a voyage to antarctica by UKAHT

Astronaut Dr Meganne Christian takes Alok Jha on a trip across the universe, to explore the many connections between Antarctica and space travel. 

The winter before Captain Scott’s ill-fated attempt on the South Pole, his youngest team member Apsley Cherry-Garrard (known as “Cherry”) set off across the ice in the middle of the polar night. Henrietta Hammant talks to Alok Jha about this astonishing journey and Cherry’s subsequent memoir, which remains one of the most gripping works of travel and adventure writing to this day. 

With Antarctica sea ice levels reaching record lows over the last four consecutive years, Alok Jha talks to leading glaciologist Professor Martin Siegert about glaciology: the study of ice in all its forms - from the Antarctic ice sheets and glaciers to the icy bodies of our solar system – why ice matters, and the crucial role it plays in our climate.

Dr Leigh Hickmott takes Alok Jha up close and personal with Antarctica’s most fearsome resident: the killer whale, which Leigh calls ‘the apex and most adept predator on the planet’. 

Alok Jha talks to Leilani Raashida Henry about her father: the pioneering Antarctic explorer and civil rights leader, George Washington Gibbs Jr. 

Alok Jha talks to world-renowned volcanologist and filmmaker Clive Oppenheimer. More people have been to space than have set eyes on the depths of Mount Erebus in Antarctica – the continent’s highest active volcano. But Clive has been back to Erebus 13 times: to better understand what is happening in the fiery depths below the ice and answer big questions about life on our planet and beyond. 

Alok Jha revisits one of Antarctica’s most enduring tales of exploration with author and journalist Katherine MacInnes. Her book 'Snow Widows' tells the story of the race for the South Pole, from the perspective of the women whose lives would be forever changed by it: the wives and mothers that Sir Robert Falcon Scott and his expedition team left behind. 

Alok Jha talks to NASA astro-botanist Jess Bunchek about growing vegetables in Antarctica – and outer space. 

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. 

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. 

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! 

Alok Jha talks to Guinness World Record-breaking polar explorer Preet Chandi MBE – known as Polar Preet – about her extraordinary, inspiring and boundary-breaking achievements in Antarctica.

Alok Jha talks to award-winning polar architect Hugh Broughton, to find out what it takes to design buildings where people can live – and even thrive –  in the world’s most extreme conditions. 

Alok Jha talks to climate scientist Dr Tamsin Edwards about how her pioneering work in modelling the impact of ice sheet and glacier melt on rising sea levels is predicting the future of the planet. 

Alok Jha talks to record-breaking explorer and UK Antarctic Heritage Trust's Head of Operations Sophie Montagne, one of the British Army’s Ice Maidens team, which in 2018, became the first all-female team to cross Antarctica using muscle power alone. 

Alok Jha talks to Marine Biologist Dr Huw Griffiths about the weird & wonderful life that is being discovered underwater in Antarctica; teaching us incredible things about our planet’s deep past, and even revealing some secrets of the universe. 

Alok Jha talks to Mya-Rose Craig, aka Birdgirl, the British-Bangladeshi birder, race activist and environmentalist, about travelling to Antarctica and the impact the frozen continent has had on her climate activism. 

Alok Jha talks to award-winning history broadcaster and best-selling author Dan Snow about being part of the Endurance22 mission and what it was like to witness the extraordinary moment Sir Ernest Shackleton’s lost ship was found at the bottom of the Weddell Sea. 

In Season three of A Voyage to Antarctica, presenter Alok Jha (The Economist) and guests including historian Dan Snow and birder, activist and environmentalist  Mya-Rose Craig (aka Birdgirl), will delve into the extraordinary human stories of the wildest place on the planet. Unearthing Antarctica’s hidden treasures; telling untold stories of discovery and adventure; and exploring the amazing scientific discoveries being made across the continent of climate science. 

In the final episode of series 2, Alok Jha talks to Polar Conservationist and explorer Prem Gill to find out what Antarctic seals and Grime music have in common. 

Alok Jha talks to the award-winning writer Philip Hoare about his life-long love for and obsession with whales and their history in Antarctica. 

Alok Jha talks to Dr Kelly Hogan, a Marine Geophysicist at the British Antarctic Survey to find out what studying the remains of ancient ice sheets in Antarctica can tell us about climate change and the future of the planet. 

In part 1 of this special two part episode, Alok Jha talks to polar explorer Dwayne Fields: the first black Briton to walk 400 miles to the magnetic North Pole, in 2010.

In part 2 of The White Continent? Alok Jha delves further into Antarctica’s colonial history with historian Dr Ben Maddison, to discover some untold stories of the continent. 

Alok Jha goes to Antarctica and far beyond with space plasma physicist Dr Suzie Imber. 

Alok Jha talks to legendary explorer Felicity Aston about what endurance means to her. 

In the second season of this podcast from the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust, we’ll be delving further into the extraordinary human stories of the wildest, windiest place on our planet. 

In the final episode of the series, Alok Jha talks to Professor Klaus Dodds about Antarctica’s unique geopolitical position, The Antarctic Treaty, Antarctica’s potentially precarious future and what we can all do to protect it.

In this penultimate episode, Alok Jha talks with contemporary artists Peter Liversidge, Lucy Orta and Marc Rees to find out how Antarctica has inspired them in their work, and why the icy continent has been a particularly inspiring place for so many artists, even before the first sighting 200 years ago. 

We hear plenty about the glories of men like Scott and Shackleton who lived in and explored Antarctica, but what about the women? This week, Alok Jha talks with travel writer Sara Wheeler and UKAHT CEO Camilla Nichol to find out the untold stories of the first women to engage with Antarctica — from the first explorers to the undocumented wives of whalers, and the struggles of women scientists, who were not allowed to conduct research there until the 1970s.

Alok Jha talks to conservation filmmaker Ruth Peacey about the history of penguins in the Antarctic, and what studying penguins can tell us about the future of the planet.

Antarctica is at the front line of the global climate crisis; in this episode Alok Jha talks to Professor Dame Jane Francis about the history of the continent, and the extraordinary climate research happening there.

Alok Jha talks to Sir Ranulph Fiennes about the explorers of the past, his experiences of Antarctica and what it actually takes to go there.

Alok Jha introduces the first series of UKAHT's new podcast A Voyage to Antarctica.