The Space Show
The Space Show
The Space Show focuses on timely and important issues influencing the development of outer-space commerce, space tourism,space exploration and space development. The Space Show is committed to facilitating our becoming a space-faring nation and society with a growing and self-sustaining space-faring economy. The Space Show also focuses on other related subjects of interest to us all.
Station feed:  Created by: David Livingston |
Created on: 12 May 2005 Language: English |
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Gary Hudson, Tuesday, 5-17-11 (60.03MB; download) -- Guest: Gary Hudson. Topics: Commercial space, COTS/CCDEV program, investment, demo flights, taking federal money. You are invited to comment, ask questions, and discuss the Space Show program/guest(s) on the Space Show blog, http://thespaceshow.wordpress.com. Comments, questions, and any discussion must be relevant and applicable to Space Show programming. We welcomed Gary Hudson back to the program to discuss the presentations he made at the recent Space Access Conference. You can find his Power Point presentations on the blog entry for this program at the above URL. We started out with a discussion about Gary's "It's A Trap!" presentation. For the first part of this hour long segment, Gary went over the history of COTS and the efforts he undertook via t/Space to have New Space represented as an industrial consortium for a one time only infusion of federal money for a demo flight. The intention of the demo flight was to prove the New Space industry and to jump start it to be able to stand on its own for obtaining commercial investment and to compete with traditional aerospace. This is a comprehensive discussion you do not want to miss. During this discussion, Gary explained why the requirement to have "skin in the game" was a counter-productive and limiting COTS et al requirement. Related discussion topics included Dr. Mike Griffin as NASA Administrator, and the role and balance of government oversight and regulation with federal money. Later in the segment, Gary summarized the program's major mistakes including the "skin in the game" requirement, focusing on cargo rather than crews, making the ISS the initial destination, and allowing paper milestones such as meetings rather than hardware milestones. Toward the end of the first segment, I brought up fragility issues when working with the government because the odds are the program you are working on will be cancelled. Gary promised us a story about this issue upon return from our break. We started the second segment with a listener question wondering if Gary would advise against doing business with NASA and if we should be focusing energies on setting up shop in orbit to open up opportunities. Gary said he WAS NOT in any way advising against doing business with NASA and he did think there were starting to be orbital opportunities with Bigelow Aerospace leading the way. He went on to say that doing business with the government was challenging and it remained to be seen if the companies would be "captured" by NASA or the government in the process. He did define what he meant by saying "captured." Before moving on to additional questions, I asked Gary to tell us the story he mentioned at the end of the first segment about cancelled government programs. His story had to do with the need to get federal gov. program cancellation insurance and what the company had to do to get it and the premium cost which was around 13% of the project cost. Next, Bill asked a few questions about Rotary Rocket financing and technology which Gary answered and Mark from Scotland asked a series of questions that you will find interesting. In this context, Gary discussed being vertically integrated as compared to using outside contractors. In his program concluding remarks, Gary said he was very optimistic that we will prevail with robust space development as it represents a big part of the hope for the future. If you have comments or questions, post them on the blog. If you want to email Gary Hudson, send your note to drspace@thespaceshow.com and I'll forward it to Gary. Selected by: David Livingston [ stations ], Wed, 18 May 2011 17:50:49 UTC
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Mark Holderman, Monday,5-16-11 (59.22MB; download) -- Guest: Mark Holderman. Topics: Nautilus X exploration spacecraft, NASA, ISS centrifuge, space policy & space workforce issues. You are invited to comment, ask questions, and discuss the Space Show program/guest(s) on the Space Show blog, http://thespaceshow.wordpress.com. Comments, questions, and any discussion must be relevant and applicable to Space Show programming. We welcomed Mark Holderman to the program to discuss Nautilus X and workforce issues. His Power Point & a video on Nautilus X will be posted under this archived write up on the blog so be sure to check them both out. As Mr. Holderman worked for the CIA, I started the interview by asking him about his "spook" days with the Agency as related to space. After his brief summary as, in his own words, a "spook enabler," he told us about the Nautilus X project, his design team, how and why he designed it. He also talked about the eventual lack of interest in the project from NASA. For most of the