Talking Space

Pull up your chairs for some travelers tales from both Gina Herlihy and Mark Ratterman. Gina visited the Virginia Air and Space Center in Hampton, Virginia and describes her exploration through the museum. Mark was one of the lucky attendees at the International Space Station (ISS) NASA Tweetup hosted by NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC. The guest speaker was ISS Expedition 23 Astronaut T.J. Creamer. Mark offers insights into the event and discusses some of his other discoveries and meeting some old friends of the podcast. Mark also offers some of his  thoughts on the "27 Seconds " exhibit at the Intrepid Sea Air and Space Museum in New York. The team also discusses the failed ammonia cooling pump on the ISS and an analysis of the first spacewalk in support of removing and replacing the broken pump.  Other topics include the announcement by Space Exploration Technologies Corporation to create their own heavy lift rocket and the Mars Exploration Rover " Spirit" will it come back to life after this winter season on Mars or has it lost all of it's "nine lives"? Host this week: Sawyer Rosenstein.  Panel Members: Gina Herlihy Gene Mikulka, Mark Ratterman Show Recorded on 8/8/2010

On this episode, we are not only joined by guest panelist Tavi Greiner from Astronomy.FM, but we invite on special guest Scott Maxwell, one of the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) "drivers". He discusses his experiences at the Jet Propulsions Laboratory and his work playing around with robots on another world. Frankenstein, anybody? For more info on Scott, check out his blog "Mars and Me" at http://marsandme.blogspot.com/ Learn more about the MERs at http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov Be sure to also follow him on Twitter: @marsroverdriver Also, thanks to Tavi Greiner, who is part of Astronomy.FM, which broadcasts Talking Space every Tuesday night at 10pm EDT and is replayed every three hours. There's even an interactive chat. Check it out at http://astronomy.fm Host this week: Sawyer Rosenstein. Panel Members: Gene Mikulka, Mark Ratterman, and special guest panelist Tavi Greiner. Special Guest: Mars Rover "Driver" Scott Maxwell. Show Recorded - Sunday 5/30/2010