Why bringing an asteroid home is a good idea this week on planetary radio.

Welcome to the travel show that takes you to the final frontier.

I'm at Kaplan to the Final Frontier.

I'm at Kaplan of the Planetary Society.

Does anybody outside the White House and NASA headquarters like the asteroid redirect

mission?

Yes, and Jonathan Gough is one of them. We'll hear his reasons today.

Bill and I will talk to us about a CubSat explosion.

Wait, that came out wrong, but you'll get the idea.

And Bruce Betts will be here with more jewels in the current

night sky along with the space trivia contest. Senior editor Emily Lachtoala is ready to take us back to Mars. Emily, another nice long review of what Curiosity has been up to up on the red planet.

Give us a general overview.

What has been accomplished?

Well, it took about a month of work, but Curiosity did a full drill campaign at a site called Mojave, which is at the base of this light-colored outcrop of rock called Perump Hills.

You know, drilling, it's a long procedure for curiosity because you got to pick the site,

you got to set up at the site, you got to do some pre-drilling documentation, you got to make sure it's

okay for drilling, and then you drill and then you deliver to the instruments and then you

analyze that a little bit you decide how much more you want to deliver and then you can

drive on and really the fastest they can do this is in a little less than three weeks

it took them a bit more took them about four in part because they also had to update their software while they were there, which could have happened anywhere. It happens to the best of us.

It was actually, to my mind, the most successful drilling campaign they've had since they were at Cumberland because it really wasn't marred by any equipment problems.

It was just you know the the usual long procedure that got all the documentation needed and and hopefully we we'll get good science out of it.

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