hour long first segment, we talked about Nautilus, its mass and volume, how to launch it, and was heavy lift needed or not, plus the centrifuge that he designed to be part of Nautilus or even part of the ISS. We spent a considerable amount of time discussing the importance of the centrifuge if we ever expect to go beyond LEO. I asked about the reasons for NASA management not making the centrifuge or a variable gravity research station a NASA priority project. Our discussion about Nautilus was comprehensive as Mark was the designer of the project and he shared with us how he came up with the design and the fact that he based it on what he said was the most successful spacecraft ever made and flown, the LEM. Don't miss this discussion. Our guest fielded many listener questions about Nautilus and specifically about the centrifuge and artificial gravity. It appears that favorite questions of listeners to ask guests talking about this subject deal with showers and toilets in an artificial gravity environment. Today was no exception so we learned that in the structure Mark designed, toilets would work normally but the shower would only be partially normal. In our second segment, we focused on the space workforce issues of the day and Mark talked about the problems facing the aerospace engineering community today and the uncertain continuation of this community with ongoing college students. He suggested enrollments were going to drop off because of the lack of career opportunities in the field for students upon graduating. We talked about commercial space providing new jobs and opportunities and Mark talked about timelines for some of these changes to take place and get rooted in the industry. I asked him about his job search experience since he was required to take early retirement from NASA JSC. As you will hear him say, the opportunities in the aerospace industry today are few and far between. If you have questions for Mark Holderman, especially after reviewing his Nautilus X Power Point and video, please post them on the blog URL above. You can also email Mark at captnemo55@gmail.com. Selected by: David Livingston [ stations ], Tue, 17 May 2011 02:01:09 UTC
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8th Grade Student Letter Discussion, Sunday, 5-15-11 (90.53MB; download) -- Guest: Open Lines Discussion on 8th Grader student's letter. Topics: This is a two hour forty-five minute discussion concerning the issues raised by the 8th grade student in his letter to me. You are invited to comment, ask questions, and discuss the Space Show program/guest(s) on the Space Show blog, http://thespaceshow.wordpress.com. Comments, questions, and any discussion must be relevant and applicable to Space Show programming. Be aware that this is a two hour forty-five minute program with one break coming at 90 minutes into the discussion. The student's letter to me can be found on The Space Show blog at the URL above. During this program, we received call after call from different listeners as well as numerous emails concerning the student's perspectives on NASA, downsizing the organization, and reducing the budget for our civil space policy in the context of the student letter. Rather than summarize each caller and email, I'll simply say that I was surprised that there was so much support for the student's views on downsizing NASA and reducing the budget. When I commented on this, several of the callers sent an email suggesting that it had more to do with combating NASA and government waste rather than reducing the size of the space program. Unfortunately, we did not hear from the student as all of us had many questions to ask him to clarify his thinking for us. One issue that did come up was how best to inspire given what the student said about inspiration in his letter. Here I talked about science fiction and what other guests have said about the space reality or NASA TV not keeping up with the sci fi or virtual world. The also developed into an interesting side discussion. That said, all of us congratulated the student for his knowledge, awareness, and interest in space and encouraged him to keep it up as he goes through middle school to high school and eventually college. Do read the letter, listen to the discussion, and post your comments on the blog as to your thoughts on what this student had to say about NASA, inspiration, and our space program. Remember, he is speaking from the perspective of an 8th grader. I urge everyone to take his perspective seriously because he is representative of our future, not just for space, but for our nation. At one point during the discussion, listeners were suggesting different purposes for NASA. I asked listeners to send in the language form the NASA Charter so we could see the original purpose for which NASA was created. This caused quite a side discussion that you will want to hear. One of the listeners kindly sent in the URLs for this information and I have pasted them here: http://history.nasa.gov/spaceact.html (this is the original NASA Charter) and the newer version of the charter at http://www.nasa.gov/offices/ogc/about/space_act1.html. The last caller of the day was Stephen from Edmonton and we talked about contests and prizes for inspiring the youth. He suggested that they be international and I wondered if he thought the U.S. taxpayer should fund award to people outside the U.S. or if such international contests should be sponsored by many of the national space agencies. We leaned toward a DARPA model and I requested listener assistance in finding the right person to do a DARPA program on The Space Show. Let us know your thoughts about what this student wrote me in his letter. That is what the blog is for. If the student and/or his family hears this program, I would welcome having the student and his parents as guests on The Space Show. You can contact me at drspace@thespaceshow.com Selected by: David Livingston [ stations ], Mon, 16 May 2011 04:37:53 UTC
