Aspiring Martians

What happens to the Overview Effect when Earth is no longer the center of your universe?

In this special Everyday Mars episode, Joe sits down with Frank White, the visionary behind The Overview Effect, to explore how one of the most profound psychological experiences in spaceflight might transform as humanity pushes toward Mars.

For decades, astronauts in low Earth orbit have described a powerful shift in perspective when looking bac...

From Mars simulations… to mission control.

This week on Aspiring Martians, Joe is joined by Cassandra Klos, a photographer, curator, and analog astronaut whose work lives at the intersection of art, science, and the future of human spaceflight.

Cassandra is the creator of Mars on Earth, a long-running project documenting space analog missions, those carefully designed simulations where humans rehearse life on Mars right here on Earth...

What does it look like to prepare for Mars… from a place the space industry often overlooks?

In this episode of Aspiring Martians, I sit down with Isaac Macharia Gathu, founder and president of Mars Society Kenya, to talk about building a path to space where none previously existed.

Isaac is a Kenyan IT technician, entrepreneur, analog astronaut, and one of the leading voices pushing for Africa’s role in the future of human space exp...

What does it take to build a Mars mission… from scratch?

In this month’s Inside the Habitat, we head to Wadi Rum, Jordan, a place so otherworldly it’s often called “The Valley of the Moon,” to explore MENA, the first women-led space organization in the region dedicated to STEM, inclusion, and human space exploration.

Founded in 2024, MENA is already pushing boundaries, combining education, analog missions, and global collaboration to...

Today is one of those days that changes the trajectory of everything.

As Artemis II launches humanity back beyond low Earth orbit for the first time in over 50 years, we’re marking the moment with a special bonus episode of Aspiring Martians.

Because this mission isn’t just about going to the Moon. It’s about proving we can go further.

Artemis II will send astronauts around the Moon aboard the Orion spacecraft, testing the systems, en...

We’re going somewhere humanity hasn’t quite been willing to go yet… not physically, but conversationally.

Because if we’re serious about building a future on Mars, we have to ask a simple question: are we designing that future for everyone?

This week, I’m joined by Manju Bangalore: engineer, researcher, astronaut-in-training, and founder of Operation Period to explore one of the most overlooked gaps in human spaceflight: menstruation...

Today we've got the ULTIMATE aspiring Martian!

This week, Joe is joined by Alyssa Carson: science communicator, astrobiologist, and one of the most recognizable voices of the so-called “Mars Generation.” You may know her as “Blueberry,” the kid who decided at just three years old that she wanted to go to Mars...and then actually kept going.

But this conversation isn’t about a childhood dream. It’s about what happens after the dre...

What if the path to space started not in a government astronaut corps… but on your laptop?

This week on Aspiring Martians, I’m joined by Benedetta Facini — citizen scientist, science communicator, asteroid hunter, and newly selected astronaut candidate with Titans Space Industries.

Benedetta’s journey into space didn’t begin with rocket equations or flight school. It started with curiosity, a telescope, and a grandfather who accident...

What does it really take to become an aspiring Martian?

For some, the journey starts with engineering degrees, astronaut training programs, and analog missions in the desert. For others, it begins much earlier — with challenges that shape resilience, perspective, and a deep curiosity about the human body in extreme environments.

This week I’m joined by Shriya Musuku, a mechanical engineer, analog astronaut, EMT, and astronaut candida...

This month on Inside the Habitat, we step inside one of Europe’s most respected analog research facilities: LunAres Research Station in Poland.

Founded in 2017 and located inside a former post-military airport hangar, LunAres has become a globally recognized platform for human spaceflight research. The station runs 10–12 analog missions per year, hosts crews of four to eight participants, and has supported more than 65 scientific ex...

In this special Everyday Mars episode commemorating Mars Love Month, returning guest Dr. Simon Dubé joins Joe to explore one of the most surprising frontiers of space settlement: artificial companions. If Mars is going to be home — not just a research outpost — we’ll need more than life-support systems and radiation shielding. We’ll need emotional infrastructure.

Simon is a researcher whose work sits at the intersection of love, sex...

We're a community that is working, studying, building, training, and aspiring to become Martians someday. But what does it actually mean to become Martian?

Not metaphorically. Biologically.

In this surprise Everyday Mars episode, I sit down with evolutionary biologist Dr. Scott Solomon to talk about his brand-new book Becoming Martian and what life on Mars could do to our bodies, our children, and the future of our species.

We tal...

After a brief detour into big philosophical questions — and the launch of our new Inside the Habitat series — Aspiring Martians returns to what it does best: real conversations with real people who are actively building their way toward Mars.

In this episode, Joe is joined by Thendral Kamal, an aeronautical and astronautical engineering student at Purdue University with a minor in political science, and a résumé that already spans a...

Inside the Habitat is a brand new series from Aspiring Martians that takes listeners behind the scenes of the analog simulations shaping humanity’s future on the Moon, Mars, and beyond. On the first Tuesday of every month, we will explore the many habitats scattered across deserts, cities, oceans, and even aircraft where we are testing the limits of human psychology, teamwork, and technology before attempting real off-world settlem...

Christianity has spent two thousand years adapting to new cultures, continents, and ways of living. But what happens when the frontier is no longer Earth at all?

In the finale of our Religion on Mars series, Joe Sweeney turns to Christianity — the world’s most practiced religion, with close to two billion followers and tens of thousands of denominations — to ask how faith might function on the Red Planet. To keep the conversation gr...

What happens to Islam when Earth is no longer beneath your feet?

This episode is the third installment in Aspiring Martians’ January series exploring Religion on Mars, following conversations on Buddhism and Hinduism, and leading into next week’s series finale on Christianity.

Joe is joined by Dr. Reza Aslan, a globally recognized scholar of religion, bestselling author, and public intellectual known for making complex religious hist...

This episode is the second installment in Aspiring Martians’ January series exploring Religion on Mars — and what happens to belief systems when Earth is no longer the center of human life.

There are over 1.2 billion Hindus in the world today. To cover how such a prolific religion has lasted almost 4,000 years and what that future may hold on Mars, Joe is joined by Dr. Subhash Kak, a computer scientist, philosopher of science, and V...

Season Two of Aspiring Martians begins with a month-long Everyday Mars series exploring religion on Mars — and what happens to faith, meaning, and spiritual life when humans leave Earth.

This first episode focuses on Buddhism, a tradition practiced by hundreds of millions of people worldwide and rooted in teachings on suffering, impermanence, mindfulness, and compassion. Joe is joined by Vasu Bandhu, a contemplative teacher working ...

This week, Joe closes the season with an Everyday Mars conversation focused on something every future Martian — and every remote worker — will face: workplace anxiety and occupational health.

To tackle this subject, we're joined by Dr. Craig Jackson, a leading occupational health psychologist whose research examines how work affects human psychological wellbeing, particularly in extreme, remote, and high-stress environments. The...