Radio Atlantic

Our Strange New Era of Space Travel

Humans last set foot on the Moon 50 years ago. Now we’re going back, but the way we explore space—and our relationship to it—has gone through some big changes.
“Space is a vacation now… a status symbol,” Marina Koren explains to Adam Harris. The two staff writers discuss this new age of commercial space flight and the changes it’s bringing to how we see our place in the universe. 
Today’s spaceflight has taken a wider variety of people, billionaires or not,beyond Earth’s gravity. As people with diverse perspectives take the journey, will that complicate how we as a species think about space? 
Koren also spoke with William Shatner about his trip at age 90 and he reflects on why his experience ran counter to that of his most famed character: Star Trek’s intrepid optimist, Captain Kirk.
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The Atlantic has long been known as an ideas-driven magazine. Now we’re bringing that same ethos to audio. Like the magazine, the show will “road test” the big ideas that both drive the news and shape our culture. Through conversations—and sometimes sharp debates—with the most insightful thinkers and writers on topics of the day, Radio Atlantic will complicate overly simplistic views. It will cut through the noise with clarifying, personal narratives. It will, hopefully, help listeners make up their own mind about certain ideas.
The national conversation right now can be chaotic, reckless, and stuck. Radio Atlantic aims to bring some order to our thinking—and encourage listeners to be purposeful about how they unstick their mind.