The Cosmic Controversy Podcast

Guest Christopher Combs, an assistant professor of aerodynamics at the University of Texas at San Antonio, discusses current prospects for supersonic. hypersonic and even suborbital spaceplane passenger flight.  Combs clearly communicates the technical aspects of flight faster than sound and the issues that are hindering our ability to hop from one corner the Earth to the other within 90 minutes or less.  

Acclaimed U.K. journalist Mark Piesing chats about his first book N-4 DOWN:  THE HUNT FOR THE ARCTIC AIRSHIP ITALIA (Harper-Collins) which tracks the long-forgotten history of how airship and early aviators tried to conquer the North Pole.  Umberto Nobile’s Italia airship crashed onto the Arctic ice in May 1928 and sparked an international search before Nobile and what was left of his crew were eventually saved by the then relatively novel technology of radio.

Guest Sheryl L. Bishop, a social psychologist and professor emeritus at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston gets real about what we need to make happen if astronauts are going to be able to thrive off-world beyond low-Earth orbit.  Bishop chats candidly about her new book “Space Habitats and Habitability:  Designing for Isolated and Confined Environments on Earth and in Space,” co-authored with Sandra Hauplik-Meusburger. 

Guest Edwin (Ted) Bergin, professor of astronomy and Chair of the Dept. of Astronomy at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, discusses whether our existence in this solar system is directly related to the initial chemical makeup of our star’s protosolar disk from which our planets formed. 

University of Chicago associate professor Dorian Abbot chats about his research on the controversial Snowball Earth Hypothesis.  That is, the idea that at least twice in Earth’s geological past, our planet was basically a glacial ball of ice and snow.  Abbot says it likely happened some 2 billion years ago and again some 600 to 800 million years ago.   There's evidence for at least four such snowball events that likely persisted for tens of millions of years.  

Our civilization and technology as we know it owes itself to a fluke of evolution that enabled the development of human intelligence.  It’s a marvelous and nuanced intelligence that cannot be replicated anywhere else in the cosmos.  That doesn’t mean that intelligent life isn’t out there.  But it’s likely not very similar to our own.  Guest Bret Stetka chats about his new book “A History of the Human Brain” from Workman Publishing and tackles some of humanity’s biggest questions. 

Darren DePoy, Professor of Astronomy and Associate Dean for Research at Texas A&M University in College Station, talks about using one of Einstein’s little-known and underappreciated method of microlensing to look for extrasolar planets around sunlike stars.  An expert on building telescope instrumentation, DePoy outlines the other methods of planet detection and a bit about the difficulties of funding huge astronomical projects such as the Giant Magellan Telescope.

Guest Earl Swift, a former reporter for The Virginian-Pilot and New York Times bestselling author of “Chesapeake Requiem” discusses his brand-new book “Across the Airless Wilds---the Lunar Rover and the Triumph of the Final Moon Landings,” just out from William Morrow.  Swift talks candidly about how NASA’s Apollo Lunar Moon Rover transformed the Apollo 15, 16 and 17 missions and argues that these last six moon-walking astronauts don’t get enough credit as bona fide explorers. 

University of Washington paleontologist Peter Ward, co-author of the famed non-fiction title, “Rare Earth:  Why Complex Life Is Uncommon In The Universe" is my guest.  He and University of Washington astronomer Donald Brownlee’s controversial book was published two decades ago, but even in this age of astrobiological plenty, remains as prescient as ever.

Matt Anderson, the John and Horace Dodge Curator of Transportation at The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, speaks candidly about the early days of The Ford Motor Company and its foray into aviation via its revolutionary Tri-Motor airplane.  Although the Ford Tri-Motor was in production for less than a decade, its influence spawned much of what we take for granted about today’s passenger airline industry.  Lots of interesting tidbits make for a lively episode.

Marc Pinsonneault, a professor of astronomy at The Ohio State University in Columbus, and an expert on stellar open clusters, chats about some of the most famous star clusters in the sky, including the beautiful, blue Seven Sisters of The Pleiades; the Hyades star cluster and the Beehive star cluster.  We also cover what such clusters teach us about our own Sun and the evolution of stars in general.

