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Made from a real public episode: NASA's “Houston We Have a Podcast”, episode 419, “Telling Time on Other Worlds” (recorded 10 March 2026, 44:52; host Dane Turner, guest Kevin Coggins). We transcribed the public audio on our own machine, proofread it, and wrote everything below from it. NASA content is generally not copyrighted; credit NASA. We are not connected to NASA. The episode page.

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1. Chapters

Pasted as-is into YouTube or your host.

00:00 Welcome: what time has to do with gravity
01:06 Kevin Coggins and what NASA's SCaN program does
03:56 Why timekeeping is the “magic question”
06:03 How Earth time is made: atomic clocks, pulsars, leap seconds
09:19 Why a nanosecond matters: 477 microseconds and 143,000 km
10:51 The Moon's 29.5-day day, and why mission time is not enough
12:24 Apollo wristwatches, Mission Elapsed Time and GPS on the Shuttle
16:43 What a coordinated lunar time needs; Curiosity's team on Mars time
19:27 Linking a lunar reference frame to Earth's
21:59 A point is a point: defining coordinates on the Moon
25:09 How many clocks, where, and surviving the lunar night
27:54 The solar-flare scenario: positioning as a safety system
29:53 Does temperature change time?
31:59 Earth time, Moon time, Mars time
33:41 The 2024 White House tasking and LCRNS progress
34:51 Is the math done yet?
37:08 Other uses: precise sampling and autonomous return trips
39:48 Mars: mission time and a 4-to-44-minute delay
42:54 Wrap-up and credits

First chapter at 00:00, 19 chapters, each over 10 seconds, ascending, as YouTube's “Video Chapters” help page requires. Download the chapters file.

2. Show notes

Summary, key points, resources, quotes. All timed.

NASA's Kevin Coggins (Deputy Associate Administrator, Space Communication and Navigation) explains why clocks tick differently in different gravity, how Earth time is actually assembled from atomic clocks, pulsars and leap seconds, and what it will take to build a coordinated lunar time with GPS-like positioning for Artemis. Along the way: Apollo wristwatches, the Shuttle's GPS, Curiosity's team living on Mars time, and why a nanosecond is a third of a metre.

Key points

  • 04:05 Time is tied to gravity. Atomic clocks measure oscillations of atoms, and gravity affects that oscillation, so clocks in different gravity wells tick at different rates.
  • 06:03 Earth time is a vote. Clocks at different altitudes, star and pulsar measurements and Earth's slightly changing rotation are all combined, with leap seconds added to keep the clock and the planet in step.
  • 09:19 Why precision matters: GPS works by timing signals, and a nanosecond is about a third of a metre. On Mars, clocks tick an average of 477 microseconds a day faster than on Earth, and 477 microseconds is enough for light to travel 143,000 km.
  • 10:51 A lunar day is about 29.5 Earth days, and the Moon's night is about two weeks long. Mission elapsed time works for one mission; a shared lunar time is needed once many missions, rovers and habitats operate together.
  • 12:24 History: Apollo flew on mission time with ground-synchronised wristwatches; the Shuttle later used GPS for position and time; in 2012 Curiosity's engineers worked on Mars time (a Martian day is about 24 hours 39 minutes), with shifts moving about 39 minutes later each day.
  • 25:09 Lunar clocks must survive the two-week night with continuous power, because atomic clocks need a stable temperature and a long warm-up and synchronisation cycle.
  • 27:54 The safety case: an astronaut warned of a solar flare needs an exact route back to the habitat; that route depends on timing accuracy.
  • 32:25 Mars clocks run about 477 microseconds a day faster than Earth's, varying by up to 226 microseconds a day over the Martian year. Earth time, Moon time and Mars time will all differ.
  • 33:41 In 2024 the White House tasked SCaN with developing coordinated lunar time; the LCRNS satellites (lunar communications and navigation relay) are being built and prepared for launch.
  • 41:13 Mars adds distance: a radio signal takes 4 to 44 minutes one way depending on where the planets are; Voyager, outside the solar system, is 23.5 hours each way.

