Well, here it is. My newest StarTalk Radio podcast recorded in June at The Planetary Society in LA. We had such fun recording this as we were joined by my comic co-host Mo Welch, who is hilarious, and our guest was the fantastic David Oh from JPL. We got to chat all about comets, asteroids and the Psyche mission of which David is the mission architect. This is a mission which Lindy Elkins-Tanton (who I had as a StarTalk guest for a show about space water a couple of years ago) is PI for. Unfortunately Lindy wasn’t available to come meet us in LA so she suggested we chat with David and I’m so pleased he was able to join us and share some of the reasons why NASA want to journey to this fascinating metal world. The asteroid, like the mission that will explore it, is also called Psyche. Launch isn’t set for a fair few years (mid-2022) but it’ll be fun to join them for the ride over the next few years as they finish designing and then building the spacecraft and instruments that will go on it, then head to the launchpad for a journey into the asteroid belt. I can’t wait.
P.S. I will also note that this is the day I got a tour of the Planetary Society by the one and only Bill Nye – the Science Guy. It was a bit surreal to be honest, made even better by the fact I decided to give him a signed copy of my book, and he gave me a signed copy of his book in return!!