Hello again podcast listeners. I'm just taking a moment to thank all of you who went the

extra mile or kilometer or light year last week. You made generous donations in

support of this program and I am very grateful. There's still plenty of time

for the rest of you to respond before the end of the year. You can help keep

planetary radio strong and growing and possibly get a nice tax deduction for 2013 to say

nothing of that Planetary Radio T-shirt will put in the mail for gifts of $50 or more. We're still in need of underwriters too. The links are at planetary.org

slash radio. Thanks again. Enjoy the show.

A farewell to the Admiral of the Solar System, this week on planetary radio. Welcome to the travel show that takes you to the Final Frontier.

I'm at Kaplan of the Planetary Society, Admiral of the Solar System.

That's what some called the towering figure known as Bruce Murray.

Today we'll hear excerpts from his memorial service at Caltech.

First, though, Emily will be here with news about the launch of an exciting mission.

Later, Bruce Betts will tell us what's not up in the night sky that would be Comet Ison.

And we'll find out who won our contest to put Dad in space.

Dad the acronym, not the person.

Emily, thanks to China, it looks like we're going to be landing on the moon again fairly soon.

Yeah, it's very exciting. It's going to be the first lunar soft landing in 37 years and not

only is it a lander, but it carries a rover too, so I'm truly excited about this mission.

You have shared some really terrific video that the Chinese have provided direct from this rocket

and spacecraft.

Yeah, they had cameras on both the second and third stages of their long March 3b rocket.

The rocket just leapt off the launch pad and there was that great Saturn 5 type shot looking down the rocket

...