Guest:  Dr. Tiffany Vora;   Topics:  Preparing for living in space, space settlement, time lines, the Moon and Mars timelines compared and more.

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We welcomed Dr. Vora to the program for a wide ranging discussion concerning the role of space in our global community covering government and private sector space.  As we have done before, I suggest you use the Tags as a guide to the variety and diversity of topics talked about.  For your convenience, I have repeated the tags below.

Tags:  Dr. Tiffany Vora, expanding community of stakeholders for space and the future, additional technologies, better national participation, private sector participation, Explore Mars, space makes Earth better, job and prosperity growth, inspiration, space and sustainability, the importance of climate change, space builds a better future, venture capital, diversity, regulations, space economy, Mars before settlement, propulsion and renewable energy, synthetic biology, space challenges sustainability, low gravity research, animals in space, blue collar space workforce, selling the business case for space, dual use sells, startup discussion, defense and healthcare sells, fusion propulsion, Artemis program, Decadal Survey, new investor tools, space is a different risk profile, Musk and useful provocation, regeneration, space modification enhance, disease enhancement, ethics.

Our discussion spanned close to two hours with significant email listener questions over those calling us.  A few parts of the discussion stood out for me.  Later in the show Marshall called about genetic modification.  I then expanded the topic to the state of the art of genetic modification today for disease enhancement and how challenging this might be for space.  I also repeated the CF cell progress made years ago with the space shuttle, plus I described several more recent genetic modification attempts for disease that did not work out. Tiffany talked with us for some time about the “crisper” baby stories from years ago.  All of this is all worth considering when we talk genetic modification for long duration human spaceflight. Don’t miss how Tiffany summarized this segment.

Dr. Tiffany Vora, expanding community of stakeholders for space and the future, additional technologies, better national participation, private sector participation, Explore Mars, space makes Earth better, job and prosperity growth, inspiration, space and sustainability, the importance of climate change, space builds a better future, venture capital, diversity, regulations, space economy, Mars before settlement, propulsion and renewable energy, synthetic biology, space challenges sustainability, low gravity research, animals in space, blue collar space workforce, selling the business case for space, dual use sells, startup discussion, defense and healthcare sells, fusion propulsion, Artemis program, Decadal Survey, new investor tools, space is a different risk profile, Musk and useful provocation, regeneration, space modification enhance, disease enhancement, ethics

Another part of our discussion that stood out for me was when Tiffany was asked what she thought the proper role for the private sector might be and could the privates undertake space development without the assist of the government.  Tiffany has much to say about the need for public private partnerships though she cautioned about the need for effective regulations and order.  Thin is was an important part of our program so do listen for it and then stay with it.

Our guest had much to say about diversity.  When I first started going to space conferences back in the mid 1990’s, I always commented that space would never prosper as long as the only players were older white guys.  When I started TSS, I used to repeat this all the time in the early years of the program as it was clear the organizations and the community was not trying to involved other groups that should be included and likely wanted to be included.  This has changed over the years. I estimate at least half my guests today are women with lots of diversity.  The same for the men.  I support broadening the space field and adding diversity to it but also I must caution on some of the very extreme diversity concepts out there in the general ether that are themselves restricting and in my opinion dangerous.  I do go for the idea of merit and to work to bring all peoples up to doing their best rather than accepting the worst for diversity alone.  We need the best of the best to take us to space and we need to make sure that we work to drive the best of the best in each of us. 

This discussion contained many other very important concepts plus lots of current information. Please listen to all of it.  Post your comments on our blog for this program.  You can contact our guest through her website, tiffanyvora.com or The Space Show.