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Janice Dunn, Friday, 5-13-11 (44.34MB; download) -- Guest: Janice Dunn. Topics: California Space Authority, California Space Day, California Space Center. You are invited to comment, ask questions, and discuss the Space Show program/guest(s) on the Space Show blog, http://thespaceshow.wordpress.com. Comments, questions, and any discussion must be relevant and applicable to Space Show programming. We welcomed Ms. Janice Dunn of the California Space Authority (CSA) to the program to discuss the upcoming California Space Day of lobbying with the California legislature as well as providing us with an update on the development of the California Space Center. During our first segment, we discussed California Space Day. Not only did we highlight why its important, even for people outside of California, but also as to how members of the legislature are selected for CSA visits, the issues we focus upon, how best to talk to members of the legislature, along with registration details which can be found at www.californiaspaceauthority.org/spacedaysacto2011/index.html. This year's Space Day is Tuesday, May 24 so for those interested in participating, prompt registration is a must. During this segment, Janice talked about the size, capacity, potential and power of the California space economy. We also talked about how the industry was holding up in terms of workforce layoff issues as compared to other space states. Vocational or tech education was part of our discussion as was the community college system and California workforce issues and student educational and career opportunities. In the second segment, we talked about the California Space Center which will be located in Lompoc, California just outside of Vandenberg AFB. Visit www.californiaspaceauthority.org/spacecenter/index.html to see the plans for the Space Center and supporting information for helping out with the program. This will be an interactive museum, 5th graders will be part of the target market because that is when their school curriculum starts studying the planets and related subjects. Janice described the programs that will be at the Center, the office park that already has a Space X commitment, and the educational and outreach programs for additional students, teachers, and space related programming. We also talked about fundraising for the project. In our third segment, Janice talked about the CSA effort with the California congressional delegation in Washington, DC which consists of 55 members. We learned that CSA has a satellite office at NASA Ames, and we rounded off our discussion with CSA membership details and opportunities. If you have comments or questions for Janice Dunn about this discussion, do post them on the blog URL above. Ms. Dunn can be emailed at janice.dunn@californiaspaceauthority.org. Do visit the CSA website for more information about this organization and its programming, www.californiaspaceauthority.org. Selected by: David Livingston [ stations ], Sat, 14 May 2011 17:23:34 UTC
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Space Cynics & 10th Anniversary Space Show, Tuesday, 5-10-11 (77.02MB; download) -- Guests: The Space Cynics with Dr. David Livingston, Dr. John Jurist, Tom Olson. Topics: A general space policy, economic and technology driven discussion. You are invited to comment, ask questions, and discuss the Space Show program/guest(s) on the Space Show blog, http://thespaceshow.wordpress.com. Comments, questions, and any discussion must be relevant and applicable to Space Show programming. The Space Cynics got together to celebrate with The Space Show on its tenth anniversary with a 2.5 hour marathon space discussion without a break. We were sorry that the Space Cynics founder, Shubber Ali, could not be with us due to illness. As we kicked off our discussion which largely focused on the future of human spaceflight, the Cynics linked current U.S. and global economic problems to space policy and NASA budget issues. We also had much to say about Space X and its outstanding accomplishments to date. Later, I asked fellow Cynics about SSP. Tom said maybe 30 40 years but the solar sats would be around the Moon or Mars, not orbiting Earth. To combat some of our earlier tone about the severe economic problems facing the US and our space program, we talked about existing and future innovation and ongoing private investment into entrepreneurial activities. The Cynics referred to space cadets and our extended community as living within a space bubble. Tom suggested many inside this bubble were fighting tooth and