On The Space Show for Wednesday, 13 August 2025:

James (Jim) A. Lovell Jr. (1928-2025) was an American astronaut, naval aviator, test pilot, and mechanical engineer. This two-part special episode of The Space Show celebrates the 97-year life of this Gemini 7 & 12 and Apollo 8 & 13 astronaut.

Largely told in his own words, listen out for his story about how he was almost “selected” to be the 7th astronaut of the original Mercury 7.

As fate would have it, Jim Lovell was instead to be the last surviving member of NASA Astronaut Group 2 (nicknamed the "Next Nine" or the "New Nine"), the group of astronauts selected after the Mercury Seven in September 1962. In addition to Lovell, the nine astronauts included: Neil Armstrong, Frank Borman, Pete Conrad, James McDivitt, Elliot See, Tom Stafford, Ed White, and John Young

(Inserts courtesy of the Johnson Space Center)

On The Space Show for Wednesday, 6 August 2025:

A Retrospective (2016): Searching for Life in the Outer Solar System

A discussion of the proposed BRINE Discovery Mission to Enceladus and the status of the United States’ commercial space projects with the late Dr David Wilson, then Vice President of the Mars Society Australia and a research and development engineer at the Space Science and Astrobiology Division of the NASA Ames Research Center in California.

In 2012 and 2013, NASA's Ames Research Center undertook a series of studies using a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft on Mars, defining possible payloads including deep drills for astrobiology missions and Earth return rockets for Mars sample return. In 2015 Ames proposed the IceBreaker search for life mission to Mars for NASA's Discovery Program and then a mission to Saturn's moon Enceladus, called BRINE.

(Recorded by The Space Show at a joint meeting of the Mars Society Australia and the Space Association of Australia in June 2016)

Planet Earth — Episode 67:

• The Earth's geocentre
• SWOT and Australia
• Five Queensland projects to accelerate the growth of the Earth observation industry

• Cloudsat.

(Inserts courtesy GSFC, JPL)

On The Space Show for Wednesday, 30 July 2025:

Eris TestFlight-1: Gilmour Space takes first step towards Australian sovereign launch capability.

Bowen, Queensland, Australia - 30 July 2025: Gilmour Space Technologies has completed the maiden test launch of Australia's first locally designed and built orbital rocket — a major milestone toward offering low-cost, responsive launch services for small satellites globally.

The 23-meter, 30-tonne Eris rocket, powered by new hybrid propulsion technology, successfully lifted off from the Bowen Orbital Spaceport in North Queensland, achieving approximately 14 seconds of flight.

BONUS: A 2019 Space Show interview with Adam Gilmour, CEO and Founder of Gilmour Space Technologies.

Adam provides a company profile and describes the aspirations of the company to develop an Australian space launch vehicle. (Interviewer: Peter Aylward)

Australian Space Industry 2025 — Part 10:

* Skykraft mission 4

* Artemis 2 Australian laser

* Optimus satellite factory

* Kanyini.

Planet Earth — Episode 66:

* NISAR launch due soon

* MethaneSAT fail

* TRACERS in orbit

* SWOT update.

On The Space Show for Wednesday, 23 July 2025:

A Cold War Handshake in Space — The 50th Anniversary of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project:

* Apollo 7 astronaut, Walter Cunningham, shares his unique and candid perspective on the first international joint mission with America's Soviet adversaries.

* Terry Virts (@AstroTerry), another former NASA astronaut, shares his forthright reflections on training and working with his Russian counterparts on the International Space Station in more recent times.

10th Anniversary of the New Horizons flyby of Pluto:

Astrobiologist, Dr David Grinspoon, Senior Scientist at the Planetary Science Institute and NASA, reflecting on Pluto and the human imagination. A talk about Pluto and the New Horizons spacecraft that flew past the dwarf planet ten years ago. (Courtesy PSI)

On The Space Show for Wednesday, 16 July 2025:

Space Show News:

The U.S. Globalchange.gov website has been shutdown.

