Star Stuff

When retired NASA astronaut Dr. Ed Lu co-founded B612 Foundation, he and the rest of the team asked themselves one question: “Can we raise $400 million to save the world?” The world in question is ours, and the threat is the asteroids that share our neighborhood of the solar system. B612 set out to find them before they find us, and that takes a rare mix of engineering ambition, scientific rigor, and a willingness to ask for a very large amount of money. In this episode, Historian Kevin Schindler sits down with Ed to talk about his spearheading of the Sentinel Mission, an infrared space telescope built to orbit the Sun and map roughly 500,000 hazardous near-Earth asteroids.

Astronaut Nicole Stott has spent 104 days in space, orbited Earth over 1,600 times, and even painted with watercolors aboard the International Space Station. In this episode of Star Stuff, Stott reflects on why she believes we’re all crew members of Spaceship Earth, how art became part of her work in orbit, and what she’s watching for as NASA’s Artemis missions push us back toward the Moon.

In this episode of Star Stuff, retired NASA astronaut and B612 Foundation co-founder Rusty Schweickart joins Lowell Mission Scientist Dr. Melodie Kao and Lowell Historian Kevin Schindler to explore a question with no borders: how do you unite a divided world against a threat that could strike anyone, anywhere?

In this episode of Star Stuff, Lowell Observatory historian Kevin Schindler sits down with renowned Diné (Navajo) and Chicana artist Nanibah Chacon. Following the unveiling of her breathtaking new mural at the observatory, Nanibah discusses the profound intersection of Indigenous culture, science, and public art.

In this episode of Star Stuff, host Kevin Schindler sits down with renowned Hopi/Cherokee artist Gerald Dawavendewa to celebrate the unveiling of the monumental 30-foot Indigenous Cosmology mural at Lowell Observatory’s Astronomy Discovery Center.