nail new policies that would transform the job creating potential of space as well as the technology and innovation. Both John and Tom suggested that many within the bubble were in denial about the extent of our economic problems and the probable impact on space programs. Our first caller from Jersey City asked several questions about NASA shrinking budgets and Space X. Rich Godwin called in to talk & inquire about old business paradigms changing to new paradigms. One of his points was that an SSTO RLV was not as economic as a string of big dumb boosters. Another issue brought up by a listener email dealt with the addition of new people to space advocacy groups and who actually attends the conferences. We had a good discussion on rocket economics and Rich sent in an analysis of the Apollo era & Saturn V costs adjusted year by year for inflation to 2011. I read part of the analysis on air. John also shared some of the research he is currently doing regarding rocket economics & efficiency factors for a government program, then extrapolating to Space X. I suggested a book to the listeners, "Leo On The Cheap" By Lt. Col. John London (www.dunnspace.com/leo_on_the_cheap.htm). We talked about leading fantasy drivers such as the $10/lb cost to LEO if only this or that happened. The Cynics had a lot to say about this and fantasy space ideas in general. Toward the end of our discussion, I was asked to reflect on the past ten years of The Space Show. Those of you who are frequent listeners will not be surprised by my mini talk as I covered the usual grounds including fantasy, solid foundations for building the future, education, students, civility, and more. I also addressed some negativity traits I bring to the table & how I sometimes see things in the negative light. However, overall, the Show is a demonstration of hope and & faith in space and our future and is a positive force for change. While I am extremely critical of things and how I see the world, were I not ultimately optimistic and hopeful for our future, I would wind The Space Show up now and move on to something else. John and Tom each provided closing comments to our marathon discussion. This program will also be archived on The Space Cynics blog, http://spacecynic.wordpress.com. Please post your comments on The Space Show blog and you can do the same with the Cynics blog. If you have questions for either of the Space Cynics, use the blogs. If you do want to email Tom or John, you can send your note to me and I will forward it to them. Selected by: David Livingston [ stations ], Wed, 11 May 2011 16:42:20 UTC
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Mike Gold, Monday, 5-9-11 (45.43MB; download) -- Guest: Mike Gold. Topics: Bigelow Aerospace. You are invited to comment, ask questions, and discuss the Space Show program/guest(s) on the Space Show blog, http://thespaceshow.wordpress.com. Comments, questions, and any discussion must be relevant and applicable to Space Show programming. We welcomed Mike Gold of Bigelow Aerospace to the program for a one hour discussion. Following Mr. Gold, we did a brief Open Lines discussion but more about that later. We started with Mr. Gold providing us with an overview of Bigelow Aerospace with a focus on having an affordable means of crew transportation to LEO. This was followed by my asking him about crew safety issues and the commercial launch industry. As you will hear, Mike was very positive about the crew safety issues for commercial space and put them in context alongside government programs. You do not want to miss what Mike said about this issue. He then discussed safety with a Bigelow Space Station and noted their testing against debris hits and radiation. He explained their ballistic tests and said that because of their construction, they were as safe or safer than the ISS, saying that a fatal collapse of a rigid structure was more likely than with an inflatable structure as one would typically have time to initiate repairs with the latter. Radiation was mentioned as well, comparing the expandable material to metal. Caller John had three questions, the first one was about ITAR reform. Mike went into some detail explaining ITAR and the Bigelow experience with ITAR. You do not want to miss what he had to say about this important policy. He talked about the exemption from ITAR that Bigelow got and explained that it was for the passenger experience. He then explained what exactly this meant and how they got the exemption. John's second question dealt with the potential Falcon Heavy launcher and wanted to know if the BA2100 or something even larger would be using this heavy lift rocket. Mike said that such a heavy lift rocket offered many possibilities to both Bigelow and the industry and they were looking at how best to take advantage of these coming opportunities. The last question posed by John dealt with converting a Bigelow module to a space ship, asking if there were plans to go from a station to a ship. Don't miss his reply to this question. Crew safety came up again with a listener email wondering if a space ship accident with the loss of a non-government astronaut crew would have any greater lasting impact than the crash of a Federal Express jet with the loss of crew. Another question asked about Bigelow being on