Are We There Yet?

Boeing's Starliner is set to launch on an uncrewed mission from Cape Canaveral to the International Space Station later this week on a critical test mission to certify the vehicle to fly astronauts. It's a redo of a previous test attempt in late 2019 that failed to reach the space station. We'll speak with Michelle Parker, Boeing's space and launch chief engineer about the mission and what the team learned from the previous attempt.

Billionaire Jeff Bezos has reached a life-long goal of flying in space. His company Blue Origin launched its first mission with passengers Tuesday morning from West Texas, ushering in a new era of private space tourism. But with a high price tag can only the wealthy fly?

Astronauts rarely get the comforts of home. Fresh food is scarce, a hot shower is unheard of, and they're asked to wear their clothes multiple times before tossing them to the trash. Laundry is something missing from human space exploration, but scientists at Proctor and Gamble are hoping to change that.

On July 8, 2011, Atlantis launched from Kennedy Space Center, the final mission of the shuttle program. We'll revisit the Space Shuttle program with two time astronaut Bruce Melnick, who was a mission specialist on both Space Shuttle Discovery and Endeavour. Then, we'll speak with Space Florida's Dale Ketcham about the Space Coast plan post-Shuttle and how commercial companies are filling in the void left by the program.

When we think of the space race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, we focus much on the Apollo program and the U.S. astronauts who crossed that finish line. But the space race began earlier than that and was far more perilous than we thought.

Why NASA is joining the inquiry into Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (UAP), how a tiny mic on Mars is beaming back bigs sounds and a profile of a launch photographer capturing rockets leaving the planet.

A seat on Blue Origin's first crewed New Shepard flight went for $28 million at auction. It marks the start of a new chapter of space tourism. So what's the future of this burgeoning market?

NASA selected two missions to head to Venus by the end of the 2020s. VERITAS and DAVINCI+ will be the first U.S. mission to Venus in decades. So why study Venus?

NASA's Perseverance rover is sending back some of the clearest and most dramatic images of the Martian surface ever. It landed earlier this year, and since then has been beaming back detailed panoramics, up close images, even sound and video of one of our closest celestial neighbors.

Every 10 years, NASA tasks the science community to chart the course for the next decade of discovery and exploration. As NASA and other agencies push forward looking for signs of life in our universe, what's the path ahead? We'll also talk with ERAU's Terry Oswalt about techniques to uncover the age of stars.

The next space-based telescope is almost ready to head into orbit. The James Webb Space Telescope aims to look deeper into the history of the universe, piggy-backing off the incredible observations of the Hubble Space Telescope.

NASA's Ingenuity helicopter had a Wright Brothers moment on Mars after performing the first powered flight on another planet. It's the first in many planned helicopter missions to other worlds. So what are engineers learning from the test? And -- an aerial telescope is getting some new hardware to peer deep into the universe.

NASA's next moon rocket has reached its final destination before launching from Kennedy Space Center. The massive 212-foot tall rocket will carry the Orion space capsule on an uncrewed mission around the moon and back, possibly launching at the end of this year.

Later this week, a new crew will launch to the International Space Station from Kennedy Space Center here in Florida. When the four astronauts arrive in SpaceX's Dragon capsule about a day after launch, they'll join the seven already on board bringing the total number of people on the station to 11. Where will they all sleep?

NASA's Perseverance rover is hard at work, exploring Jezero crater since landing back in February. But the dune-buggy sized rover is about to get upstaged by a tiny helicopter.

Before he died, Einstein was working on a theory of everything. It aims to combine all the forces in the universe into one beautiful, mathematical equation to explain everything. That equation remains incomplete, but physicists like Michio Kaku are charging ahead using new scientific observations from gravitational wave detectors and particle accelerators.

Scientists are on the hunt for exoplanets, planets that exist outside our solar system. So far, they’ve found thousands of planets orbiting other stars and some that might be like our own world.

This podcast and radio show is celebrating its five year anniversary. To celebrate this milestone event we invited frequent guests for a virtual conversation last week -- Charlie Bolden, a former NASA administrator under President Obama and retired astronaut, and Nicole Stott, a retired astronaut who spent more than 100 days in space.

At 10 years old, Hayley Arceneaux was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a type of bone cancer. Now at age 29 she's a physician's assistant at St. Jude Children’s research hospital and about to launch to space.

Small satellites plus small rockets equals big business.

From booster landings to astronaut launches, it’s hard to imagine a time when SpaceX struggled. But once it seemed like the company may never get off the ground. Eric Berger, journalist and Ars Technica’s senior space editor, chronicles the company’s desperate first years in his new book Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX, starting with the company's founding 2002 and ending with the successful launch of Falcon 1 in 2008.

After a seven month journey hundreds of millions of miles through our solar system, NASA’s Perseverance rover safely landed on the surface of Mars. Now, the science campaign begins.

Getting to Mars isn’t easy, but so far this month two space agencies have delivered payloads to the red planet’s orbit -- China and the United Arab Emirates. A NASA mission is also on course for Mars.

The first of three robotic explorers has arrived at the red planet. The United Arab Emirates Hope probe successfully entered the orbit of Mars Tuesday, marking the UAE's first mission to the red planet. 

On the outer edges of our solar system, beyond the orbit of Neptune, objects cluster in weird ways. This clustering led some scientists to search for something that could be acting as a gravitational shepherd, moving and modifying their orbits. That something could be Planet 9, a hypothetical planet at the edge of our solar system that could be tugging and clustering these far-out objects.

NASA’s administrator Jim Bridenstine stepped down last week as a new presidential administration took office. President Biden will now select the next leader of the civilian space agency -- could that mean a new direction for NASA?

