MAVEN reaches Mars on planetary radio live. Planetary Radio Live. Live. Welcome to the Travel Show that takes you to the Final Frontier.

I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society, ready to present a few highlights from our exciting live

show on the evening of Sunday September 21st. Joining me on stage were our

faithful Planetary Society regulars, senior editor Emily Loch

Diwala and director of science and technology Bruce Betts. Later you'll hear

a portion of our live conversation with Bill Nye the Science Guy Guy, courtesy of his iPhone, and in a few moments

you'll meet Rich Zurich of JPL.

Here's how the show began at the Crawford Family Forum in Pasadena, California.

Welcome to another edition of Planetary Radio Live.

I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society. We are here to celebrate the arrival of a

human-made emissary at another world. In less than an hour and a half,

maven will go into orbit around Mars

if one last critical firing of its rocket engine

goes exactly as plan.

We'll turn to NASA TV in less than an hour

for its coverage of that burn.

Till then, we've got three terrific guests of our own who will be talking about how this

spacecraft will unveil more closely held secrets of the red planet. We'll also examine our ever

expanding knowledge of Mars with most of that knowledge gained through the

robots that we've sent there. Dr. Richard Zurich is chief scientist

for the Mars Program Office

at the nearby Jet Propulsion Laboratory

...