the Falcon manifest for 2014 and wondered if that was for Sun Dancer. Jack asked about Bigelow & the Mid Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS). Mike had very positive things to say about the potential offered Bigelow at Wallops and MARS. Yet another listener inquired about micro gravity R&D and then Mike was asked about the model that would be used for buying/selling, leasing, or controlling a Bigelow station. He said they would follow the terrestrial lease model & we discussed this in some detail. I asked about activities in space that would be illegal on Earth given the absence of space law on such issues. He said typically such a lease has a list of prohibited activities in it and the same would hold true for their station leases. Remaining questions addressed the European Code of Conduct, more on commercial crew, then our guest suggested we write our members of Congress to support commercial crew development. During the last segment, we did a brief Open Lines discussion. I summarized upcoming Space Show programs, Trent called to comment on the Sunday program, and Gerry called regarding the current Space Review article by Victoria Samson addressing India & space security. If you have comments or questions for Mike Gold, please post them on the blog. I can also forward email to him. Do visit their website, www.bigelowaerospace.com. Selected by: David Livingston [ stations ], Tue, 10 May 2011 15:44:17 UTC
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Keith Dauzat & Eric Hunting, LUF, Sunday, 5-8-11 (59.45MB; download) -- Guests: Keith Dauzat, Eric Hunting. Topics: Undersea habitats leading to space development, the Living Universe Foundation. You are invited to comment, ask questions, and discuss the Space Show program/guest(s) on the Space Show blog, http://thespaceshow.wordpress.com. Comments, questions, and any discussion must be relevant and applicable to Space Show programming. We welcomed our two guests, Keith Dauzat and Eric Hunting to the program to discuss the Living Universe Foundation (LUF) and their program for space colonization. The discussion has its origins in the book written by Marshall T. Savage in the early 1990s, "The Millennial Project: Colonizing The Galaxy In Eight Easy Steps." As a result of this book, the First Millennial Foundation was created to bring about the plan discussed in the book but then events, basically unclear in total, caused the project to fade away. In recent times, the new LUF was created to carry on with the plan and it is in the process of being approved as a 501C3. In addition, as you will hear throughout our nearly two hour discussion, a revision of "The Millennial Project" book is underway and you will hear our guests discuss some of the changes that will apply to LUF.. This new program is referred to as The Millennial Project 2.0 (TMP2). Our guests mentioned several important websites that you can use to obtain more information. Visit http://tmp2.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page and http://tmp2.wikia.com/wiki/Utilihab_Project to learn more about the Utilhab Project which was also discussed by our guests. As both our guests referred to the information on these and related websites, I suggest you use the websites when listening to this discussion. LUF team member Steve Carr emailed me information on the Mondragon Corporation in Spain as a model for what LUF was talking about, .http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation. One LUF participant did email a comment regarding our economic discussion. This email came from Chad which I read on air and questioned the focus on quarterly profits. This email comment sparked a discussion on economics, investing, government projects versus investor funded projects & more. See what you think about this discussion. Other discussion points that came up included LUF outreach in the New Space and space advocacy communities and presenting their concepts at space conferences. Later in the discussion we talked about vision, big vision ideas. leadership, and being grounded in reality to build a strong foundation for moving forward with LUF. This prompted one of my usual rants on vision, leadership, reality, grounding, fantasy and such. In addition to describing the 8 steps referred to in the Savage book, our guests said some of the models were based on related economic activity for that model. For example, real estate development & agriculture. This will become clear when you listen to what our two guests said about funding, the economics behind LUF, and the 8 steps in the plan. In fact, Eric opened the discussion with a short summary of each of these 8 steps. LUF has a Forum that you can join, LUF_team@yahoogroups.com. For your comments & questions, please post them on the blog URL above. You can also email them to Millennialproject@gmail.com, Keith using keithd21@yahoo.com and for Eric, use erichunting@gmail.com. Selected by: David Livingston [ stations ], Mon, 09 May 2011 16:27:17 UTC
