S8 Ep641: PREVIEW FOR LATER. Guest Bob Zimmerman details the 2029 flyby of asteroid Apophis. He examines international and private missions, including student-led landers and orbital tugs, designed to study the massive object during its close approach. (3)
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 25 March 2026
⏱️ 3 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
1953
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This is John Batchel, a conversation with Bob Zimmerman about the anticipation of Apophis, |
| 0:06.8 | a fairly large asteroid that's flying fairly close to the U.S. in 2029, and the rest of the planet as well. |
| 0:14.9 | As Bob says here, it's a bad day if it hits us. It's not going to so far. Not going to hit the moon either, but it'll be close. |
| 0:22.4 | And their missions planned, private mission to land on Apophis as it goes by. This is when |
| 0:28.4 | worlds collide without the colliding part. Much more of anticipation of this in the coming |
| 0:36.1 | weeks and months to 2029. Set your calendar. That's the day |
| 0:41.3 | the earth dies, but not really. Not yet. It's natural. A solar system is swimming with |
| 0:50.6 | asteroids that size and larger, but not yet. Here's Bob. All right. So, |
| 0:58.0 | this is a potentially dangerous asteroid. It's big, and if it hit the Earth, it would be a very bad day. |
| 1:05.6 | It's going to fly past the Earth in 2029. It's actually going to come in very close, almost as close as geosynchronous |
| 1:13.4 | satellites, and it's going to be relatively close to the moon as well as it flies away. And during that |
| 1:19.4 | flyby, a lot of nations and agencies are flying missions there. There's also a private company that's going to fly a mission there. |
| 1:29.1 | It's a company called X-Labs. |
| 1:30.3 | They are an orbital tug company to demonstrate their capabilities. |
| 1:34.2 | They put together a mission they call Apophis X-L. |
| 1:37.8 | It's a private mission that's going to fly close to Apophis as it does. |
| 1:41.5 | It's fly-by. |
| 1:42.7 | Well, as part of that mission now, they have signed up |
| 1:45.4 | a university in Japan to do student-led mission to fly two smaller landers to land on Apophis |
| 1:55.4 | when it goes by. And these will be student-built university cubesats. They'll be very small, |
| 2:00.0 | but nonetheless, they're going to try to do landings. |
| 2:02.6 | We already have a Soros Apex. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from John Batchelor, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of John Batchelor and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.

