The building blocks of life in a nearly impossible place this week on

planetary radio. on Planetary Radio. Radio. Welcome to Public Radio's travel show that takes you to the Final Frontier.

I'm at Kaplan of the Planetary Society. It was the first recovered meteorite to be observed

before it hit our planet. Inside that tortured rock, scientists have found amino acids, the complex molecules that are the basis of life.

We'll talk with the Goddard Space Flight Centers Michael Callahan about this surprising find.

Our hearts go out to all the scientists and engineers who took part in the glory

mission that Earth-observing satellite failed to make it into orbit last week. Bill Nye, the science

and planetary guy, will share his own observations.

And we'll save time for another conversation with my friend Bruce Betts.

He'll tell us what's up and easy to see in the night sky.

Bruce and I will also give away another Livio Carmen Car Audio Player.

Up first is our weekly conversation with the Planetary Society's

Science and Technology Coordinator Emily Loch Lachto-Wala.

Emily, more great stuff in the blog to talk about this week, much more than we'll have time to talk

about, but oddly, I realized we haven't talked about Mars and the rovers in a long time and I guess I should say the rover.

We still haven't heard from Spirit, right?

Still haven't heard from Spirit.

We're getting very close to the longest solar day on Mars of the year and if we get past that

and haven't heard from spirit, then I think hope is really going to fade even among the

most hopeful of people.

But they're still trying.

They're still trying to raise her.

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