Historian and former Clinton presidential speechwriter Jeff Shesol chats about his new book, “Mercury Rising: John Glenn, John Kennedy and the New Battleground of the Cold War” just out from W.W. Norton.  Shesol makes the case that the Cold War and the Space Race were inextricably intertwined in ways that are rarely appreciated in most conventional histories of the subjects.  Shesol gives us a great inside look into this mostly-forgotten early era.

Guest Ben K.D. Pearce, a Ph.D student in astrophysics and astrobiology at McMaster University in Toronto, and an expert on the origins of life’s building blocks here on Earth.  We discuss the idea that all the genetic components from which life emerged were incredibly readily available biogenically very early in Earth’s evolution.  As early as 4.5 billion years ago.  Pearce is part of a group making great strides in learning how this all may have happened in Earth’s very ancient warm little ponds. 

Villanova University astrophysicist Edward Sion, an expert on stellar white dwarfs chats about our Sun’s own endgame and planet Earth’s ultimate future which may end in cinders.   We also discuss the possibility of finding remnant solar systems around these hyperdense stellar cores. 

Guest commercial pilot and author Jack Hersch talks about his 2020 book, “The Dangers of Automation in Airliners:  Accidents Waiting to Happen.”  It’s both a fascinating and harrowing read but prompts questions and nagging issues that the aviation industry needs to continue to address.

World-renowned, University of Hawaii cosmologist Brent Tully on 50 years of mapping the nearby universe which includes our own home supercluster ‘Laniakea.’  Tully candidly assesses the state of cosmography, the science of making 3-D maps of the nearby universe and speculates on when astronomers will finally map the cosmos in its entirety. 

Astronomer and author Linda Schweizer talks about her comprehensive new history of Palomar Observatory --- “Cosmic Odyssey:  How Intrepid Astronomers At Palomar Observatory Changed Our View of the Universe” from MIT Press.  We focus on Palomar’s early 20th century construction and history.  Schweizer is an expert on every aspect of the observatory; its history, and its many astronomical discoveries. 

Harvard University geologist Andrew H. Knoll takes on the grand sweep of Earth’s formation and evolution in his new book “A Brief History of Earth: Four Billion Years in Eight Chapters.  He succinctly describes Earth from its cosmological beginnings in a molecular cloud on through to the present day.  It’s a fine line between the vacuum of space and the planet on which we walk.

Author Eric Lindner talks about his forthcoming book, “Tiger in the Sea:  The Ditching of Flying Tiger 923 and the Desperate Struggle for Survival.”  The September 23, 1962 Flying Tiger Line passenger charter Lockheed Super Constellation aircraft en route from McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey to Frankfurt, Germany lost three of its four engines to fire some 500 miles off the west coast of Ireland.  This largely forgotten episode in aviation history hastened the end of propeller-driven transport aircraft.

Fascinating new chat with Michael Seiffert, the NASA project scientist for the U.S. contribution to the European Space Agency’s Euclid spacecraft.  Due for launch in the second half of 2022, we discuss how this new space telescope will help astronomers finally understand the mystery of dark energy and maybe even dark matter. 

Jason Rhodes, a cosmologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, and the JPL Roman Space Telescope Project Scientist, discusses a proposed galaxy survey to end all galaxy surveys.  One that would wring as much information out of our universe’s trillion or so galaxies across cosmic time as humanly possible.  Astronomers are still at least half a century off from this final galaxy census, but the hope is that it will give cosmologists most of the answers they need about the makeup and structure of the universe. 

Astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City, discusses everything from pond scum to space aliens in this off-the-wall and very engaging episode.  It’s vintage Tyson.  We also touch on his latest book written with George Mason University physicist James Trefil --- “Cosmic Queries:  StarTalk’s Guide To Who We Are, How We Got Here, And Where We’re Going.” 

