A Voyage to Antarctica

Alok Jha talks to NASA astro-botanist Jess Bunchek about growing vegetables in Antarctica – and outer space. Jess started as a botanist and agronomist and, after completing her masters, worked as an astro-botanist at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where she researched space crop production and supported “Veggie” – a vegetable production chamber on the International Space Station. While at NASA, she proposed a new collaboration with Germany's space agency, DLR, on the EDEN ISS greenhouse project in Antarctica. For this, Jess overwintered for 14 months at Germany's Neumayer Station III in Antarctica from late 2020 to early 2022, where she operated EDEN ISS and contributed to multiple areas of Antarctic research. For more information about our guests and episode transcripts, click hereTo support the work of the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust, click here Season 4 of A Voyage to Antarctica is made possible with support from Hurtigruten Expeditions. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alok Jha talks to Dr Peter Fretwell, award-winning cartographer and leading scientist at the British Antarctic Survey, about Antarctica’s most iconic residents – Emperor penguins – and the threats they’re facing from climate change. Peter pioneered the use of satellite imagery to find and monitor polar wildlife – a project that has led to him discovering almost half of the world's Emperor penguin colonies.He chairs the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, Bedmap3 group and ‘Censusing Animal Populations from Space’ (part of the Southern Ocean Observing System) and heads BAS’s ‘Wildlife from Space’ group. He has completed five field seasons in Antarctica.For more info about our guests and episode transcripts, click hereTo support the work of the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust - and adopt a penguin - click hereSeason 4 of A Voyage to Antarctica is made possible with support from Hurtigruten Expeditions. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alok Jha talks to journalist and author Julian Sancton about the harrowing and epic survival story of The Belgica: an early polar expedition gone terribly wrong – with a ship frozen in ice and its crew trapped inside for months of endless polar night. Julian is an editor at The Hollywood Reporter. His writing has appeared in Vanity Fair, Esquire, GQ, The New Yorker, Wired, and Playboy, among others. He has reported from every continent, including Antarctica, which he visited while researching his New York Times bestseller Madhouse at the End of the Earth: The Belgica’s Journey into the Dark Antarctic Night. A graduate of Harvard College, where he majored in History, Julian lives in Larchmont, New York, with his partner, Jessica, and their two daughters.For more info about our guests and episode transcripts click here To support the work of the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust click hereBuy Julian's book, Madhouse at the End of the Earth hereSeason 4 of A Voyage to Antarctica is made possible with support from Hurtigruten Expeditions. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr Susannah Maidment, Principal Researcher in fossil reptiles at London’s Natural History Museum, takes us 100 million years back in time to when Antarctica was a rainforest and home to some of the biggest creatures to ever walk the earth – the dinosaurs! Susannah has a PhD in vertebrate palaeontology from the University of Cambridge and, prior to working at the Natural History Museum, was a Research Fellow at Imperial College and a postdoctoral researcher at the Natural History Museum. She appears regularly in the media talking about dinosaurs and has been a guest on BBC Radio 4’s The Life Scientific and The Infinite Monkey Cage.https://www.ukaht.org/antarctica-in-sight/podcasts/Season 4 of A Voyage to Antarctica is made possible with support from Hurtigruten Expeditions. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.