Guests: John Batchelor, Dr, David Grinspoon, Dr. David Livingston.  Topics:  Missions to Venus and Mars rover and mission updates  

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John Batchelor and I welcomed back Dr. David Grinspoon for a two part Hotel Mars program featuring an update on Mars rover activities plus a Part 2 on upcoming missions to Venus.  For Mars, we talked about Perseverance, Ingenuity, taking and storing soil samples for a sample return mission in a few years, plus a Curiosity report.  Dr. Grinspoon updated us on all of these rovers, their latest photos, progress, plus we talked about some possible upcoming challenges to the rovers given age and condition.  One such challenge has to do with the wheels on Curiosity.

In Part 2, we talked about the many and varied missions being planned for Venus including one with RocketLab which Dr. Grinspoon focused on in the early part of this segment.  Dr. Grinspoon is also the PI for the DaVinci mission scheduled to go to Venus in the 2029-2030 time period.  He said his mission had the green light and they were now building the hardware and scheduling the launch.  As for his commentary on RocketLab, he talked about the first part of the mission which includes a balloon going through the atmosphere with instrumentation on it.  Don't miss his discussion on this part of the project.  He also explained the mission for DaVinci.

Please post your comments/questions for Mr. Batchelor or Dr. Grinspoon on the blog for this program.

You can email Mr. Batchelor or Dr. Grinspoon through me at drspace@thespaceshow.com. Dr. Greenspoon can be reached through his website at https://funkyscience.net.