Aspiring Martians

This week on Aspiring Martians, I spoke with Rahaf Adi, the first Syrian woman to graduate with a space engineering degree. Rahaf’s journey has taken her from childhood dreams of building rockets to designing real experiments bound for space, including work at Purdue’s legendary Zucrow Labs on thrust-vectored engines. She was even chosen as the Banner Bearer for Purdue’s College of Engineering, leading the graduation procession wit...

Mohammed Sallam’s path to becoming one of the 100 finalists in the Mars One program started in Cairo in the 1980s, with a love of sci-fi films and the quiet wonder of staring at the night sky. Decades later, a news article calling for Mars settlers in the wake of the Arab Spring set him on a course that would change his life.

In this episode, Mido shares what it’s like to grow up in Egypt dreaming of the stars, how a period of u...

In 2006, more than 36,000 South Koreans applied to become the nation’s first astronaut. After a grueling selection process that tested everything from physical endurance to scientific reasoning, just two were chosen to train in Russia. One of them was Dr. Yi Soyeon—an engineer, a pioneer, and ultimately, the woman who would make history aboard the Soyuz in 2008.

In this conversation, Soyeon shares what it was like growing up in a cu...

When we dream of Mars, we often picture the big stuff: rockets, habitats, astronauts planting flags. But what about the day-to-day grind of running a business on another planet? In this special Everyday Mars episode, I spoke with aerospace veteran Jim Cantrell—one of the original team members at SpaceX and now the CEO and co-founder of Phantom Space Corporation—about what it’s going to take to build not just a civilization, but an ...

This week on Aspiring Martians, I speak with Anastasia Medvedeva—a Moscow-based space communicator, event organizer, and the force behind Yuri’s Night Russia. Anastasia’s story begins with a childhood spark: a signed book from Valentina Tereshkova and the poetic notion that if a seagull can go anywhere, so can she. That metaphor turned into a mission—using media, parties, and pop culture to bridge the gap between the space industry...

This week, I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Jonathan Buzan, an atmospheric physicist and planetary habitability researcher whose journey to Mars science started not with a telescope, but with a well-worn copy of SolarQuest which was this epic monopoly style board game where players would travel around the Sun acquiring monopolies of planets, moons, and space structures trying to knock their opponents out of the game through ...

This week on Aspiring Martians, I sat down with Linh Vu—also known as Quoc Anh—the only Vietnamese finalist among the Mars One program’s top 100. With degrees from the National University of Singapore and Columbia University, Linh blends curiosity, ambition, and a deep desire to explore what lies beyond Earth. Today, he lives in Hanoi and proudly calls himself a Martian-in-waiting.

We talk about the realities of pursuing a dream...

This week on Aspiring Martians, I’m joined by Dr. Saeed Ghandhari, a former Mars One 100 finalist, community builder, refugee advocate, martial artist, and aspiring astronaut originally from Iran and now based in Auckland, New Zealand. Saeed’s journey is a remarkable blend of public service and personal ambition—he’s worked for over a decade in Iran’s parliament, helped countless migrants and Māori navigate life in New Zealand, and...

In this month’s Everyday Mars episode, I sat down with one of the most influential voices in Mars advocacy—Dr. Robert Zubrin, founder of The Mars Society and author of The Case for Mars, The Case for Space, and The New World on Mars. For decades, Zubrin has been championing the idea that humans not only can go to Mars, but should. And in this conversation, we ask a simple but profound question: What is The Right Martian Stuff?

W...

In this episode of Aspiring Martians, I’m joined by Sharife Gacel, a licensed therapist, analog astronaut, NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and the creator of The Space Therapist and the Blue Marble Project. Sharife’s work brings together psychology, art, and space exploration to help people build emotional resilience here on Earth—and someday, on Mars. She believes that the perspective shift astronauts feel when seeing Earth from...

This week, I talk with Bill Bell, a high school Earth and Space Science teacher from Payden City, West Virginia, who grew up pretending his dad’s orange hunting vest was an astronaut suit. Decades later, he found himself as a finalist in the AXE Apollo Space Academy, training alongside over 100 other aspiring astronauts from around the globe, hoping to earn a suborbital flight to space. We talk about that once-in-a-lifetime experie...

What happens when a childhood dream refuses to fade? For Stephan Günther, it meant spending a lifetime turning that dream into motion. From growing up in 1970s Germany with a deep fascination for space, to becoming an airline captain and 3D simulation developer, Stephan has built both a career and a company—Space Dream Studio—around his vision of one day stepping foot on Mars. He was a candidate for the Mars One program, and today ...

Let’s say there’s life on Mars today. It’s not strolling across the surface or waving from a crater rim—it’s tucked far beneath the ground, in caves and crevices, protected from radiation, freezing temperatures, and the general chaos of the Martian surface. So what’s actually down there? This week on our monthly Everyday Mars special episode of Aspiring Martians, I speak with Dr. Matthew Niemiller, Associate Professor of Biology at...

This week on Aspiring Martians, I talk with Jasleen Kaur, an aerospace engineer and PhD candidate at Texas A&M University. Originally from Kurukshetra, India—the hometown of the Kalpana Chawla Planetarium and just a stone's throw away from where she grew up to later become India’s first woman in space—Jasleen was drawn to the stars early on. After placing second in NASA’s Human Exploration Rover Challenge in 2015, she went ...

Few people embody the spirit of an aspiring Martian like Jesse Forte—also known by his music artist name Jforte. Jesse is a musician with over 150 tracks to his name, the author of four books including Fail Forward Through Success, a civic disruptor, and a six-time analog astronaut who’s put his body and mind through the paces of simulated space living. His story begins in hardship—surviving homelessness—and rockets forward through...

What does it mean to dream of Mars while surrounded by the beauty of Earth? In this episode of Aspiring Martians, I sit down with Victor Roman, a former Mars One candidate who now works as a journalist and science consultant with the Peruvian Geological Service. He’s also a beloved science communicator on Noticias Robotitus, where he brings the mysteries of space to life for Spanish-speaking audiences.

Victor recently appeared i...

When we picture life on Mars, we usually think of high-tech habitats and bulky spacesuits—but what about what future settlers will wear underneath all that gear? In this special Everyday Mars episode of Aspiring Martians, I sit down with Dr. Karl Aspelund, Associate Professor, researcher on the 100 Year Starship Project, and lifelong design-thinker, to explore the future of fashion for Martian pioneers.

We dive into the practical an...

It’s Earth Day—a time to reflect on the planet we call home, but also the perfect moment to dream about where we might go next. In this episode of Aspiring Martians, I sit down with Richard Hicks, a former Mars One applicant who was encouraged to apply for a one-way mission to Mars by his college professor. What started as a spark of curiosity in a classroom turned into something more meaningful: a connection to a global community ...

If you think planetary science is all lab coats and data sheets, Bharti Sharma is here to prove it’s also about curiosity, creativity, and a really strong desire to explore strange, dusty places. Bharti is a geologist, analog astronaut, startup founder, and active member of Women in Space South Asia. She’s worked across India in everything from palaeoclimatology to planetary mapping and recently completed a mission at the Mars Dese...