Award-winning NASA astrophysicist and author Sten Odenwald discusses several of the 100 objects featured in his 2019 book:  “Space Exploration:  A History in 100 Objects.”  I pick a few of the lesser known and underappreciated objects, which run the gamut in their differing ages.  In this compelling episode, it’s amazing to hear and understand just how far humanity has come in its technological quest to understand the cosmos.

NASA’s Rob Manning, JPL’s Chief Engineer, discusses management, logistics, innovation and the future of robotic Mars exploration in this unique episode.  With this week’s successful landing of the Perseverance rover on an ancient river delta, NASA ups its game at a time when the rest of the country badly needs some encouraging news.  Manning talks about how JPL keeps itself on track when finessing complicated billion-dollar initiatives. 

Nearly 25 years after its discovery, the mystery at the core of dark energy persists.  Astronomers are no closer to understanding what’s behind this cosmic repulsive force that counteracts gravity and causes the cosmos to expand at an accelerating rate than when it was first discovered in 1998.  Guest Alexei Filippenko is a member of the Nobel Prize-winning team that detected dark energy via supernovae surveys. He gives us the inside scoop on how dark energy was detected; what it means for our existence and the prospects for unmasking this bizarre force of nature that makes up some 70 percent of the observable universe.   

I welcome Bruce Banerdt, the principal investigator for NASA’s Mars InSight lander, which has been operating on the Martian surface for two years now.  Although it’s had some technical issues, it’s offered a sea change in how geophysicists are interpreting the dynamics and makeup of the Martian core.  In this episode, we talk about what we currently understand about Mars’ geophysical makeup and, among other things, whether it ever had plate tectonics which was so crucial for the evolution of sentient life here on Earth.

The spectacular rise and fall of Pan Am from flying boats to 747s.  International best-selling author and former Pan Am captain Robert Gandt gives me the inside scoop on Pan American World Airways, from its humble beginnings to global empire. 

Propulsion physicist Marc Millis talks about the prospects for fast, efficient interstellar travel.  Millis was head of NASA’s Breakthrough Propulsion Program at Glenn Research Center outside Cleveland for years beginning in the mid-1990s.  We discuss why the problem of traveling to the stars is so difficult and what would need to happen to help such dreams become a reality.  It’s a lively and irreverent discussion! 

Renowned planetary astronomer Heidi Hammel and I chat about our solar system’s mysterious ice giant planets, Uranus and Neptune.  There’s only been one flyby of these giant planets by NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft back in the late 1980s.  Hammel, who was part of the Voyager 2 science team, explains what that mission taught us about these objects and why we need to go back.   

The age of supersonic flight officially began after World War II, when the late Chuck Yeager pushed the Bell X-1 test aircraft beyond the speed of sound (Mach 1) in October 1947.  But bestselling author and highly-decorated fighter pilot Dan Hampton contends that Yeager wasn’t the first pilot to go supersonic in controlled flight.  On this week’s episode, Hampton and I discuss how the Cold War spurred the quest for speed and why Yeager might not have been the first American fighter pilot to break the sound barrier. 

Big band historian and author Dennis Spragg talks about the music, the legacy, and the tragic disappearance of the American big band icon, Glenn Miller.  We cover what shaped his unique sound; his driving passion to give back to America’s Greatest Generation in their hour of wartime need; and the tragic disappearance of his December 1944 flight from England to France. 

NASA’s MAVEN orbiter has arguably done more to document how and why Mars lost its atmosphere and much of its water than any spacecraft ever sent to the red planet.  The mission’s principal investigator, planetary scientist Bruce Jakosky is this week’s featured guest and we discuss the current paradigm on why Mars went so horribly wrong.  Jakosky offers a candid and inside look at how such missions work and what we can expect from Mars science in the next few years.

The earliest days of robotic space exploration, to the Moon, Venus, Mars, and even Mercury, likely would never have played out in such dramatic fashion in the late 1950s and early 1960s without the Cold War.  Despite a steep learning curve with lots of rocket misfires and mission malfunctions, it was a hair-trigger era of interplanetary exploration that offered the world its first close up views of our nearest planetary neighbors.  Former NASA Chief Historian Roger Launius and I discuss the details in this revealing episode.

