SpaceX has been paid to launch four civilians into low-Earth orbit on a multi-day trip. Three of those passengers just learned they’d be going less than a year ago. The mission is called Inspiration4 and it's the first time regular people, not NASA astronauts, will make up the entirety of a space crew. To go into orbit and return home the crew will experience up to 6 G-forces, use a tiny spacecraft toilet for three days and essentially become a meteor crashing through the Earth’s atmosphere on their way back down. Axios space reporter Miriam Kramer and Inspiration4 mission photographer John Kr ..read more

NASA is trying to land boots on the moon in the next three years but the current spacesuits American and European astronauts wear haven’t been updated since 1978. And when it comes to moonwalking ... these old-school suits just won’t do.  Moonwalkers of the Artemis generation are going to need some new gear and very soon if NASA plans to achieve its goal. In this episode of Space Curious, we’ll hear from the experts developing the very first spacesuits designed for the lunar surface since the 1970s.  Retired NASA astronaut Dan Burbank, now with Collins Aerospace, and NASA engineer Ka ..read more

In this episode of Space Curious experts help explain what it means to go Interstellar, how do we define the vastness of space and who’s making these decisions. This episode was inspired by David Mostardi, of Berkley, California, who wanted to know if the Voyager spacecraft didn't reach the Oort cloud did it really reach interstellar space? Alive Bowman, New Horizons missions operations manager and Stella Ocker, Cornell University planetary scientist, are this week's guests breaking down this fascinating topic. Original music from Rhein was used for this episode. Learn more about your ad choic ..read more

Mars has been the bell of the planetary ball in the last few decades but that’s not to say other planets in our solar system, like Venus haven't had a fair share of attention over the years.  NASA last sent a spacecraft to orbit the planet in 1990. Russia, formerly the Soviet Union, sent a whole slew of mostly successful missions to Venus, and Japan has an orbiter there now.  The tricky part is sending a robotic mission to the surface. Most have only survived for a few hours. So why send a robot to a planet that will destroy it? As we learned in the last episode of Space Curious ..read more

Earlier this year, Venus was in the spotlight because a group of international scientists said they found something peculiar in the Venusian clouds, the discovery would lead to new interest and excitement about potential robotic missions to Earth’s nearest neighbor. A study published in the journal Nature Astronomy reported a potential bio signature, or something that might indicate life is present, had been found in the clouds of Venus. The team of astronomers, led by Professor Jane Greaves of Cardiff University, said they had found a gas called phosphine in the clouds of Venus. It was a big ..read more

This year has been awful for a lot of reasons: a global pandemic, racial injustice, wildfires and the list goes on but an asteroid crashing into Earth will not be the cherry on top of humanity’s punishment. Simply put, we won’t be going out with a bang this year, 2020 rages on. In this week’s episode of WKMG’s podcast Space Curious planetary scientists help explain how we know where asteroids are and why we’re not all going to get squashed by one this year or anytime soon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices ..read more

On this episode of Space Curious, we're talking about our fascination with astronauts, an elite class of humans who have trained years for spaceflight but they are also people with families, hobbies --and --bodily functions. This year marked the first-time astronauts have launched from Florida since 2011 when astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken successfully launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in the Dragon spacecraft, made it to the space station -- and returned home, splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico. It was an epic return for American human space exploration. The astron ..read more

Billionaire and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is getting closer with every launch to providing internet to the world-- including remote communities-- by using a fleet of thousands of satellites. BUT he’s not alone, Amazon, Samsung and other private companies plan to follow his lead. And that means low-Earth orbit is about to get even more crowded. In the latest episode of Space Curious, we’ll look at what massive constellations of satellites will mean for our view of the night sky, the research of astronomers who study it and what companies like SpaceX are doing to help mitigate these issues. Learn mor ..read more

Humans have been launching spacecraft into low-Earth orbit and out into the universe for more than six decades.  Those spacecraft include satellites that provide GPS and weather forecasting down on Earth but they have limited lifespans. After a spacecraft is no longer serving a purpose it becomes junk. This week’s episodes answers the question: Who’s gonna take out all that space trash? To help explain the issues behind space debris Space Curious host Emilee Speck spoke to experts from the Florida Institute of Technology who know a lot about space junk and what challenges humans face in c ..read more

This year marks the 20th year humans have been living in space. That means most college students today have never known a day without an astronaut orbiting above them on the International Space Station. For the very first episode of WKMG-TV and Graham Media’s new podcast, Space Curious, we go back to the beginning and learn how the International Space Station came to be with someone who was there at the beginning: Kennedy Space Center Director and former astronaut Robert “Bob” Cabana. The first two pieces of the ISS were built across the world but connected in space. "You know, as a team, we n ..read more