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Ian Brewster, Friday, 5-6-11 (72.27MB; download) -- Guest: Ian Brewster. Topics: Commercial space policy, space tourism, NASA, special forces, and more. You are invited to comment, ask questions, and discuss the Space Show program/guest(s) on the Space Show blog, http://thespaceshow.wordpress.com. Comments, questions, and any discussion must be relevant and applicable to Space Show programming. During our first of two segments of this two hour fifteen minute discussion, Ian Brewster started out talking about some of his non-space journalism work and an upcoming book on special forces teams from around the world. We talked briefly about the Navy Seals and other special forces units & I asked him to return as a guest when his special forces book is released later this year. In addressing space, Ian said that commercial space was at a point in human history where it was needed for the good of humanity. He also said "rich people will put us in space," referencing space tourism and the emerging commercial space companies. We then talked about the need for reasonable rules of the road for space development & that there were long term benefits for commercial space development. We talked about NASA doing a better job of promoting the importance of space & at one time our guest suggested that NASA needed some good "PR copy." We also talked about NASA spinoffs and using them to help make the case for space development, both with Congress and the people. I did challenge him this area because it does not appear that marketing spinoffs has ever been that useful in promoting space policy. As we started the second long segment, we talked some more about spinoffs, policy makers not recognizing or respecting the path through space for solving many of the problems facing us today. I asked Ian about the Canadian Space Agency and the Canadian population support for space programming. Another question I asked him was about the impact of science fiction on the average Canadian in terms of influencing space policy and participation on the part of Canadians. Ian had much to say about science fiction from the Canadian perspective and its impact on space policy is about the same as what we have experienced in the U.S. We then switched to developments in the world of physics and talked about CERN & the LHC with the search for the Higgs Boson (H-B) particle. Our guest went into some detail describing this search and why it was important and what the discovery of the H-B particle might mean to us all. We then discussed short sighted policy using the LHC as an example. Ian told us about the positive commercial and economic impact the LHC was having throughout Europe. Since this was originally to be in Texas and we cancelled the program, the U.S. lost out on these advantages. This brought our discussion to the area of investing for the future in STEM & space programs, again using the LHC as an example. We had quite the discussion on policy, education, influencing Congress, accountability, and how to turn things around now rather than waiting for new generations to emerge with leadership in these areas. Near the end of the program, I read a letter I received from an 8th grade student calling for the downsizing and reduction in budget for NASA. Both Ian & I had much to say concerning the 8th graders view of NASA and space. This letter will be the focus of an upcoming program, watch the newsletter for details. If you have comments or questions, post them on the blog URL above. You can email Ian Brewster at i_brewster@yahoo.com. Selected by: David Livingston [ stations ], Sat, 07 May 2011 15:47:02 UTC
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CLassroom Lesson Three Artificial Gravity, Tuesday, 5-3-11 (68.78MB; download) -- Guests: Classroom: Dr. David Livingston, Joe Carroll, Dr. John Jurist, Dr. Jim Logan. Topics: Manned artificial gravity research station in LEO. Please note that you are invited to comment, ask questions, and discuss the Space Show Classroom program/guest(s) on the Space Show Classroom blog, http://spaceshowclassroom.wordpress.com. Comments, questions, and any discussion must be relevant and applicable to Space Show Classroom programming. This two hour plus Classroom program was continuous without a break. For this program, refer to the Power Point presentation by Joe, "Design Concepts for a Manned Artificial Gravity Research Facility." Mr. Carroll took us through this presentation slide by slide, plus he responded to listener and co-host questions throughout the program. You can find this presentation plus his longer IAC Conference paper on The Space Show Classroom blog under Presentation Materials for our Classroom program for May 3, 2011. Rather than writing a summary of this program, let me say that Mr. Carroll has given considerable thought to the engineering and human factors/human physiology issues regarding an artificial gravity research station in LEO. Listener questions addressed technical issues relating to spin, center of mass/gravity, hits by orbital debris items and more. Throughout this Classroom discussion, Joe took us into the technology, operations, and why's regarding his artificial gravity research station. Many issues were discussed including but not limited to Mars & lunar gravity, .06 G, spin rates, the Coriolis effect, the Gemini experiments, a Moon/Mars Dumbbell Concept, Airbeam tunnels, radial structure lengths, and much more. Toward the end of the program, we discussed the economics, costs, and who might pay for and deploy such a station. You