First cataloged by Al Sufi as a mere optical smudge high in the winter sky, the Andromeda Galaxy has lately been a cornerstone of everything we know about contemporary astronomy and the cosmos as a whole.  Join Lowell Observatory astronomer Philip Massey as he outlines how this grand spiral neighbor changed what we know about cosmology.  And if you happen to be in the Northern hemisphere, by the end of the episode, you may be ready to try and spot the galaxy with just your naked eyes.

From Pachyderms to Cetaceans, the largest mammals on Earth would arguably never have evolved to their gargantuan sizes without the third most abundant element in the Cosmos --- Oxygen.  Of course, life, even photosynthesis is possible without Oxygen, but for the cosmos to evolve the big-headed space aliens of our sci-fi dreams will likely take Oxygen --- the most efficient energy carrier in the periodic table.  How Oxygen became dominant on our own planet is the focus of today’s episode with guest Timothy Lyons, a biogeochemist at the University of California, Riverside.

China is building on a decade of lunar exploration with this month’s launch of its Chang’e 5 sample return mission; China has an orbiter and lander halfway to Mars; and by 2022 plans on putting a permanently crewed 60-ton space station in low-Earth orbit.  They even have long term plans for mining Helium-3 on the Moon.  In this episode, China space expert David Burbach of the U.S. Naval War College discusses these and other issues, in particular, how the current election will affect NASA’s own Artemis schedule and China as a potential threat beyond low-Earth orbit. 

What happens when all the stars in our cosmos’ galaxies burn out; with little or no hydrogen gas left to fuel star formation; and everything pretty much turns to toast?  It will presage an age of black holes where extremely low temperatures and fundamental particle decay will alleviate life as we know it.  This universal endgame in an almost infinite far future may actually be a Dark Age where little or nothing can happen.  And if it does, only on the longest timescales.  Yale University astrophysicist Gregory Laughlin and I discuss these and other issues in this cosmological “turtles all the way down” episode of the podcast.

Without the lowly propeller, global trade and commerce and freedom of movement as we knew it prior to Covid would have never had the opportunity to flourish.  Special guest Jeremy R. Kinney, Chair of the Aeronautics Department at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., provides a fascinating narrative to how and why advances in aircraft propeller technology enabled aerospace to revolutionize global warfare, travel, and trade.  Author of “Reinventing the Propeller,” Kinney and I discuss many underappreciated aspects of this aeronautical workhorse.

Notre Dame Planetary Geologist Clive Neal stops by the podcast for a terrifically candid discussion of why the Moon has to be the first stop en route to Mars.  We talk about why the Moon holds the key to the new Space Economy; the prospects for NASA making its 2024 Artemis mission deadline; and, why lunar samples are still being analyzed 50 years hence.  Why more lunar samples and lunar seismometers are keys to understanding our inner solar system.  And why it’s imperative that we revisit the Moon in a permanent way if we are ever to make Mars our own.  We also mull over the politics of all of this three weeks away from a pivotal presidential election. 

Guest Catherine Johnson, a planetary geophysicist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, discusses this bizarre little world; the innermost planet in our solar system.  A planet that’s so close to our Sun that its surface temperatures can hit 800 F.  But surprisingly, its poles harbor enough water ice to completely bury a major metropolis.  Some have even argued that Mercury may have once been habitable.  Where it formed still remains a mystery, but it does have a tiny magnetic field, a very oversized iron core, and one of the largest impact basins in the solar system.  A European mission is currently en route to orbit the planet in 2025. 

Retired commercial pilot, crash investigator, and aviation attorney Gary LaPook joins me to discuss the development and practice of celestial air navigation in passenger aircraft; how it worked; why it was replaced; where it could go wrong, and why celestial air navigation is still vital to our national security. 

