#77 Part 2 November 2018

The Discussion: Jeni talking exoplanets and aliens at Cardiff Museum and we take a no spoiler look at the Neil Armstrong biopic, First Man.

The News: Rounding up the space and astronomy news this month we have:

  • Commercial spaceflight update
  • New Zealand’s Rocket Lab build a new launch site in the US
  • The winners & losers in USAF’s launcher funding competition
  • China’s Long March 5 rocket failure induces delays
  • The death of the Kepler space telescope
  • Russian Soyuz failures risk human access to space
  • Hubble dead? Don’t believe the hype
  • OSIRIS-Rex begins its final manoeuvres to land on an asteroid

Main news story: Europe and Japan’s Bepicolumbo mission to Mercury.

The Interview: Jeni interviews Bethan James, astronomer & astrophysicist currently working as an ESA/AURA Astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) on the Hubble instrument team.

Q&A: Listeners’ questions via email, Facebook & Twitter take us on a journey into the astronomy issues that have always plagued our understanding or stretched our credulity. This month we take a look USAF’s rocket funding decision:

Why wasn’t SpaceX funded in the latest US military space funding round while Blue Origin was? Mark De Vrij, UK.

Awesome Astronomy
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