Al Globus

One day in 1978 Al Globus’ housemate brought home a stack of CoEvolution Quarterly issues, including an issue discussing Princeton professor Gerard O’Neill’s vision of free space settlements.  Al was electrified.  As soon as he graduated he got a job as a contractor at NASA Ames Research Center eventually working on Hubble, ISS, X37, shuttle, earth observation, teleoperation, molecular nanotechnology, asteroid mining, and bone development in micro-g wining many awards and publishing many papers along the way. More important, he made two primary contributions to space settlement.

 

The first was founding and managing the NASA Ames Space Settlement Contest for 6-12th grade students.The second involves revisiting the assumptions of the studies that electrified Al in the first place.  Two of these assumptions, the need for radiation shielding and limited human tolerance of rotation, are not quite as iron clad as believed. This reduces the mass of the first space settlements by at least two orders of magnitude! The consequence is that small space settlements in Equatorial Low Earth Orbit may be practical even launching all the materials from Earth. 

Broadcast 3165 Al Globus

Guest:  Al Globus; Topics:  Al's new book "The High Frontier: An Easier Way," eLEO low radiation orbits, centrifuge spin rates for humans, life support, commercial markets and more.  Note that Al's co-author, Tom Marotta, call in on the toll free line in both the first and second segment to participate and add to our discussion.

Broadcast 3032 Al Globus

Guest:  Al Globus;  Topics:  ELEO space settlement, low radiation, shielding, space tourism, space mfg, pregnancy in space and much more. Please direct all comments and questions regarding specific Space Show programs & guest(s) to the Space Show blog which is part of archived program on our website, www.thespaceshow.com.   Comments and questions should be relevant to the specific Space Show program.

Broadcast 2898 Al Globus

Guest:  Al Globus;  Topics:  Equatorial low radiation Earth space settlement orbit, space tourism, & more.  Please direct all comments and questions regarding specific Space Show programs & guest(s) to the Space Show blog which is part of archived program on our website, www.thespaceshow.com.  Comments and questions should be relevant to the specific Space Show program. Written Transcripts of Space Show programs are a violation of our copyright and are not permitted without prior written consent, even if for your own use.

Broadcast 2505 (Special Edition)

Guest: Al Globus; Topics: Space settlement in LEO and radiation over the equator. Please direct all comments and questions regarding Space Show programs/guest(s) to the Space Show blog, http://thespaceshow.wordpress.com. Comments and questions should be relevant to the specific Space Show program. Written Transcripts of Space Show programs are a violation of our copyright and are not permitted without prior written consent, even if for your own use.

Broadcast 993 (Special Edition)

Guest: Al Globus returned as a guest for this Space Show program. We started our discussion with a comprehensive overview of the NASA Space Settlement Contest that Al helped start several years ago. As we learned, the contest is open to those in grades 6-9 and 10-12 or their foreign equivalent. Each group is judged separately other than for the grand prize. Learn about this contest and if you have a child or know someone who is eligible to compete, share the information with them.

Broadcast 410

Al Globus was the guest for this Space Show program. Al's special interest is space settlement and this program was largely devoted to stating the case for space settlement, how it can be done, why it should and in fact must be done, and how to make the case for space settlement with the general public and political leaders. We also talked about space resources, solar power, nanotechnology and its application in getting cheaper launch costs, space tourism including both suborbital and orbital, the U.S.

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