Resources and names mentioned

  • 02:16 NASA SCaN (Space Communication and Navigation): nasa.gov/scan
  • 02:33 Deep Space Network antennas in Madrid, Canberra and California; the Near Space Network
  • 03:28 LCRNS: Lunar Communications and Navigation Relay System
  • 12:24 Apollo and Gemini mission timing; Buzz Aldrin's lunar-surface wristwatch
  • 16:43 Mars Science Laboratory / Curiosity team working on Mars time
  • 33:41 2024 White House tasking for coordinated lunar time (Office of Science and Technology Policy)
  • 43:50 nasa.gov/podcasts; listener email nasa-houstonpodcast@mail.nasa.gov

Pull quotes

  • 04:13 “It is one of the weirdest things I've ever encountered in my career: time.”
  • 09:15 “One nanosecond is about a third of a metre. A microsecond is 300 metres.”
  • 31:52 “Time is just a measurement we create off of those vibrations. You could argue that time is just something we created that we need to be predictable and stable.”

3. Titles, description, social

Three titles. One description. Five posts.

Title options

  1. Why a Clock on Mars Runs Fast (and What NASA Is Building for the Moon)
  2. Telling Time on Other Worlds, with SCaN's Kevin Coggins
  3. Moon Time, Mars Time: How NASA Will Build a Lunar GPS

Episode description (840 characters; Apple's limit is 4,000)

Days, hours, minutes: we treat time as numbers on a clock, but those numbers are tied to the motion of our planet and the pull of its gravity. So what happens on the Moon, where a day lasts 29.5 Earth days, or on Mars, where a clock runs about 477 microseconds a day fast?

Kevin Coggins, Deputy Associate Administrator for NASA's Space Communication and Navigation (SCaN) program, joins host Dane Turner to explain how Earth time is really made, why a nanosecond of error is a third of a metre, what Apollo and the Shuttle did about it, and how NASA is building a coordinated lunar time and GPS-like positioning for Artemis. Plus: the solar-flare scenario where timing becomes a safety system, why lunar clocks must survive the two-week night, and the 4-to-44-minute problem on Mars.

Recorded 10 March 2026 at NASA's Johnson Space Center.

Social post lines

  • On Mars a clock ticks about 477 microseconds a day faster than on Earth. That is enough for light to travel 143,000 km. New episode: Telling Time on Other Worlds.
  • “What even is time?” NASA's Kevin Coggins on why Earth time is a vote between atomic clocks, pulsars and leap seconds.
  • Apollo flew on wristwatches synced to Houston. Artemis will fly on a coordinated lunar time. Here is what has to be built in between.
  • Imagine a solar-flare alert on the Moon, a habitat two miles away, and a rover to drive back. The route depends on a clock. Episode 419.
  • A Mars day is 24 hours 39 minutes, so Curiosity's engineers shifted 39 minutes later every day. And a radio signal takes 4 to 44 minutes to get there. Earth time, Moon time, Mars time: all different.

4. Transcript

Full text with minute marks, plus captions.

393 segments over 44 minutes 52 seconds, transcribed from the audio and proofread (names and acronyms such as SCaN, LCRNS and Buzz Aldrin checked against NASA's published transcript). The first minute:

[00:00:00] Houston We Have a Podcast. Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center, episode 419,
[00:00:07] telling time on other worlds. I'm Dane Turner and I'll be your host today. On this podcast,
[00:00:12] we bring in the experts, scientists, engineers and astronauts, all to let you know what's going on in the world of human spaceflight and more.
[00:00:19] Days, hours, minutes, time is so ubiquitous to our everyday lives that we often just think of it as numbers on a clock face.
[00:00:28] We forget that these numbers are tied to the motion of our planet, but what do we do when we aren't on Earth?
[00:00:34] How do we tell time in a place where maybe morning, afternoon and evening,
[00:00:39] don't necessarily align with our typical earthly 24-hour day or even seconds themselves may tick faster on the moon.
[00:00:47] On this episode we have Kevin Coggins,
[00:00:50] Deputy Associate Administrator for NASA's Space Communication and Navigation or SCaN program.
[00:00:56] To help us understand how NASA plans to keep time on other planetary bodies and why accur
...

Download the transcript (TXT) Download the captions (SRT)

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