Defending Earth, this week on planetary radio.

Welcome, I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society,

with more of a human adventure across our solar system and beyond.

I was between trips as I assembled this week's show.

You'll soon hear from some of the great people I talk with at the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts

Symposium held last week in Huntsville, Alabama.

Now I'm off to what I expect will be another fascinating conversation, this time in Kentucky.

I'll join a panel of distinguished experts in many disciplines to discuss how space exploration

and space settlement will change society and what it means to be human.

I hope to bring you some of that event as well.

Advancing planetary defense is one of the planetary society's core initiatives.

That's why Emily Loch Wala invited Vishnu ready to write about the current state of

our ability to avoid the fate of the dinosaurs. You'll find Vishnu's excellent article in the

fall Equinox edition of the planetary report. Anyone can read it at planetary.org. I've got the printed edition that goes

lower members in my hands. It provided the pathway for my conversation with

Vishnu that you're about to hear. His research at the University of Arizona's

lunar and planetary lab focuses on understanding the behavior of space objects,

both natural and artificial, in Earth orbit and beyond.

Vishnu is part of the Osiris Rex and Destiny Plus missions

and contributed to the Dawn mission that visited Vesta and series.

There has been an important development since I interviewed

Vishnu. NASA announced a few days ago the Near Earth Object Surveillance Mission. This new

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