The John Batchelor Show

95: Falcon 9 Full Thrust: Densification and Barge Landings. Eric Berger describes how, following a 2015 failure, SpaceX developed the Falcon 9 Full Thrust, version 3.0/4.0. Driven by the Mars vision, they adopted densification—chilling liquid oxygen to boost

95: Dragon Spacecraft Development and Reusability Focus. Eric Berger explains that SpaceX needed NASA contracts to fund its Mars ambition. NASA provided critical funding in 2006 and 2009 for the Dragon spacecraft to deliver cargo to the International Space St

95: Developing and Launching the First Falcon 9. Eric Berger recounts the difficult summer of 2009 preparing the first Falcon 9 booster, featuring nine Merlin engines housed in an octagonal web. Engineers endured intense 100-hour weeks handling complex wiring

95: Musk's Audacious Mars Colonization Vision. Eric Berger discusses Elon Musk's remarkable September 2016 speech in Guadalajara outlining the colonization of Mars. Musk proposed building a self-sustaining colony requiring landing a million tons of equipment

95: Western Miscalculation and the Core Problem of Russia's Dominance Ideology. Professor Eugene Finkelargues that debates about Ukraine joining NATO or the EU are secondary, as the core problem remains Russia's deeply rooted ideological belief that it must c

95: The Historical Roots of Russian Brutality and Putin's Ideological Driver. Professor Eugene Finkel explains that the pervasive cruelty in Russian forces stems from a historical willingness to use extreme violence, where human life is cheap, evident from St

95: Volodymyr Zelenskyy: A Native Russian Speaker and the Evolution of Ukrainian National Identity. Professor Eugene Finkel notes that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has an unusual background: Jewish, a native Russian speaker, and a successful media entreprene

95: Putin's Revisionist History and the 2014 Invasion of Crimea and Donbas. Professor Eugene Finkel analyzes how, isolated during the pandemic, Vladimir Putin wrote a historical essay in 2021 based on myths, asserting that Ukraine has always been Russia and m

95: Khrushchev, Crimea, and Putin's Perception of Ukraine as "Soviet Florida". Professor Eugene Finkel discusses Khrushchev's 1954 transfer of Crimea to Ukraine, undertaken for purely economic and practical reasons, though it remains a point of contention tod

95: Collapse of Independent States and the Purposeful Famine of the Holodomor. Professor Eugene Finkel examines the period following the 1917 collapse, when attempts to form independent Ukrainian states—the UNR and the ZUNR—failed, facing invasion by various

95: Galatia, the "Ukrainian Piedmont," and the Threat of Ukrainian Nationalism. Professor Eugene Finkel touches on the life of his Jewish grandfather, Lev, from Galatia, who joined the Red Army in 1940, illustrating how parts of Ukraine were not under Russian

95: The Origins of the Russian Imperial Project: Khmelnytsky and "New Russia". Professor Eugene Finkel discusses the statue of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, a 17th-century figure viewed differently by Ukrainians as a founding father and by Russians as a uniter with Mos

94: Ashes Warm-ups Cause Slew of Career-Threatening Injuries; Betting Odds Narrow. Jeremy Zakis reports that Ashes warm-up matches are causing a slew of injuries to older players around 35, including Mark Wood of England and Sean Abbott of Australia, both suf

94: Cold Antarctic Air Collides with Tropical Front, Bringing Flash Flooding and Cyclone Warnings to East Coast. Jeremy Zakis describes severe weather on the Australian East Coast due to a clash between bitter cold Antarctic air and a dense tropical air mass

94: Dallas the Dog Fosters Trust with Magpie Family, Enhancing Their Intelligence. Jeremy Zakis chronicles how Dallas the dog has adopted a magpie family, leading to a comfortable second generation residing nearby. Dallas's kind, placid demeanor fosters trust

94: Tragic Magpie Attack Blinds Girl; Massive Eastern Brown Snake Invades Home. Jeremy Zakis reports that a massive five-foot-long great eastern brown snake was found rearing up outside a woman's bathroom in Veil View, Queensland, necessitating a snake catche

93: The Green Belt and Rethinking Liberty 30 Years Later. Matthew Longo reflects that thirty years after the Iron Curtain fell, the border site is now an unremarkable "green belt." Researcher Longo considers the meaning of freedom, contrasting Isaiah Berlin's

93: Panic, Pioneers, and the Moral Choice at the Border Picnic. Matthew Longo recounts that by August 19, 1989, hundreds of thousands of East German refugees were camped near Sopron, terrified of Stasi informers. Nemeth's government used the chaotic Picnic as

93: Young Activists Plan the Audacious Pan-European Picnic. Matthew Longo describes how in late June 1989, young activists Fedins and Maria in Debrecen conceived an audacious plan to throw a protest party—The Picnic—at the Iron Curtain near Sopron. They aimed

93: Elite Politics and the First Crack in the Iron Curtain. Matthew Longo details the July 1989 Warsaw Pact meeting where reformer Nemeth faced off against old-guard Ceausescu. Nemeth had received Gorbachev's "green light" to dismantle the Iron Curtain's dead