Venus Express leaves for Earth's twin this week on planetary radio. Hi everyone, welcome to Public Radio's travel show that takes you to the final frontier.

I'm Ad Kaplan.

Swedish-born Hokan-Sfed him is project scientist for

the first mission to Venus in more than 10 years. He'll tell us about the

European Space Agency's powerful probe that will peer right through the thick clouds

to the mysterious surface.

And by interesting coincidence, Bruce Betts will mark the 30th anniversary of another Vanusian milestone in today's

edition of What's Up?

Of course, we'll also name the latest winner of a planetary radio t-shirt in our space trivia

contest, and Bruce has news of yet another competition

won with a grand prize you might like even better than the shirt off our backs.

Let's get to this week's headlines. As we finished assembling the show, the

two Chinese astronauts in the Shenju's six capsule were preparing to return to Earth. They are

scheduled for an early morning bump down in Mongolia on

Monday the 17th.

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin congratulated the Chinese on their achievement. More about this second sinos space mission

during what's up, including Bruce's attempt to pronounce their names. A little

cramped and the in-flight entertainment was confined to 0G hijinks and looking out the window.

But Gregory Olson says it was worth every penny of the $20 million ticket.

The third space tourist returned to Earth along with the International Space Station's

Expedition 11 crew. There's Soyuz capsule landing safely in Kazakhstan on October 13th.

NASA engineers say they've nearly got Kazakhstan on October 13th.

...