Cosmic Coffee Time with Andrew Prestage Podcast
1) #82 Apollo-Soyuz at 50! It’s been a half century since this incredible project. The first international space mission.
Send us a text In 1975, an incredible and unlikely partnership resulted in the docking of a NASA Apollo capsule and a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft in Earth orbit. The cold war opponents worked together to ...Show More
2) #81 After centuries of Earth’s rotation slowing down, it’s now speeding up and making the days shorter. But you’d never notice.
Send us a text Earth’s days had been getting longer since observations began. Every century, the length of the day would increase by about two milliseconds. Like… clockwork. In recent years, something...Show More
3) #80 Plants on the Moon. An Australian team of biologists and engineers are really sending a mini greenhouse to the Moon.
Send us a text An Australian team of botanists and engineers are working on a project that might make or break the future of long term, long distance space occupation. They're growing plants. Not that...Show More
4) #79 Launched in 1972 for Venus, Kosmos 482 failed to escape Earth orbit — and finally returned in May 2025, after 53 years in space
Kosmos 482, was a Soviet spacecraft launched in 1972 on a mission to Venus, but a technical glitch meant it never made it past Earth orbit. Designed to withstand the hellish surface of Venus, its land...Show More
5) #78 The Andromeda Galaxy is a cosmic neighbour that’s going to collide with our Milky Way Galaxy. Should we panic?
No need to panic. Yet! We’ll be fine for the next 4 or 5 billion years, but Andromeda is heading our way. The Andromeda Galaxy was the first object to be identified as being outside our own galaxy, an...Show More
6) #77 The stranded astronauts are finally home after 9 months in space. Let’s see how Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore got home
Their planned 8 day visit to the International Space Station was turned on its head when NASA announced their Boeing Starliner capsule was unsafe to use. What did Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore do fo...Show More
7) #76 The Apollo program was the high point of the space age. From test flights, to lunar landings and the moon buggies
After everything learned through Mercury and Gemini culminated in the seventeen Apollo missions. The first ten were all testing and rehearsals, but the whole program, and a whole era was characterised...Show More
8) #75 NASA's Project Gemini was a spectacular program that bridged the gap from Project Mercury to Apollo. Gemini developed the incredible technology and techniques needed for the lunar program
Nasa had accomplished spaceflight with Project Mercury but the gap to Apollo was still huge. How do you dock two spacecraft in flight and how do crews live in a tiny spacecraft for lunar length flight...Show More
9) #74 At the beginning of the space race, Project Mercury was NASA’s first human crewed spaceflight program, and it was a significant step on the road to the moon. Let’s dive into the vault and check it out.
Back in the late 1950s, NASA was formed. Its first job was to put together a human crewed spaceflight program and put an astronaut into orbit - safely. This was Project Mercury. There were some uncrew...Show More
10) #73 NASA’s Project Mercury Monument has turned 60! It’s a tribute to America's first attempt at human space flight. The monument has a time capsule that is scheduled to stay sealed for 500 years! Let’s check out what's inside.
Project Mercury was NASA’s first attempt at human crewed space flight. It sent Alan Shepard into space, and John Glenn into orbit, among four other landmark flights over 5 years. By 1963 it was done, ...Show More