Karl Urban is very comfortable in outer space: As a freelancing science journalist he loves to write for newspapers and experimental online media. He is also on air on public radio stations and he podcasts: about space and life on spaceship Earth.

Vita

When Karl Urban was born the moon was uninhabited (again) for over a decade. He always wished to go to space. But instead founded the web project Raumfahrer.net in 2001. He studied geoscience in Tübingen and one semester in Iceland – unfortunately without witnessing a volcanic eruption.

Today, he works for radio, online media and newspapers, lastly: Deutschlandfunk, Spektrum.de, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Stuttgarter Zeitung, Tagesspiegel, Science Notes Magazin, Österreichischer Rundfunk ORF, Schweizer Radio SRF, Deutschlandfunk Nova, GEO, p.m. or Zeit.de. He is member of Riffreporter, a cooperative of free journalists and collaborates in their project Die Weltraumreporter. There is producing the podcast AstroGeo which tells true science stories from space and geology. In 2020 he was fellow of the Masterclass Science Journalism which is funded by the Robert-Bosch-Stiftung.

Karl Urban is author of a nonfiction book for children (Was ist Was: Unsere Erde). He also works as lecturer at the University Tübingen.

For Die Fachwerkstatt he observes the big topics of our time: How will energy be supplied in the future? How did the planets form? And how did life on Earth evolve – and (even more interesting) why did it not vanish until today?

Karl Urban was awarded for his work: In 2017 he was awarded the Alternative Media Price in the category future for his radio feature Heiter bis aufständisch which was broadcasted in the German public radio. In 2018 he was listed on the shortlist for the Holtzbrinck Price for Science Journalism. 2013 he was awarded the yearly price of the science blogging community SciLogs for his blog AstroGeo.

Transparency

As a free journalist it is important to work independently. This means all journalistic work should be researched and written only in the interest of the reader and hence the public.

However in day-to-day work a journalist could not neglect all external support, coming from organisations or companies. Otherwise reports from far locations would not always be possible. I just accept such offers when they are not connected to any conditions. Jobs for public relations I solely accept when they do not collide with any of my journalistic work.

To be transparent in these claims I publish here all support which does not directly come from my journalist work. This list will be refreshed once per year (see list in German version).

Recent Work

• Wie entschärft man einen Asteroiden? Karl Urban im Deutschlandfunk (Feature)
• Wärmewende: Klimafreundlich heizen gegen die Abhängigkeit vom Gas und Öl Karl Urban bei Riffreporter
• Alte Spionagebilder dienen neuerdings als Zeitmaschine Karl Urban bei Riffreporter
• Europas strategischer Zugang zum All Karl Urban im Deutschlandfunk (Feature)
• Internationale Raumstation: Russischer Rückzug ab 2024? Karl Urban bei Riffreporter
• Die Energiewende bekommt ein Rohstoffproblem Karl Urban auf Spektrum.de
• Raumfahrt in der Schusslinie des Krieges Karl Urban bei Riffreporter

• Complete list