Jorge Cham is probably better known for his webcomic, PHD (Piled Higher and Deeper). But did you know he does a podcast too? On last week’s episode, the topic was asteroids, with guest Phil Plait:
Jorge Cham, Wed March 25, 2026 ScienceStuff Should We Mine the Asteroid Belt?
Dr. Philip Plait, if you aren’t familiar, is a science popularizer since decades back, writing a blog, several books, and having his own miniseries “Bad Universe” on the Discovery Channel. On the question of asteroid threats, he’s a good person to know. One quibble: Plait mentions that we don’t have a lower limit defining asteroid size. We do- bodies smaller than one meter are, per the IAU, not asteroids, but the largest meteoroids. It’s an easy thing to overlook. Otherwise, a good episode- Plait is correct to mention that water will be the most crucial thing to obtain from asteroids, at least at first.
Have a listen- ScienceStuff is available from all the podcast platforms.