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In episode 201 of This Week In Space, Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik are joined by Jay Gallentine to talk about former Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) chief John Casani.
When most people think of deep space exploration, command sense isn’t usually the first thing that comes to mind—but without it, no robotic mission would ever succeed. Jay, an author of several books on robotic space exploration, each a deep dive into a subject that few explore in such detail.
His latest book, “Born to Explore,” started out as a book about robots exploring Mars, but his interviews with Casani were so compelling that he turned it into a biography. A legend at JPL and NASA, Casani’s story reads like a combination of space adventure, personal memoir, and pirate story. You’ll love the book, and you’ll love hearing about it from Jay. Join us!
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Space news of the week
Model Falcon 9!
Finally, did you know you can launch your own SpaceX rocket? The model rocket manufacturer Estes amazing scale model of a Falcon 9 rocket that you can pick up now. The launchable model is a detailed recreation of the Falcon 9 and retails for $149.99. You can save 10% by using the code IN-COLLECTSPACE at checkout, thanks to our partners collectSPACE.com.
About this week in space
Join Space.com’s Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik as they tackle these questions and more each week on Friday afternoon. You can subscribe today to your favorite podcatcher.
Rod Pyle is a writer, journalist, television producer and editor-in-chief of Ad Astra magazine. He has written 18 books on space history, exploration and development, including Space 2.0, Innovation the NASA Way, Interplanetary robots, Blueprint for a Battlestar, Fantastic stories from the space age, First on the moonand Destination March
In a previous life, Rod produced a number of documentaries and short films for The History Channel, Discovery Communications and Disney. He also worked on visual effects on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and that Battlestar Galactica reboot, as well as various sci-fi TV pilots. His last television credit was with the NatGeo documentary about Tom Wolfe’s iconic book The right things.
Responsible for Space.com’s editorial vision, Tariq Malik has been editor-in-chief of Space.com since 2019 and has covered space news and science for 18 years. He joined the Space.com team in 2001, first as an intern and soon after as a full-time space reporter covering human spaceflight, exploration, astronomy and the night sky. He became Space.com’s managing editor in 2009. As an on-air talent, he has presented space stories on CNN, Fox News, NPR and others.
Tariq is an Eagle Scout (yes, he earned the Space Exploration merit badge), a Space Camp veteran (4 times as a child, once as an adult), and has taken the ultimate “vomit comet” trip while reporting on fires in zero gravity. Before joining Space.com, he served as a staff reporter for The Los Angeles Times covering urban and education beats. He holds journalism degrees from the University of Southern California and New York University.
