Space Podcasts I Love

Like many people, I sit chained to a desk all day doing the bidding of The Man until the clock strikes 5. I maintain my sanity by listening to a lot of podcasts while I work, most of them having to do with space and science.  I'd like to share my favorites with you, and if you know of some amazing show I'm missing out on, please post it in the comments so I can check it out. I have plenty of time to do so.

Astronomy Cast

Astronomy Cast was the first space podcast I got into, and is my favorite for learning stuff. The podcast is hosted by Fraser Cain, publisher of Universe Today, and Dr. Pamela Gay, of  Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and Project Director of CosmoQuest.

To me, this show feels like a free college course without a test at the end. The format generally follows Fraser asking Dr. Gay questions about the weekly topic, though you do realize at some point that Fraser already knows all these things, and is just asking what he thinks listeners would find most interesting. Topics include physics concepts and theories, the history of astronomy and space exploration, and what science knows so far about... everything!

Episodes last approximately 30 minutes and are usually recorded weekly on Mondays, depending on Dr. Gay's busy schedule.  They are recorded as a live Google Hangout On Air that you can watch if you are able, and there is usually a Q&A time at the end that is not included in the recorded podcast, which is a great time to get some of those burning astronomy questions off your chest. 

As of the writing of this post there are 301 episodes.  I've been listening to them backwards in time and got about halfway through before I felt like I needed a break from this show.  Overall, I have to say that I LOVE this show and have learned so much from it.  Fraser and Pamela are huge assets to the online space community, not just for this podcast, but for everything they do.  They deserve a blog post all of their own, and I'm sure they'll get one at some point.

Star Talk Radio

Star Talk Radio is the podcast of Dr. Neil Degrasse Tyson, Astrophysicist and Badass Extraordinaire. How cool is that!? This show is about as different from Astronomy Cast as you can get and still have the same topic. Well, even then I should say that not all episodes are about space. They ARE all about science, however, and they are all interesting.

Star Talk has attitude, loud music, and of course Dr. Tyson and his very passionate opinions. The usual format is Dr. Tyson interviewing someone, often a celebrity, intercut with his discussion about the interview with a co-host.  The co-host is usually plucked from a rotating lineup of stand up comedians. Particularly sciencey shows usually also have an expert in the field of science being discussed.  For example, in an episode featuring an interview with Anthony Bourdain, the discussion was joined by a professor of Gastronomy.

Periodically Star Talk does a "Cosmic Queries" episode, where the co-host presents Dr. Tyson with questions from listeners sent via social media.  As you may imagine, these episodes actually are all about space, and are very entertaining, but to be honest they rarely contain information I didn't already gain from listening to Astronomy Cast.

Episodes run around an hour long and are usually released three times a month. And for the record, Eugene Mirmon is SO my favorite co-host!

Planetary Radio

I am a member of the Planetary Society, and I have to admit that Planetary Radio is the main reason why. Hosted by Matt Kaplan, Planetary Radio has been in production since 2002, and is carried by some radio stations and both XM and Sirius satellite radio carriers. Thankfully for me, the show is also released as a podcast!

I look forward to Planetary Radio every week. The show usually features a check-in with one of the Planetary Society's main people, followed by an interview with a scientist or engineer that's doing something cool. The show is wrapped up with a segment called "What's Up" with Dr. Bruce Betts, where he gives you pointers on what's currently good to look at in the night sky. Dr. Betts then shares with us a Random Space Fact, and then a trivia question, where the winner can get things like a t-shirt, a Fisher Space Pen, or Bill Nye's voice on your answering machine. (People have answering machines?)

I enjoy this show because it's fun to listen to to people as jazzed about space as me.  Not that the other podcast hosts aren't jazzed (they are!) but getting people excited about exploring space and learning all the science we can is what the Planetary Society is all about. The society and it's podcast are great at not only making this stuff exciting, but also making you feel like you are an integral part of it. As Bill Nye says so often, "Together we can change the world(s)!"

This show usually runs around 35 minutes is released weekly. 

Europa Report

So I'm apparently a month behind the times, but I just discovered the trailer for Europa Report, a movie coming to theaters August 2, that seems to have been made specifically for ME. Behold.




Word on the interwebs is that the science is spot-on, and it even has the endorsement of Phil Plait. So exciting!  It's great to see science fiction that is based in reality, not just because of the suspension of disbelief factor for us space nerds, but I hate it when fiction misinforms the public.  It's cool to imagine different possibilities (yay, Star Trek!) but it's not cool to take advantage of an uneducated public's wishful thinking (boo, mermaid "documentaries"!).

Anyway, according to Universe Today, the premiere for this film is going to be at the Hayden Planetarium. How cool is that!? There's even a cool promotional website to make the whole thing look real.

There was already a lot of movies this year that I was excited about, but this just took the top of the list.

For the Love of Space

MA-9 "Faith 7" Mercury capsule flown by Gordon Cooper
May 15, 1963 on display at the Johnson Space Center.
Photo by Lizz Clements

I had originally thought an introductory post for this blog wasn't necessary, but as you can see, I changed my mind!  This blog is meant to be an expression of my personal experience as a space nerd, and so I imagine that getting to know the person behind it a little bit would be a good thing.

First off, I'm not a scientist, engineer, professor, or any sort of space science professional.  I'm not even a writer. I'm an artist, and not even the cool kind.  I'm the behind the scenes kind of artist nobody thinks about, who gets paid very little, considering a bachelors degree is needed to get a job.

What I also am, is a huge nerd.  Not just the kind of nerd who can tell you the company that produced the TIE Fighter (and what TIE stands for), but can also tell you about the company that produces the Falcon 9 rocket. In school I wasn't very interested in science and hated math. I did enjoy my Physical Science class my freshman year, but was so disgusted by Biology my sophomore year that I dropped science altogether. I had to take Algebra 1 twice in school to get through it, and took Accounting to avoid Geometry and still get enough math credits to graduate.