Open Lines, Tuesday, 8-21-12
22 Aug 2012, 15:57 UTC
Guest: Open Lines with Dr. David Livingston. Topics: Space policy, STEM, Curiosity, Mars Society Conference, SLS, heavy lift, sequestration, & 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. Transcripts of Space Show programs are not permitted without prior written consent from The Space Show (even if for personal use) & are a violation of the Space Show copyright. As I started the first segment of this 2 hour plus Open Lines program, I identified some news items suggesting that some listeners might be interested in discussing them. Not so. Our first caller, Patrick from Quebec, debriefed us on the Mars Society Conference in Pasadena, the Curiosity landing & JPL as well as some of the main conference keynote speakers. You can see the videos of all the keynote speakers from this conference at www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL57B8D5FFF5B55A62. In telling us about the conference, Patrick focused in on the talk given by Elon Musk. Later, Patrick mentioned his visit to the largest ground based optical telescope on the East Coast, the Megantic Observatory. Charles Pooley called in next to continue to raise issues about the NASA Nanosat Challenge. If anyone knows anything about it, do let us know. We started the second segment with a call from Brett in Philadelphia to talk about his efforts in STEM and student space outreach. Check out the website he talked about regarding "How to be a Rocket Scientist or Aerospace Engineer" at www.squidoo.com/how-to-be-a-rocket-scientist-or-aerospace-engineer. Your suggestions on additions to his lists are welcome. Our next caller, Doug from S. California, offered us some comments from the recent program featuring Chris Carberry and humans to Mars. He talked about going back to the Moon but as part of a mission to Mars. He also talked about the Carberry comments regarding the upcoming 50th anniversary of when we left the Moon for the last time, suggesting we turn it into a positive statement for the future. In addition, we talked about the viral JPL video, "We Are Nasa And We Know It" at www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFvNhsWMU0c. Our next caller was John from Atlanta. He responded to my request that listeners tell us if they thought space would make it into the presidential campaign as an issue. John did not think it would but check out his comments on this subject. John also took issue with an earlier caller pertaining to Elon's comments regarding rocket reusability, Falcon Heavy, a reusable Falcon 9, and SLS. Our next topic was sequestration and I talked about the report by Dr. Fuller at George Mason University which details job losses in all states in DOD and space related work if sequestration is allowed to take place. You can download this excellent study/report at www.aia-aerospace.org/assets/Fuller_II_Final_Report.pdf. As we were drawing to a close, both John and Doug called back to clarify statements and positions spoken about earlier in the program. Please post your comments on our blog. If you want to email anyone who participated in our discussion, send your note to me and I will forward it to them.
