But things start to go wrong for the astron ...

Author Andy Weir was as shocked as anyone when The Martian became a top bestseller novel in the US. He repeated that achievement with his equally mind-blowing science fiction masterpiece Project Hail Mary. Former Planetary Radio host Mat Kaplan welcomed Andy in April of 2023 f ...

Sarah Al-Ahmed, the host of Planetary Radio, marks her 100th episode with a look back at the defining moments of the past 100 weeks of space exploration. We'll revisit previous Planetary Radio interviews, including the launch of ESA's Juice mission to the icy moons o ...

NOTE: this episode contains discussion around death which some people may find difficult. In Part Two we learn how to stretch time! We journey back to the beginning of life on earth, and forward into the far, far future, we learn from Brian Eno himself about why he invented ambie ...  Show more

The US astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are currently stranded on the ISS. They arrived on the Boeing Starliner, which was meant to bring them home after eight days. Unfortunately, it has run into tech issues, meaning that the astronauts may be stuck up there for up to ...  Show more