After spending about a month on the International Space Station, SpaceX’s new Cargon Dragon capsule splashed down off the coast of Florida. It’s a departure from previous versions of the vehicle which splashed down in the Pacific. The new splash zone means scientists can get their hands on their returning equipment faster, meaning they can make critical observations of experiments quicker and opening up more opportunities for space-based science.

When it comes to how dirt on the moon behaves, scientists are still in the dark. Moon sand, also called regolith, is pretty mysterious — but one team of University of Central Florida scientists want to shed some light on lunar dust clouds…by shooting lasers at it. Understanding how dust behaves on the moon and other planetary surfaces is critical for future space exploration missions. Exhaust from a spacecraft’s landing engines could kick up razor-sharp moon dust that could damage instruments or obscure the view of landing. A team led by scientists Addie Dove and Phil Metzger is developing a sensor that can measure how these dust particles interact with rocket exhaust — a study that garnered the interest of ...

NASA announced the first group of astronauts who will train for a mission to the moon. We’ll talk with one of those astronauts, Kayla Barron, about the selection and what the mission means for women in the astronaut corps.

For the last three decades, the Hubble Space Telescope has peered deep into our universe, exploring the origins of the cosmos and capturing stunning views of stars, clusters and galaxies. Now, NASA is releasing a catalogue of some of its most dazzling images -- some you can see yourself from your own backyard.

A new company plans to launch small satellites from the belly of a drone. It joins the growing number of small launch companies popping up to send tiny payloads into space. So what’s the market for these small satellites?

A 305-meter radio telescope in Puerto Rico collapsed after sustaining damage earlier this year -- sending 900 tons of radio equipment crashing into the dish.

For nearly six decades, a 1,000 foot dish in a Puerto Rican forest has led the charge in searching for far away planets, alien life and tracking near-Earth asteroids. It’s also had cameos in television and film including the 1995 James Bond movie Goldeneye. Now, that dish is going dark.

Four astronauts successfully launched and docked to the International Space Station this week, flying on the first commercially designed and built spacecraft -- SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule.

All eyes have been on the Presidential race, but the 2020 election will also have an impact on the U.S. space program. From Congressional funding to NASA leadership -- what’s ahead? Then, black holes have captured the attention of the masses with breakthroughs in imaging, gravitational wave detection and Nobel Prize recognition. What’s spurring this new dawn of black hole discovery?

We’ll speak with co-creators, writers and stars of the new show Moonbase 8, John C. Reilly, Tim Heidecker and Fred Armisen about the inspiration and research behind the series.

We’re on the hunt for aliens. NASA astrobiologists are scanning the skies for signs of life. But will extraterrestrials look like the little green humanoids from science fiction movies, books or TV?

There’s a lot about space travel that doesn’t get talked about -- like how do astronauts shower or go to the bathroom?

After launching from Cape Canaveral, Florida back in 2016, OSIRIS-REx is about to execute one of its most critical mission objectives -- suck up some dust on a far away asteroid.

This week Mars is set to come closer to Earth than it has been in more than a decade. The Mars Opposition is when the red planet becomes a visible bright red spot in the night sky.

NASA and other space and science agencies are striving to diversify their workforces, but there’s still a long way to go. As the country grapples with racial inequality, so do these organizations.

Last week, scientists announced the finding of phosphine gas in the atmosphere of Venus, one of our closest planetary neighbors. This stinky gas is linked to life here on Earth -- could that be the case on Venus?

It’s been more than a month since an asteroid-hunting telescope in Puerto Rico has gone dark. The Arecibo Observatory’s dish is broken after a piece of scaffolding fell, damaging the surface. So what will it take to fix it?

Last week, scientists, engineers and visionaries met at the annual Humans to Mars summit, outlining current challenges and technological breakthroughs in developing a plan for how to live on the red planet.

Public interest in space exploration is on the rise, partly due to high-profile missions like SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, returning to human launches from the U.S. and excitement around the launch of three missions to Mars this summer. With new interest comes questions from amateur space fans and a new podcast from WKMG’s space reporter Emilee Speck aims to answer those questions submitted by listeners

NASA’s Orion spacecraft is the next deep-space vehicle designed to take humans to the moon.

It’s been a busy year for the private space company SpaceX -- from launching and landing two NASA astronauts in its Crew Dragon Capsule, to the deployment of hundreds of tiny satellites to blanket the globe with internet access. Now, SpaceX is pushing ahead with development of its Starship spacecraft, with ambitious plans to send humans to the moon and Mars.

NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover launched last week carrying a stow-away -- a tiny helicopter named Ingenuity. If it works, it will be the first helicopter on another world and engineers and scientists are eagerly awaiting the results of the test flight, calling it Mars’ Wright Brother moment. Ingenuity might be the first, but it certainly won’t be the last. Work is underway on another off-planet helicopter named Dragonfly, with a plan to send it to Saturn’s moon Titan in 2027.

Astronaut splash downs, Martian missions and a new Mission:Impossible movie shot in space — there’s a lot going on up there. We’ll dive into the space news headlines this week with WKMG’s space reporter Emilee Speck and take a look at the missions and events on the horizon. Then, NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover is set to launch this week from Cape Canaveral. We’ve spent the past few shows talking about this flagship mission to the red planet. Today we’ll chat with our panel of expert scientists on this week’s “I’d Like to Know” segment to preview the exciting science this rover promises to collect.

The next Mars rover will have something no other Mars rover has ever had – a microphone. When the Mars Perseverance rover lands next February, scientists will get the chance to hear the red planet.

It’s the summer of Mars. Three spacecraft are heading to the red planet. Rovers from NASA and China, as well as an orbiter from the United Arab Emirates.