We're returning to the NASA Innovative Advanced Concept Symposium for a dive

into stellar imaging and the search for potential life in the waters of Mars.

This week on planetary radio. I'm Sarah Al Ahmed of the planetary society with more of the Human Adventure

across our solar system and beyond.

Last week we visited the 2024 NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts or Niac Symposium in Pasadena, California.

We learned more about the program and heard from two Naiac fellows in their teams about technologies that could help us send swarms of laser sails to the nearest star system or put humans in hibernation states for interplanetary travel.

Today we're returning to the symposium to meet two more teams.

Kenneth Carpenter from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and his colleagues will pitch their

plan for an Artemis-enabled stellar imager.

Then Stephen Benner from the Foundation for

Applied Molecular Evolution and his team will tell us about their plan for a

system that we could add on to large-scale water mining operations on Mars

that could help a screen for introduced or alien life.

But first, astronaut and Naiac external council member May Jemison honors Lou Friedman.

He's one of the co-founder of the planetary society and

his contributions to the space community in the NAYAC program absolutely deserve an

award. We'll close out with Bruce Betts, our chief scientist, to celebrate a new

achievement for our LightSail 2 mission

and What's Up.

Our crowd-funded solar sailing spacecraft, R.I.P. LightSail, is one of the winners of this year's

Gizmoto Science Fair.

If you love planetary radio and want to stay informed about the latest space discoveries,

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