Humanity enters the era of solar sailing 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. We may be less than a month from

making space exploration history. The Cosmos One spacecraft is packed and

ready to go. We'll get a status report from the father of the first ever

solar sale Lou Friedman. Then we'll turn to Andruyan,

widow and former collaborator of Carl Sagan,

and the head of Cosmos Studios, for which the pioneering probe was named.

A quick look at space headlines first.

On the second attempt, Space Shuttle Discovery passed a test fueling of its external tank. NASA says it's a go for the return to flight as soon

as July. It looks a little like an ancient mosaic from a Roman ruin, you know, with a few pieces missing? What it is is a remarkable

assembly of images the Huygens Lander took as it descended to the surface of Saturn's moon Titan

last January.

Check it out at planetary.org

and you may see what scientists believe are drainage channels,

carved by liquid methane.

We'll end our micro-newscast with this little story just so you can join us in saying

How cool is that? In the crowded skies over the red planet the Mars Global

Surveyor has tipped its hat and taken a snapshot or two of its European colleague

Mars Express and an even closer picture of Mars Odyssey. The opportunity

arose when the two orbiters recently passed within about 90 kilometers, or less than 60 miles of each other.

You can see Mars Odyssey blowing a kiss at planetary.org.

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