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On Episode 172 of This Week In Space, Rod Pyle and guest host Rick Jenet are joined by Erika Alden DeBenedictis to discuss how terraforming Mars might work.
If we’re ever to make Mars a second home, we have some serious housekeeping to do… as in a total renovation. The Red Planet has little atmosphere, no radiation shielding, and some seriously toxic soil. How can we make it more Earthlike… and should we?
Dr. Erika Alden DeBenedictis joins us to discuss how terraforming might work, how it could be done in decades instead of millennia, and the questions surrounding the ethics of changing another planet to suit humanity’s needs. We say it’s a trailer park of a planet, but the best bet for human expansion.
Dr. Rick Jenet is this week’s co-host. Join us for the conversation!
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Space news of the week
Model Falcon 9!
Finally, did you know you can launch your own SpaceX rocket? Model rocket maker Estes’ stunning scale model of a Falcon 9 rocket that you can pick up now. The launchable model is a detailed recreation of the Falcon 9 and retails for $149.99. You can save 10% by using the code IN-COLLECTSPACE at checkout, courtesy of our partners collectSPACE.com.
About This Week In Space
Join Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik from Space.com as they tackle those questions and more each week on Friday afternoons. You can subscribe today on your favorite podcatcher.
Rod Pyle is an author, journalist, television producer and Editor-in-Chief of Ad Astra magazine. He has written 18 books on space history, exploration, and development, including Space 2.0, Innovation the NASA Way, Interplanetary Robots, Blueprint for a Battlestar, Amazing Stories of the Space Age, First On the Moon, and Destination Mars
In a previous life, Rod produced numerous documentaries and short films for The History Channel, Discovery Communications, and Disney. He also worked in visual effects on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and the Battlestar Galactica reboot, as well as various sci-fi TV pilots. His most recent TV credit was with the NatGeo documentary on Tom Wolfe’s iconic book The Right Stuff.
Responsible for Space.com’s editorial vision, Tariq Malik has been the Editor-in-Chief of Space.com since 2019 and has covered space news and science for 18 years. He joined the Space.com team in 2001, first as an intern and soon after as a full-time spaceflight reporter covering human spaceflight, exploration, astronomy and the night sky. He became Space.com’s managing editor in 2009. As on-air talent has presented space stories on CNN, Fox News, NPR and others.
Tariq is an Eagle Scout (yes, he earned the Space Exploration merit badge), a Space Camp veteran (4 times as a kid, once as an adult), and has taken the ultimate “vomit comet” ride while reporting on zero-gravity fires. Before joining Space.com, he served as a staff reporter for The Los Angeles Times covering city and education beats. He has journalism degrees from the University of Southern California and New York University.