Remembering space historian Dr Eric M. Jones (1944—2025):

Marking the death of Eric Jones, the founder and chief editor of the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal, with an interview with Eric about the artefacts left behind by Neil Armstrong. (Interviewer, Peter Aylward)

For more interviews with Eric Jones and information about the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal, go to The Space Show website and click on the Alphabetical List of People (who have been on, or discussed on, the Show) and select "J" for Jones.

Turn Back Time:

The stories of Proton 1, Zond 3 and Mariner 4 told in narration and contemporary news reports.

Mariner 4 video and PDF tribute by Glen Nagle on the Honeysuckle Creek website:

• Video - https://youtu.be/haM4We_QdPU

• PDF - https://honeysucklecreek.net/other_stations/tidbinbilla/Mariner_4_index.html

On The Space Show for Wednesday, 9 July 2025:

Medicine and the Moon:

A Moon Village Association event introduced and moderated by Dr Marc Jurblum, Doctor of Psychiatry, St Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne.

Speakers:

Prof. Gordon Cable, Specialist in Aerospace Medicine, University of Adelaide.

Dr Omar Eduardo Rodriguez, Neuro-radiology Registrar, Royal Melbourne Hospital.

Dr Rowena Christiansen, Medical Educator, University of Melbourne Medical School.

Quinlan Buchlak, Data Scientist in Space Medicine.

Topics discussed:

* Oxygen toxicity

* Gut health

* Planetary protection

* Human evolution

* Fluid-filled EVA suit

* Altered mental state

* The “overview effect”.

(Recorded by The Space Show at Deakin Edge, Federation Square, Melbourne)

Australian Space Industry 2025 — Part 9:

* Lunaria One Moon plant funding

* Aussie payloads and technology on the SpaceX Transporter 14 rideshare mission

* Gilmour Space and Japan’s Space BD announce a new collaboration

* Winnebago.

(Audio insert courtesy Rocket Lab)

It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World:

The Space Shuttle Orbiter Discovery is to be moved from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, to Space Center Houston, the official visitor center for NASA's Johnson Space Center in Texas.

On The Space Show for Wednesday, 2 July 2025:

Prompted by the destruction of Kosmos 1408, a history of anti-satellite tests, and a discussion from the European Space Agency on the problem of space debris and mitigation efforts. (Audio inserts courtesy ESA)

* The Kessler Syndrome, also known as the Kessler Effect, describes a situation in which the density of objects in low Earth orbit (LEO) becomes so high due to the accumulation of space pollution that collisions between these objects cascade, exponentially increasing the amount of space debris over time. The scenario was first proposed by NASA scientists Donald J. Kessler and Burton G. Cour-Palais in 1978.

On The Space Show for Wednesday, 25 June 2025:

Space Show News:

The explosion of Starship 36 on the test stand at Starbase, Texas.

(Insert courtesy NSF)

Turn Back Time:

NASA’s Scout small satellite launcher program

(Feature courtesy The Space Story, NASA 1989)

Is Elon Musk's plan to settle Mars a visionary dream, or a nightmare folly?

* Elon Musk outlines his plan for using Starships to put a human settlement on Mars

* Reactions to that plan by the Planetary Society's Bill Nye and the Mars Society’s founder and president, Robert Zubrin.

(Inserts courtesy SpaceX and Humans to the Moon & Mars Summit)

Listen to the late David Willson, Research and Development Engineer, Space Science and Astrobiology Division, NASA Ames Research Center and Vice President of the Mars Society Australia talk about SpaceX Red Dragon — a collaboration between SpaceX and NASA.

(Recorded by The Space Show in Melbourne, Australia at a joint meeting of the Mars Society Australia and the Space Association of Australia in 2016. Note: Red Dragon was cancelled in July 2017).

See Dr Robert Zubrin’s full presentation, “How to Make the Mars Initiative Successful”, at the 2025 Humans to the Moon and Mars Summit.