6 Heroes of Planetary Defense, 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. Are we making progress toward avoiding the fate of the

dinosaurs? That was the theme when I welcomed an international group of

experts for the only public event at this year's Planetary Defense Conference.

You'll hear their very encouraging reports on today's show and we'll talk about what's

ahead including the first mission to test asteroid deflection. One of those experts is our own

Bruce Betts. He'll stay with us for a Planetary Defense Center edition of What's Up,

including the return of the rubber asteroid of Doom. I'm very grateful to everyone who took a

moment to rate and review Planetary Radio in Apple Podcasts. I'm even more grateful to all of

you who subscribed. No worries if you haven't gotten around to it. The cosmos and I are patient.

Even giant planets have reason to worry about asteroid and comet impacts. Take a look at what

comet Schumacher-Levy 9 did to Jupiter in 1994. Ouch! You'll find the image at the top of the

May 7 edition of the downlink. Great Space Headlines 2, though Mars helicopter ingenuity has now

completed a fifth flight across the red planet. I hope you'll join us for next week's show when

I'll welcome back ingenuity project manager Mimi Young. And there's much more than news at

planetary.org slash downlink. Our friends at Explore Mars have scheduled the very first Mars

Innovation Forum for May 25 to 27 and they've lined up a terrific collection of red planet

stars for this virtual event. I'll be moderating a session called Building and Creating on Mars.

But I look forward to hearing all the great conversations. You can check it out and register at

ExploreMars.org. The four-day 2021 Planetary Defense Conference ended on April 30. Like so

many other regular gatherings this year participants had to meet online. This limitation doesn't seem

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