Growing Life Beyond Earth: Dr. Marshall Porterfield on Space Biology and the Artemis III Mission
Join host Susan Wise on Stars LaunchPod as she speaks with Dr. Marshall Porterfield, Purdue University professor and NASA researcher, about how his team is preparing to grow plants on the Moon through the groundbreaking LEAF experiment aboard Artemis III. Discover how space biology, biosensors, and mitochondrial research are shaping the future of sustainable space exploration, food production beyond Earth, and precision medicine inspired by NASA’s GeneLab and Twins Study. Welcome to LaunchPod, where we chat with innovators who are overcoming challenges, pushing boundaries, and collaborating to make space more accessible and sustainable for humanity—one launch at a
Send Your Name Around the Moon with NASA’s Artemis II Mission
Have you ever dreamed of going to space? What if you could send your name on a real space mission — even if you never put on a spacesuit? NASA’s “Send Your Name with Artemis” campaign gives you that chance. Through this free, global initiative, anyone — students, families, educators, and space enthusiasts around the world — can submit their name to be carried around the Moon aboard the upcoming Artemis II mission. What Is the Artemis Program? The Artemis program is NASA’s ambitious effort to return humans to the Moon and establish a long-term presence there — as
Meet Lucas Lowery: The 12-Year-Old Shaping Future Space Missions
Discover how a passionate seventh grader is already presenting at national space conferences, building CubeSats, researching AI, and shaping the future of space exploration. Meet Lucas Lowery—the young innovator proving the next generation is ready for liftoff. Shorter- At just 12, Lucas Lowery is building satellites, speaking at space conferences, and preparing for Mars. This rising star is the future of aerospace. Susan Wise: Hi, and welcome to Stars Launch Pod, Space Technology and Research Sciences, brought to you by StarSciences.org, where we connect, collaborate, and accelerate. I'm your host, Susan Wise, and I'm honored to have with
The Geologist, the Rover, and the Existential Question: Searching for Life on the Ancient Red Planet
The Detective Work in the Ancient Rock Record Dr. Williams is a professor in the geology department at the University of Florida. She holds a PhD, clarifying that she is a "doctor of course... and not the MD doctor" because, thankfully, she prefers rocks to blood. Her research centers on applying her knowledge of rocks and life to study how life is preserved in the ancient rock record on Earth. This is the foundation for her work in geobiology and astrobiology. Her primary focus with NASA is working directly with the data coming back from the Mars Rovers Curiosity
Astronomers detect rare ‘free floating’ exoplanet 10,000 light-years from Earth
Rogue planets — worlds that drift through space alone without a star — largely remain a mystery to scientists. Now, astronomers have for the first time confirmed the existence of one of these starless worlds by pinpointing its distance and mass — a rogue planet roughly the size of Saturn nearly 10,000 light-years from Earth. Planets are typically found bound to one or more stars. However, in 2000, astronomers detected the first signs of a "rogue planet" — a free-floating world that orbited no star. Then, in 2024, researchers detected an object distorting the light from a distant star, simultaneously from both