Looking for E.T.'s flashlight this week on planetary radio. I'm Hi everyone, welcome to Public Radio's travel show that takes you to the final frontier.

I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society. the optical search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

We'll get an update from Paul on that project in just a couple of minutes.

Emily Lachto-Wala is looking for the remnants of the Apollo landings on the moon in her

Q&A segment, and then there's the terrible rocket accident

suffered by Bruce Betts and yours truly in today's what's up look at the night sky.

Who could ask for anything more on a space radio show?

Well, you could start with Bill Nye, so we will.

Hey, Bill Nye, the planetary guy here, vice president of planetary society.

And this week, the Obama administration is going to pick the next

administrator of NASA.

Now, if someone is an administrator administrator that doesn't sound like a big deal but in the case of NASA this is an old title and it is a big deal.

This person will shape space exploration perhaps for the next two or three decades, 20 or 30 years,

because the Obama administration is going to bring about great changes.

Now, does it make any difference who this person is? I mean, the NASA budget is just not even a percent of the federal. Yes, it makes a huge difference, people.

What we want is not somebody who is necessarily technically brilliant

Although we don't want somebody who's technically not interested

We want somebody mainly who can inspire

That's what NASA should be in the business of doing. See, it's one thing to plan to go back to the moon. It's one thing to decide whether three people

are going to go back or six people are 12 or 15 or are we going to go on to Mars?

No, we want people to get all of us taxpayers and voters excited, excited about space exploration, not confronting people about details that don't matter to most of us.

Instead we want people to get excited.

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