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Podcaster: Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay

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Title: Astronomy Cast Ep. 759: The Commercial Space Program

Organization: Astronomy Cast

Link: http://www.astronomycast.com

Description: Streamed live on Jun 9, 2025.

Humanity has turned its focus back to the Moon, sending a fleet of spacecraft to the lunar surface. Some are run by the government, but there’s a whole new group of commercial landers bearing instruments to the lunar surface. Is this the future of lunar exploration? Space used to be a place occupied by government-funded and military missions, but today, we’re seeing the rise… and fall (somersault, crash, and explosion) of missions with commercial design and funding. Let’s talk about how this is good, bad, and maybe just too soon.

Bio: Fraser Cain is the publisher of Universe Today and Dr. Pamela Gay is a Senior Scientist at Planetary Science Institute and a Director of  CosmoQuest. They team up to do Astronomy Cast, a weekly facts-based journey through the cosmos

Today’s sponsor:  Big thanks to our Patreon supporters this month:  Paul M. Sutter, Chris Nealen, Frank Frankovic, Frank Tippin, Jako Danar, Michael Freedman, Nik Whitehead, Rani Bush, Ron Diehl, Steven Emert, Brett Duane, Don Swartwout, Vladimir Bogdanov, Steven Kluth, Steve Nerlich, Phyllis Foster, Michael W, James K Wood, Katrina Ince, Cherry Wood.

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Transcript:

End of podcast:

365 Days of Astronomy
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The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by Planetary Science Institute. Audio post production by me, Richard Drumm, project management by Avivah Yamani, and hosting donated by libsyn.com. This content is released under a creative commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license. Please share what you love but don’t sell what’s free.

This show is made possible thanks to the generous donations of people like you! Please consider supporting our show on Patreon.com/CosmoQuestX and get access to bonus content. Without your passion and contribution, we won’t be able to share the stories and inspire the worlds. We invite you to join our community of storytellers and share your voice with listeners worldwide.

As we wrap up today’s episode, we are looking forward to unravel more stories from the Universe. With every new discovery from ground-based and space-based observatories, and each milestone in space exploration, we come closer to understanding the cosmos and our place within it.

Until next time let the stars guide your curiosity!