Aspiring Martians

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?

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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...

The red sands of the Gobi Desert might be thousands of miles from NASA, but they may be one of the best places on Earth to prepare for life on Mars. This week on Aspiring Martians, I spoke with Enkhtuvshin Doyodkhuu, project manager of Mars-V, a visionary initiative in Mongolia that combines a Mars simulation habitat, an international science and innovation center, and a satellite city that blends research, tourism, and futuristic ...

At one point, the idea of sending humans to Mars felt like something only governments and science fiction authors could pull off. But then came Mars One—a bold and controversial mission concept that didn’t just imagine a future on the Red Planet, it invited people to be part of it. This week, I speak with the man behind that idea: Bas Lansdorp, founder of Mars One and one of the most recognizable figures in the modern Mars movement...

How do you stay connected when you’re millions of miles from Earth and every message takes 20 minutes to arrive? In this episode of Aspiring Martians, we close out Women’s History Month with Dr. Kelly Haston, the commander of NASA’s CHAPEA 1 mission—a full year inside a Mars simulation habitat. Alongside her crew of three, Kelly helped test the realities of long-term Martian living, including one of the most overlooked challenges: ...

Growing food on Mars is one of the biggest challenges future settlers will face, but Cynthia Montanez is already working on solutions. As we continue celebrating Women’s History Month, this episode highlights Cynthia’s work as an Astrobiology student at the Florida Institute of Technology and a two-time analog astronaut at the Mars Desert Research Station. Her research focuses on turning Martian regolith into viable soil for plant ...

As we continue honoring Women’s History Month, this episode of Aspiring Martians features Anastasia Stepanova, an analog astronaut, journalist, and scientist whose work bridges exploration, media, and human endurance. With experience in long-duration isolation experiments—including four months at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) and 240 days in a Moscow isolation experiment—Anastasia has firsthand knowledge of the mental and...

March is Women’s History Month—a time to honor the pioneers who have shaped space exploration and the future Martians who will follow in their footsteps. This week, Aspiring Martians kicks off a month-long celebration of women in space with Laura González Llamazares, an aerospace engineer, entrepreneur, and advocate for the next generation of female space explorers. Laura is part of Hypatia Mars, a female-led initiative dedicated t...

Sex in space—it’s a topic that has been ignored, joked about, or outright dismissed for far too long. But if we’re serious about building a permanent human presence on Mars and beyond, it’s time to start having real conversations about intimacy, relationships, and reproduction in space.

In this episode of Everyday Mars, host Joe Sweeney sits down with Dr. Simon Dubé, a Research Fellow at the Kinsey Institute, Affiliate Professor at ...