| BROADCAST DATE |
SUBJECT | DESCRIPTION |
|---|---|---|
| January 3 | Space Songs | In an extended Space Show lasting two and a half hours, a range of songs about spaceflight. |
| Janaury 10 | Summer Science Fiction | Science fiction stories from the 1950's. |
| January 10 | John Young | Marking the death of six times astronaut (Gemini 3, Gemini 10, Apollo 10, Apollo 16, STS 1 and STS 9). Listen or download (23 min 10 s - 22.2 MB) |
| January 17 | Summer Science Fiction | Science fiction stories from the 1950's. |
| January24 | Rocket Lab's "Still Testing" Launch | The successful launch of three satellites from New Zealand. The Space Show's edit of the live commentary from Rocket Lab in Auckland. Long silent stretches have been edited out.
Listen or download the Jan 20 launch abort (29 min 36 s - 28.4 MB) Listen or download the "Do you want a hold?" comment (26 s - 0.4 MB) Listen or download the January 21 successful launch of the Electron rocket (8 min 59 s - 8.6 MB) |
| Janaury 24 | Summer Science Fiction | Science fiction stories from the 1950's. |
| Janaury 31 | Summer Science Fiction | Science fiction stories from the 1950's. |
| February 14 | Falcon Heavy Maiden Launch | The first launch of SpaceX's Falcon Heravy rocket places a Tesla roadster into heliocentric orbit. Includes comments by Andrew and Jay. (Inserts courtesy SpaceX)
Listen or download (23 min 27 s - 22.5 MB) |
| February 28 | Tour Of Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Museum | William Parker takes us through the museum. Topics discussed include: geostationary orbit; pirates and Jules Verne; V-2 engine; cruise missile tests; range safety; Delta rocket and GPS satellites; Gemini; and Discoverer satellites.
Listen or download (17 min 53 s - 17.2 MB) |
| March 21 | Name Into Space | A description of the Parker Solar Probe and how listeners can get their name aboard the spacraft. |
| April 11 | Apollo 8 - Astronauts and Mission Controllers | Apollo 8 astronauts, Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders, and Apollo Flight Directors, Jerry Griffin and Glynn Lunney, describe some of the events on mankind's first trip to orbit the Moon. Includes the drawing out of a hat the names of the Space Association members who will be attending the screening of the movie MISSION CONTROL: The Unsung Heroes of Apollo (see below).
Listen or download (43 min 50 s - 42.1 MB) Read about and listen to a 1966 visit by Frank Borman to New Zealand. Listen to our 2014 (October 15, 22 and 29) Space Show interviews with Charlie Duke. |
| April 11 | Space Association Ticket Draw | The drawing out of a hat the names of the Space Association members who will be attending the screening of the movie MISSION CONTROL: The Unsung Heroes of Apollo followed by a question and answer session with legendary Apollo 16 astronaut and moonwalker, Charlie Duke, and Apollo mission control flight director, Gerry Griffin, live on stage at the Astor Cinema or other venues in 2018 May. * Listen or download (9 min 26 s - 9.1 MB) * View a later picture of the screening event * Dorothy and Charlie Duke at Astor Theatre in 2018 |
| April 25 | The Launch of TESS | The events at Cape Canaveral during the launch of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite by a Falcon 9 rocket. (Inserts courtesy NASA) |
| May 16 | Grace and Grace Follow-On | The end of the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment mission and the imminent launch of the Grace Follow-on satellites. (Inserts courtesy NASA HQ)
Listen or download (15 min 11 s - 14.6 MB) |
| May 23 | Landsat Status | The Landsat 7, 8 and 9 satellite status.
Listen or download (6 min 1 s - 5.8 MB) |
| May 30 | Alan Bean | Marking the death of Apollo 12 and Skylab 3 astronaut and artist Alan Bean. |
| June 6 | Alan Bean | Celebrating the life of Apollo 12 and Skylab 3 astronaut and artist Alan Bean in word and music. |
| June 13 | 2001 : A Space Odyssey | The 50th anniversary of the Stanley Kubrick / Arthur C Clarke movie. Included music, discussion about the film, a reading by Arthur Clarke and a chat with Igor Rozenberg (Member, Space Association of Australia). |
| June 27 | Roving Mars Episode 141 | News about the planet-encircling dust event that has put the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity out of action. New findings about methane on Mars. Ancient organic molecules dicovered on Mars. Curiosity's drill now working. Plans for future exploration of Mars. Comedic music. (Inserts courtesy MSFC, GSFC, NASA) |
| July 4 | Melbourne Launch Event for DESIS | As the countdown for the launch of the SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket to loft the CRS-15 Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station proceeded, engineers from La Trobe University in Bundoora met at the headquarters of Engineers Australia to discuss their involvment. Stowed on the Dragon was a hyperspectral camera called DESIS - the DLR Earth Sensing Imaging Spectrometer. This had been developed jointly by the German Space Agency, DLR, and the Engineering Department of La Trobe University. Speakers included Dr. Peter Moar (Engineering Department, La Trobe University), Professor Alan Duffy (Lead Scientist, Swinburne University), Mr. Darrell Elton (Technical Lead, La Trobe University) and Warwick Holmes (University of Sydney).
