This Week In Space Podcast: Episode 130 – Dogs on Mars, Snakes on the Moon

Dogs on Mars, Snakes on the Moon – Mars Sample Return and VIPER – YouTube

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In Episode 130 of This Week In Space, Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik talk with Dr. Jim Bell about the Mars Sample Return program and the VIPER mission to the moon.

NASA’s planetary exploration program is in trouble. The Mars Sample Return program is about to be canceled, and the VIPER mission to the Moon already has been. Both are essential precursors to human exploration of these places, as Dr. Jim Bell of Arizona State University will tell us.

We need to know more about the surface of Mars – with direct laboratory studies of Mars rocks – and we certainly need to understand where volatiles – another name for water and other valuable resources – are found. the moon. And if you’re the U.S. government, you’d like to do both before China – which is probably not far off.