will hear Joe talk about the present economic, cost, and R&D uncertainties for such a project, but you will also hear him talk about the commercial potentials, who should be given "free" access to the research station and why, the use of it with Space X as well as Bigelow, and why not doing it as a NASA project makes sense though he advocated NASA as a customer. At the very end, I asked Joe about building some small models to help those of us who are not engineers in understanding and even visualizing his concept. He liked that idea, talked about larger models of the size of a Boeing 737 cabin (he used this cabin size throughout his discussion and presentation), and possibly locating it at a company such as Space X. As we concluded our discussion, all of us said that after 50 years of human spaceflight, to not be able to answer any of the questions regarding the issues discussed in this program was criminal. Furthermore, as you will hear Dr. Logan and the others say, you can determine the credibility of a human space program by the speed and determination of the commitment to understanding the necessary gravity needs for people, plants, and animals in space. If there is no commitment to understanding these issues, the program is more likely a rhetoric only program. Post your comments & questions on the blog URL above. You can email Joe Carroll at tether@cox.net. All participants can be emailed through me at drspace@thespaceshow.com. Selected by: David Livingston [ stations ], Wed, 04 May 2011 15:48:33 UTC
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Project Icarus, Monday, 5-2-11 (45.56MB; download) -- Guests: Dr. Richard Obousy, Dr. Rob Adams, Dr. Ian Crawford. Topics: Project Icarus, interstellar propulsion & missions, fusion propulsion. Please note that you are invited to comment, ask questions, and discuss the Space Show program/guest(s) on the Space Show blog, http://thespaceshow.wordpress.com. Comments, questions, and any discussion must be relevant and applicable to Space Show programming. Visit their website at www.icarusinterstellar.org/index.php. We welcomed our three guests to the program to discuss Project Icarus, interstellar propulsion, missions, and fusion energy. In our first segment, Dr. Obousy, the team leader, provided us with background and history related to Project Icarus and the earlier British Interplanetary Society (BIS) Project Daedalus. To compare and contrast an actual interstellar mission designed for the purpose to a mission going interstellar such as Voyager, he said it would take Voyager 70,000 years to reach the nearest start but the interstellar designed mission would do so in 50-100 years. He talked about the Icarus team and that it was a joint BIS-Tau Zero all volunteer effort. At the end of the five year study in 2014, the team hopes to be able to say if such a mission is plausible. Our guests listed the criteria for the mission but you can find it on the Icarus website at www.icarusinterstellar.org/icarus_project.php. One of the important requirements for this mission is the ability to decelerate as the mission neared its target. Not only did we discuss the process to be used for selecting the target or destination, we talked about the need for the mission to be extremely well programmed with more than capable software and artificial intelligence (AI). This topic came up again later in the show, especially in terms of our programming and software capabilities of today as compared to what will be needed for the mission. Our guests talked about the scientific objectives of such a mission, then a listener asked if they had come up with cost estimates for the mission. Our guests said it was not possible to estimate costs at this time as the technology readiness levels (TRL) had to substantially increase to be able to do that. Later in the discussion, the cost issue again surfaced with an explanation of how costs can be determined and spread over space infrastructure and development given the nature of an interplanetary mission and our becoming space-fairing in the process. Later in the first segment, we started discussing fusion propulsion, a subject that remained with us for the balance of our program. We started the second long segment talking about Icarus outreach & PR. One particularly interesting site for Project Icarus is http://news.discovery.com/space/wide-angle-project-icarus-110208.html. Fusion propulsion was again the topic and we talked about the different kinds of fusion, what was most suitable for space propulsion, reaching breakeven, and fusion research progress. Our guests explained why only fusion propulsion could be used for an interstellar mission. We had several questions about "fringe" theories & our guests addressed these questions from a TRL perspective. We talked about being taken seriously within the industry and by funding sources. Near the end of the discussion, our guests talked about career opportunities in the field, how best to learn the subject matter, and internships. Post your comments/questions on the blog URL above. You can also email info@icarusinterstellar.org or I can forward your message to the guest you designate. Selected by: David Livingston [ stations ], Tue, 03 May 2011 15:51:49 UTC
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