Sample Return Missions - What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
The Supermassive Podcast
Izzie Clarke
4.6 • 556 Ratings
🗓️ 28 February 2025
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This time Dr Becky Smethurst and Izzie Clarke discover why it’s touch and go when it comes to returning asteroid samples to Earth and hear how we’ve been exchanging spit with Mars since the dawn of the Solar System.
The team is joined by Dr Sara Russell, a meteorite researcher at the Natural History Museum in London, and Dr Albert Haldemann, Mars Chief Engineer for the European Space Agency.
As ever, Dr Robert Massey is with us to answer your questions and look ahead to the next month in the night sky.
Keep you questions coming…you can email podcast@ras.ac.uk or find us on instagram, @SupermassivePod.
The Supermassive Podcast is a Boffin Media production. The producers are Izzie Clarke and Richard Hollingham.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Is she on your desk? |
| 0:01.1 | Yeah, she's on my desk. |
| 0:02.8 | Helpful. |
| 0:03.9 | I mean, good soundproofing. |
| 0:05.7 | Yeah, sure. |
| 0:07.3 | Yeah, if she just stays there, that would be pretty much. |
| 0:09.1 | Yeah, she'll just stay out again. |
| 0:11.0 | Anyway. |
| 0:11.8 | Okay, hold on a sec. |
| 0:13.6 | Okay, whenever you're ready. |
| 0:16.3 | Earth and Mars have, dare I say, have been sharing spit for billions of years. |
| 0:24.3 | So that should influence our perception of the risk. |
| 0:29.9 | It's kind of like an all-in-one package of stuff that can perhaps help life to start. |
| 0:31.5 | Where's Bruce Willis when you do, mate? |
| 0:32.0 | Yeah. |
| 0:39.8 | Hello and welcome to the Supermassive podcast from the Royal Astronomical Society with me, |
| 0:43.8 | science journalist Izzy Clark and astrophysicist Dr. Becky Spellas. |
| 0:45.5 | Thank you everything okay over there. So the meow you can hear is my cat who's not happy that I'm not playing with her. |
| 0:49.6 | Anyway, enough about cats. |
| 0:51.7 | This month it's all about sample returns. |
| 0:54.3 | We're travelling all over the place from asteroids and comets to the moon and Mars. |
| 0:59.5 | We've got a lot to cram into one little show, though, so we'll see how we get on. |
... |
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