For anyone who’s ever wondered how our own star happened to be caught up in the midst of a grand spiral beauty like our Milky Way, this episode should at least provide some clues.  It’s a big cosmological subject and of course, we just skim the surface but for those curious as to how galaxies formed after the Big Bang to become home to oh so many stars, this podcast episode should be of interest.  This week’s guest, Francesca Rizzo, a doctoral candidate at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching, discusses the current state of how galaxies formed and developed over cosmic time.

Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) have hogged the headlines for the last decade or so; prompting many news organizations to question whether they are produced by far-flung alien civilizations in the midst of some sort of bizarre intergalactic transport mechanism.  The truth however is likely much more mundane; they could be flashes from Hawking’s storied evaporating black holes or colliding neutron stars or something we have simply failed to imagine.  But in this podcast episode, Duncan Lorimer, their co-discoverer, at West Virginia University (WVU) in Morgantown, gives us the straight scoop on what they most likely are and aren’t.  Great episode!

Amelia Earhart, arguably the most famous woman in the world at the time of her 1937 disappearance, was on a second attempt to fly around the world when something went horribly wrong.  However, what actually happened to the famed aviator and her navigator Fred Noonan may finally be close to being solved.  Or so says Chasing Earhart Project Director Chris Williamson in this fascinating episode in which we cover all the viable theories surrounding the Earhart mystery.

This week's guest is NASA Dawn project scientist Julie Castillo-Rogez who led the hugely successful robotic mission on the first in-depth look at the asteroid Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres.  Castillo talks about why there's a growing consensus that Ceres may have long had habitable subsurface conditions and why we need a sample return mission to launch in 2033.  We also discuss Mars' moons of Deimos and Phobos and the first interstellar asteroid, Oumuamua.

Lowell Observatory astronomer Gerard van Belle, Chief Scientist at the Navy Precision Optical Interferometer (NPOI) in Flagstaff. Arizona talks about the possibility of arrays of space telescopes that are 3-D printed after launch.  We also discuss the history of optical interferometry; why such interlinked telescopes are the key to America’s future in astronomy and why Arizona skies remain as vital today as they were a century ago. 

This week’s guest is Adam Frank, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Rochester in New York, who has received the first-ever NASA grant to begin cataloging potential alien techno-signatures in a non-radio spectrum.  The hunt for potential alien technology is one of the sexiest topics in astrophysics at the moment and Frank doesn’t disappoint.  We cover everything from how we might find such technology in our own solar system to super-advanced civilizations that might harness supermassive black holes for cosmic scale supercomputers.

In a stroke of serendipity during a wide-ranging podcast interview, Villanova University astronomer Edward Guinan explains the paper behind today's news flap about the red supergiant star's inexplicable dimming. The most recent explanation is that dust generated from cooling plasma spewed forth from the massive star's interior caused Betelgeuse to appear more dim than usual.  While Guinan acknowledges this scenario is a possibility, he remains skeptical.  Please listen to this candid and entertaining episode!

Three spacecraft are currently en route to Mars, but none will visit the poles.  Yet Mars’ poles drive much of the Martian climate.  And their understanding is key to deciphering what might have been happening on the Red planet some 3.5 billion years ago when it had lakes, deltas, rivers, and perhaps even transient oceans.  I’m very pleased to welcome planetary scientist Isaac B. Smith of York University in Toronto --- an expert on Mars polar science and exploration --- to discuss the need for a Martian polar lander as well as a broader look at Mars science.

Dutch astronomer Anthony Brown of Leiden University explains how the European Space Agency's GAIA satellite is revolutionizing what we know about the Milky Way.  This all-sky survey mission revisits each target 70 times over the course of the years-long mission to give astronomers a real 3-D map of a large swath of our galaxy.  Highlights include why are Milky Way is warped, the potential origins of our solar system's formation, and why Gaia is important to planet hunters.  The next big data drop is scheduled by year's end.   My apologies to those who listened to an earlier version of this; there was a technical glitch with music interference halfway through which has now been resolved.  Thanks for listening!