It's a Martian one-year anniversary this week on planetary radio. Hi everyone, welcome to Public Radio's travel show that takes you to the final frontier.

I'm Matt Kaplan.

A year on Mars for Spirit and Opportunity, and not just a measly Earth-type

year, a Martian year is nearly twice as long as one of ours. We'll celebrate and reflect with Jim Bell of the Mars Exploration

Rover team. Later today, Bruce Bats will call with a new edition of our What's Up segment

and we've got a special prize for the winner of his

space trivia contest. A celebration is also at the top of our space news this week.

On its second attempt the Japanese Hbusa spacecraft successfully grabbed a few grams of asteroid

Itakawa.

The exact amount of space rock acquired won't be known till the little probe returns to Earth

in June of 2007.

Read all about it at planetary.org.

The deputy head of China's space program says putting Chinese astronauts on the

moon by 2020 is a pretty good goal, budget permitting,

and why not throw in a new space station while you're at it?

The world's largest nation denies any sense of competition with the United States.

Hmm, what would you call something like that? A space race?

Catchy.

And while Bruce will have an update on the solar system's only current space station during what's up,

I had to share this item with you. It seems ISS Commander Bill MacArthur just couldn't wait to see the latest Harry Potter movie.

NASA found a way to get it to him and it didn't involve port keys, flu powder, or brooms.

I wonder how popcorn tastes in space.

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