Listen or download (46 min 56 s - 45.1 MB) A DLR image of DESIS on ISS |
| July 18 | Book Review : Rocket Men | The Space Association of Australia's Peter Aylward and Michael Abdilla review Scribe Publications' book Rocket Men, which tells the story of Apollo 8, mankind's first voyage to the Moon. Also, the draw of names of Space Association members who will recieve complementary copies of the book, courtesy of Scribe Publications.
Listen or download (23 min 11 s - 22.3 MB) An image of the book's cover |
| July 25 | Hayabusa 2 | Hayabusa 2's activities at asteroid Ryugu. Stationed at 20 km, but has come as close as 6 km. Also an extended feature from JAXA on Hayabusa 2 mission. |
| July 25 | Space Instrument Potpouri | Details of TSIS (Total Solar Irradiance Sensor), CuSP (cubesat), and LIS (lightning sensor). |
| August 1 | Water On Moon and Mars | James Kirby (Undergraduate Student, RMIT University, Melbourne) discusses the "Rhabdomancer" proposal to get ice samples from Cabeus Crater at the lunar south pole. Then, from the Italian Space Agency, the finding of subglacial liquid water on Mars. Enrico Flamini (former Chief Scientist, ASI, Rome), Elena Pettinelli (Department of Mathematics and Physics, University Studi Roma Tre) and Roberto Orosei (Instituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, Bologna) report on the Mars Express MARSIS instrument's finding of what appears to be water 1.5 km below the south polar cap.
Listen or download (40 min 52 s - 39.2 MB) Listen or download lunar ice only (15 min 32 s - 14.9 MB) Listen or download Mars water only (26 min 45 s - 25.7 MB) |
| August 8 | Pioneer Venus | Marking today's 40th anniversary of the launch of Pioneer Venus 2, a feature on the Pioneer Venus spacecraft, and an update feature on the Venus Express spacecraft's investigations of the ionopsheric holes of Venus. (Inserts courtesy NASA and ESA) |
| August 8 | New View Of Human-made Carbon Dioxide | Data from the Orbiting Carbon Observatory has been used by Finnish scientists to prepare maps of anthropogenic sources of carbon dioxide. |
| August 15 | Exoplanets | An exploration of the history of exoplanet discovery, the TESS mission, the Australian documentary film Living Universe (to screen at IMAX Melbourne), the TRAPPIST planets and music, compiled from reports from the European Southern Observatory, the Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA, IMAX Melbourne and the Space Telescope Science Institute.
Listen or download (45 min 32 s - 43.7 MB) |
| September 5 | Living Universe | Interviews and vox-pops about the Australian film Living Universe. Included: Tamara Davis (Professor, School of Mathematics and Physics, The University of Queensland, Brisbane) who played the role of "Captain Artemis"; Marcus Gillezeau (Film Producer, Sydney) and people emerging from the film's Melbourne premier at IMAX Melbourne.
Listen or download (48 min 15 s - 46.3 MB) N.B. During the programme Marcus Gillezeau's name was mispronounced. Here is the correct pronunciation. Listen or download (0 min 5 s - 0.08 MB) |
| September 12 | Tracy's Boulder | The truth and fiction about "Split Rock" in the Taurus Littrow region of the Moon. A brief biography of astronaut Gene Cernan (Gemini 9, Apollo 10 and Apollo 17), how Tracy Cernan's initials were scratched into the lunar soil, how Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean painted Tracy's name as it might have appeared on "Split Rock", and "Tracy's Song".
Listen or download (16 min 19 s - 15.7 MB) |
| September 19 | New Horizons and the Reclassification of Pluto | A status update on the New Horizons mission and the planned encounter with Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule. Told in song and word, the reclassification of Pluto from "planet" to "dwarf planet" stutus. |
| September 19 | Philae | A poem by Mario Petrucci about the Philae spacecraft that landed on Comet 67P, Churyumov-Gerasimenko. |
| September 19 | Exoplanets | A 2009 report on the discovery of exoplanets, and a 2018 explanation of how data from TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, will be used. (Inserts courtesy ESO and NASA) |
| September 26 | NASA 60th | Marking the 60th anniversary of the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration in words and music. Included the recollections of NASA's first Administrator, Keith Glennan, and Mercury 13 astronaut candidate, Wally Funk.
Listen or download (44 min 16 s - 42.5 MB) |
| October 3 | First Man | A review of the movie First Man and a discussion about Neil Armstrong in words and music. Included audience reactions, a review by Len Halprin (Committee Member, Space Association of Australia), a chat with Eric Jones (Editor, Apollo Lunar Surface Journal, Woodonga) about the Apollo astronauts, and music about Neil Armstrong.
