Planetary Radio
Saturdays, 9:30AM to 10:00AM
Each week, Planetary Radio visits with a scientist, engineer, project manager, advocate or writer who can provide a unique perspective on the quest for knowledge about our solar system and beyond. We also showcase regular features that raise your space IQ while they put a smile on your face.
Host
Mat Kaplan
Mat Kaplan knows how fortunate he is to be the host and producer of Planetary Radio. He was just 17 when he got his first job in broadcasting. It wasn’t until Planetary Radio that he was able to combine his love of space exploration with the fun and excitement of being on the air. A Planetary Society staff member for nearly five years, Mat is also who we look to when an event calls for audiovisual support or a live webcast. He lives in Long Beach, California, with his wife and two teenage daughters and also works as a technology and media manager for a local university. His extensive background in journalism has ranged from public radio reporter covering the political conventions to movie reviewer for an international magazine. One or two people may even remember him as a correspondent for a couple of pioneering national TV series about computers.
About the Society
The Planetary Society was formed to demonstrate—simply by its existence—that the public strongly supported planetary exploration and the search for extraterrestrial life and to wave that fact in the faces of politicians and policy makers around the world. We succeeded immediately in that, becoming the fastest-growing membership organization of the 1980s.
But it quickly became clear that we were going to have to do more than just exist. To achieve our goals of keeping spacecraft exploring, seeing humans walk on other worlds, and searching for signs of life in the galaxy, to our goal of political advocacy, we added sponsoring research projects, publishing a magazine and a website, holding events to celebrate exploration, and preparing for the future by educating the next generation of space explorers.
In 25 years, we’ve been very busy and, we think, successful. What follows are only a few highlights from Planetary Society history.
