Planetary Radio

 

Finished listening to the first year of Planetary Radio, into the second year. Will miss the old theme music which sounded to me a lot like music from the SNES version of SimCity

http://youtu.be/HPcP8MRh8r4

Although the new theme puts me a lot in mind of Unicron's theme from the 1986 Transformer's theme, so that also amuses.

http://youtu.be/g4c-M4MP0GE

Still finding it remarkable how much things have changed or been anticipated since that first year of the show.

The Galileo mission was at the end of its mission at Jupiter and, during the, plunged into the planet's atmosphere to avoid contaminating Europa. They had project manager Claudia Alexander on the show to talk about this, and mentioned her next mission waiting to launch, Rosetta - which is just now nearing its target 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

They had Alan Stern on, anticipating the future launch of New Horizons (arriving at Pluto next year), and the rumours that some astronomers think maybe Pluto should no longer be counted a planet. Of the radio show: "Let's hope we're still doing this when you arrive" - looks likely from 2014.

They had Marc Rayman on, talking about recently concluded mission Deep Space 1 and the prospect of using technology tested then on a future mission, Dawn, which has now visited Vesta and will be arriving at Ceres next year.

The two Mars Exploration Rovers Opportunity (still functioning more than a decade later) and Spirit were launched and en route to Mars for their 90 sol mission.

Low key anticipation for the arrival of Cassini the next year, and all its findings and beautiful imagery as yet unrealised.

So much change, so much, and also so much continuity. Missions anticipated at the birth of the program coming to fruition now. I wonder what else has been anticipated during its run so far, and worry the answer is not much - not much to come but what's been coming the whole time.