Matt Gollumbek and 20 years on Mars this week on planetary radio.

Welcome, I'm at Kaplan of the Planetary Society with more of the human adventure across our

solar system and beyond. We just celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Pathfinder Landers' arrival on the red planet.

We're also celebrating the continuous presence of humanities robots on and above Mars ever since.

And I can't think of anyone better to celebrate with than JPL's Matt Gollumbek, who has been deeply

involved in every American mission to Mars over those two decades. Matt will join us in a few minutes. Bill Nye has the week off as he sets

out on tour with his brand new book, Everything All At Once. But we've got Bruce Betts to tell

us about the night sky and offer some great prizes in the new space

trivia contest.

We begin by spending a few minutes with the Planetary Society's Director of Space Policy, Casey

Dreyer.

Casey, good to get you back on the regular edition of Planetary Radio.

Sounds like the nation once again has a National Space Council, sort of.

Yes, we do. The executive order has been signed.

That means we have a, at least on paper, a group of individuals, heads of various government

agencies that all involve space, an as-yet undefined user advisory group

of outside experts, probably industry representing space interests, and led by Mike Pence, the

vice president of the United States, as yet to meet to form some

sort of coherent space policy for both military and civilian space in the United States.

That is the intention.

We haven't had one since the early George H.W. Bush

administration back in the late 80s.

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