My Chilean Alma adventure this week on planetary radio. Radio.

Welcome to the Travel Show that takes you to the Final Frontier, and this time to the driest spot on Earth.

I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society.

I'm back from Chile's Otakama Desert with a great story to tell.

I'll begin the telling here and continue it next week. You'll hear from many people who have dedicated

years or decades to the creation of Alma, the Otakama Large Millimeter

an sub-millimeter array, are's most ambitious and highest astronomy instrument.

We'll check in with Bruce Batts II and Bill Nye is up right now.

Emily Lochuyla is at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Texas.

We'll talk with her next week.

Bill, it's good to be back, good to be talking with you, and I guess while I was in Chile,

the fight to save planetary science continued?

Yes, yes, Casey Dreyer, the Planetary Society's political analyst and I,

went to Congressman Adam Schiff's office

in Burbank, California, and we talk to talk about what the next move is and

this and that.

And so everybody wants to restore the funding for planetary science, but no one's done it yet so we'll see what happens

apparently the Office of Management and Budget are the gossip and gab that we've received

needs a nudge that need to be reminded how important planetary science is.

Matt, in the meantime, while you were flying around there with your amazing deep space

telescopes, this guy, Dennis Dennis Tito wants to send a couple to

Mars and back. I heard about this. For two billion dollars US. Now the Apollo

...