Show Suggestions

[mutleyeng]

whats wrong with the universe.
how astronomy is causing problems for cosmology - in other words, stuff that dosnt quite fit what we thought we understood

[pickeringcs]

i have read that all space photgraphs are actually balck and white with color added later. Is this true? Can we not get color pictures from distant planets/space. Why would this be done? How does NASA decide how to "color" the photos. What is the "true color" of space objects?

[swampyankee]

While the Shuttle is gone, there is a lot of technology and design issues that have come out of it. One that was surprisingly challenging was zero-g toilets. (this is why I mentioned Donald Rethke, aka Dr Flush, http://news.engr.uconn.edu/mastracchioeventsummary.php).

LIGO.

Neutrino and cosmic ray astronomy

[Empyre]

@pickeringcs: They take three photos, each with a different color filter, then use those as the red, green, and blue in the final image.

[browolf]

I downloaded some of the episodes from 2007/8 and there's variation in the mp3 id tags for album title . This is somewhat annoying as loaded onto my mp3 player I've ended up with more albums than necessary.

The variations are
no album title
Astronomy Cast - 2007
Astronomy Cast 2007
Astronomy Cast
Astronomy Cast - 2008
Astronomy Cast 2008

I've no idea if this inconsistency continues in later years. It's messy and needs sorting out!

Also what happened to the question shows? I really like listening to those.

[Empyre]

I think the question shows have returned in the form of the weekly hangouts. They also now record astronomycast episodes live on google+, and afterwords, they spend a few minutes answering questions. I have been watching them on YouTube on the universetoday channel, and astrospherevids channel, and the starstryder channel. They pop up sometimes on any of those channels, and sometimes on more than one. I have not yet caught one live. There is more content now from these folks than ever.

[Solfe]

How about "Professional Profiles". Interview scientists.

Fun questions would be:
"If you weren't a physicist, an astronomer, etc., what would you choose to be?"
"Did you start in a different field or course of study in college?" (Its more fun the more removed that topic is their actual profession.)
"Do you have hobbies that simply don't jib with being a <insert profession>."

[Empyre]

They've been sort of doing that in the google+ hangouts I mentioned in my previous post right above yours.

[UW Geologist]

How about a show about the rapid expansion of privately-funded spaceflight?

You could talk about the X-Prize and billionaire stuff, the recent launches of Dragon capsules by Space X and the future plans of Cameron and friends to mine asteroids with Planetary Resources Inc.

Or maybe you've done this show already, in which case you can completely disregard this entire post.

[browolf]

Had a thought. Since you started off 5 years ago, some new things must have been discovered since on some of the topics you did way back in the beginning. It would be interesting to hear about what's been learned in the last 4-5 years.

[Solfe]

You did Mass, Inertia, Energy. Could you continue with Entropy and Acceleration?

I like the history related shows, could you do a piece on the lesser known space fairing countries? Brazil, Italy, etc.

[Andrew8]

Carl Sagan Episode? I would love to hear about his life in general, contributions to science and astronomy and his legacy.

[tomja]

McGyverisms

A show about how engineers come up with amazing solutions to problems given then lack of resources or the remoteness of the probe..

The show should be
what went wrong.. the risks... what engineers came up with to resolve the issues

Examples include:
Apollo 13
Hayabusa probe.. and many many others.

best regards

tomja

[Fraser]

I love that suggestion Tomja. There are so many examples of missions that failed in some way, and engineers were able to pull it together.

[tomja]

The missions that could have been.

A look at the space missions that have been cancelled over the years.
The episode would cover the mission, what the plans where, how far they went in building it, and what it could be giving us now, if not for cancellation.
It would be nice if it could also look at missions outside of NASA but NASA missions are the ones I know about

SIM
Terrestrial Planet Finder

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categor...led_spacecraft

http://news.discovery.com/space/hist...e-missions.htm

Best Regards

Tom

[tomja]

Double post