Listen or download (39 min 42 s - 38.1 MB) |
| October 10 | Landing MASCOT on Ryugu | The Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa 2 deploys the German MASCOT probe onto the surface of asteroid Ryugu. Early results. (Audio inserts courtesy DLR)
Listen or download (47 min 30 s - 45.6 MB) |
| October 17 | Soyuz MS-10 Launch Failure | The abortive attempt to launch two astronauts to the International Space Station; the impact on other manned and unmanned projects. (Audio inserts courtesy NASA) Listen or download (33 min 6 s - 31.8 MB) |
| October 31 | Antarctic Ice Melt | Satellites have shown that the rate of ice-melt in Antarctica has trippled since 2012 and has contributed three millimetres to global sea levels since then, and 7.6 mm since 1992. |
| November 7 | Honeysuckle Creek | A review by Peter Aylward of Andrew Tink's book Honeysuckle Creek : The Story of Tom Reid, A Little Dish and Neil Armstrong's First Step, and a fun look at the tracking station using the skits by "The Honeysuckle Honeys" and the poetry of Brian Hale, as read by Colin Tyrus (presenter of A Newsman and His Music), and music.
* Listen or download full feature (43 min 10 s - 41.5 MB) * Listen or download Peter's background comments only (3 min 48 s - 3.7 MB) * Listen or download Peter's review only (14 min 25 s - 13.9 MB) * Listen or download Apollo 11 poem only (2 min 35 s - 2.5 MB) * Listen or download Tranquility Base Here poem only (2 min 23 s - 2.3 MB) * Listen or download The Eagle Has Landed poem only (1 min 21 s - 1.3 MB) * Visit Colin Mackellar's Honeysuckle Creek website to hear the "Honeysuckle Honeys" skits, to read the Brian Hale poems and learn lots more about the people who worked at this Australian run tracking station. * Image of book's cover * Visit NewSouth Publishing's website to learn more about the book. |
| November 14 | Rocket Lab It's Business Time | The launch of two Australian satellites, Proxima 1 and Proxima 2, and four other satellites by an Electron rocket from New Zealand. Listen or download (19 min 9 s - 18.4 MB) |
| November 14 | Buran | Marking the 30th anniversary of the one and only spaceflight of the Soviet Space Shuutle, the Buran. Listen or download (16 min 28 s - 15.8 MB) |
| November 21 | Space Junk - Part One | The history of space surveillance and the growing risk posed by orbital debris. The movie Gravity; the first report of a satellite collision; the Moonwatch satellite tracking effort; a report from 1994; Rocket Lab's NABEO and the European Student Earth Orbiter drag sails; how Australia could contribute to space surveillance (Peter Nikoloff, Nova Systems, Adelaide and Alice Gorman, Australian Space Industry Association, Adelaide); space environment management and RMIT research programmes (Robert Norman, RMIT Space Research Centre, RMIT University, Melbourne) and; why space surveillance is necessary, the role of treaties and the future management of space (Gordon Frazer, Research Leader, Defence Science Technology Group.) Listen or download (40 min 05 s - 38.5 MB) |
| November 28 | Europa 1 F-7 | Marking the 50th anniversary of the orbital launch attempt of ELDO's Europa 1 F-7 rocket from Woomera. Included: an interview with Australian aerospace engineer Malcolm Phillips, who worked on ELDO, Wresat and Space Shuttle; and music.
* Listen or download (47 min 48 s - 45.9 MB) * Listen or download interview only (19 min 12 s - 18.4 MB) |
| December 5 | Space Junk - Part Two | Debris detection using ionospheric wake modelling (Christopher Capon, Ph.D. Student, University of New South Wales, Canberra); use of photon pressure to alter satellite paths and so avoid collisions (Robert Norman, RMIT Space Research Centre, RMIT University, Melbourne); wide field of view sensing for surveiilance of space (Gordon Frazer, Research Leader, DST Group); the "Space Fence" proposal for Australia's North-west Cape (Lockheed Martin); NORAD tracks Santa; and Operationally Responsive Space (Orbital ATK). Listen or download (37 min 53 s - 36.4 MB) |
| December 12 | Space Junk - Part Three | Characterising space Objects; orbital debris proliferation; prediction of satellite orbits; work with the African Union Commission (Michael Afful, Ph.D. Student, Aerospace Research Centre, RMIT University, Melbourne); the "Space Fence"; and the history of NORAD tracks Santa. Listen or download (18 min 7 s - 17.4 MB) |
| December 19 | Apollo 8 | Marking the 50th anniverarsy of the first human mission to the Moon, an explanation of how the "Earthrise" photo was taken, and how the decision to read from "Genesis" was reached. Listen or download (30 min 28 s - 29.3 MB) |
| December 19 | SCORE | The 60th anniversary of the broadcast of a message from U.S. President Eisenhower from the Signal Communication Orbit Relay Experiment satellite, the first time a human voice was broadcast from space. Listen or download (12 min 18 s - 11.8 MB) |
