Earth Beat, 18 March 2011. Space. The final frontier? Or should we boldly not go where none have gone before? From space debris and who owns the moon to finding Mars on Earth, we examine life beyond our atmosphere.

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Mars on Earth
The easiest way to explore space is to find a place on Earth that looks like a chunk of space. And as luck would have it, there is such a place. Devon Island, in northern Canada, is the largest uninhabited island in the world, and the home of Mars on Earth. Pascal Lee, director of the Haughton-Mars Project, joins host Marnie Chesterton to talk about it. YouTube video: a fly-by of the HMP Research Station and the Haughton Crater.
 
What it’s like up there
Space travel is a distant dream for most of us. But not Jeff Hoffman. He's a former NASA astronaut who's spent a total of 50 days in space. Marnie asks him if he ever got the space blues. Jeff Hoffman's space photos on YouTube.
 
Space junk
Wherever we go, we seem to leave a trail of crap behind us. There are hundreds of thousands of man-made bits orbiting the earth. NASA employs people like Dr William Ailor, at the Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies in Los Angeles, to track the movement of each bit and to catalogue them. Dr Ailor explains why space junk is such a serious problem.
 
DIY satellites
Korean artist Song Hojun is helping launch some of the first do-it-yourself satellites into space. Earth Beat correspondent Nissa Rhee recently visited Song’s studio and she joins Marnie to tell her more about the Open Source Satellite Initiative.
 
Who owns the moon?
In 1967, the countries of the world got together and decided that no one country could claim the moon or other planets. But Dennis Hope says that individuals can. So he’s set up the Lunar Embassy and has sold off plots of moon to more than 5 million part-owners. Marnie speaks with Dennis, who is also the President of the Moon.
 
Space law
Can someone simply stake a claim to other planets in our solar system and apply the same laws to them as we have here on Earth? Earth Beat wanted a second opinion. Marnie speaks with Professor Kevin Madders, an expert in Space Law. Listen to an extended interview with Professor Madders.
 
Space tourist
In 2006, Anousheh Ansari became the fourth person to make the journey into space – as a tourist. She became the first female private space explorer, not to mention the first astronaut of Iranian descent. She speaks to Marnie about what it was like to have a (very expensive) space vacation.
 
What space can teach us about Earth
Can space help us to clean up our act? NASA is in the process of developing the Orbiting Carbon Observatory II – which will measure greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and help pinpoint the location of 'carbon sinks' which absorb CO2 naturally. Charles Miller, an Earth Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at NASA, says the OCO-II could radically change our understanding of the carbon cycle.
 
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