Guest:  Rand Simberg;  Topics:  Apollo 11 lunar landing, the Evoloterra Ceremony and relevance for today and our future, human spaceflight and settlement, NASA, commercial space, space billionaires, space for science only and much more.

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Rand Simberg was our guest for this program for a two segment 91 minute special Apollo 11 July 20th program.  As I have done in recent weeks, the best way to summary all the varied topics we covered is to repeat the Tags and Key Words here as they do a good job in summarizing our discussion. 

Tags and Key Words:  Apollo 11 lunar landing, Apollo program, Evoloterra Ceremony, Artemis, SLS, Orion, Boeing, Lockheed, 2024 lunar landing timeline, SpaceX Starship, Blue Origin, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, U.S. Congress, China's lunar program, The myth of the Chinese Treasure Ships, Evoloterra historical timeline, returning to the Moon the right way, ISS, NASA and jobs programs, Apollo 11 51st anniversary, The Cold War, the Soviet Union, the Ralph Cordiner of General Electric competitive commercia space essay, the importance of returning to the Moon, space billionaires, NASA's lunar and Mars fantasy, Public Private Partnerships, Apollo Cargo Cult, The Artemis Accords, bilateral agreements, multilateral agreements, The Moon Treaty, Zombie treaty, selling items from the Moon, The Homestead Act as a model, The Outer Space Treaty,  commercial space opposition, Should humans bring life to the Solar System or not, Planetary Society, Evoloterra during the pandemic, Evoloterra for sheltering at home, Evoloterra for home schooling, Apollo era space consciousness and knowhow, Apollo era science fiction authors, Dr. James Schwartz, Dr. Lucianne Walkowicz,  commercial space and human spaceflight potential regulation, Evoloterra on the Lunar Calendar.

We went back and forth through the entire program talking about Evoloterra and its meaning, importance and relevance.  Check it out at www.evoloterra.com.  Click on the astronaut helmet to get to the actual ceremony.  In addition to Rand explaining how his friends and he came up with the idea for Evoloterra, we talked about the goals and objectives of the ceremony and their relevance today and on into the future to single out a very important and one of kind global event, going to and landing on the Moon, then returning.  Don't miss how Rand described it.  Later in the program, I suggested those sheltering in place due to the pandemic do the ceremony with friends and family.  Those doing home schooling with their kids should do the ceremony as both a history and science lesson.  If you do that, let us know how it turned out by posting about the experience on our blog. 

A basic theme running through our program was what Rand has said many times before on The Space Show and in many other venues in that Apollo was not the way to go to the Moon, will not be repeated and as long as we keep doing things or trying to do space using the Apollo model, it won't work.  He talked about the role of congress in this fantasy and he used it in his explaining why returning to the Moon with Artemis was and is a fantasy in his opinion.  The way to go to the Moon and do human spaceflight is what SpaceX and Musk are doing and possibly Bezos and others.  He was critical of SLS and Orion along with Boeing and Lockheed.  This commentary was on and off again throughout our 91 minutes. 

Another theme addressed those opposing commercial and human spaceflight, suggesting instead space be all science missions.  We talked about this on and off during the 91 minutes.  I brought up the program from this past Friday with Dr. Jim Schwartz.  Rand mentioned the work from Dr. Lucianne Walkowicz of Adler in Chicago.  Toward the end of the program he strongly urged me to do debates with Dr. Walkowicz or Dr. Schwartz with Dr. Zubrin.  He said he might do it if Bob was unavailable.  For the records as of when I am writing this summary, I have reached out to Dr. Schwartz to see if he is interested n a debate. I don't know Dr. Walkowicz but will first see what happens with Dr. Schwartz.  Suggestions on this type of debate from you the listener would be appreciated. Post them on the blog, please don't email them to me.

One of the concerns expressed by Rand was that the emerging commercial and human spaceflight industry might end up being the target of adverse regulations.  What do you think about that?  Is it a big or a little risk?  Let us know with your commentary on the blog.  Making policy, NASA, and the role of congress was discussed quite a bit but he pointed out that Musk and a few others were going forward with their plans and not waiting on policy approvals and such. He thought that Musk and others had the potential render useless or in ways bypass congress and typical space methodologies but the regulatory risk, well, that was real. When asked for his thoughts about Public Private Partnerships, he said it was the way of the future.

In the second part of the program, I asked Rand for updates on space property rights, multilateral and bilateral agreements with like minded people wanting to do something on the lunar surface (The Artemis Accords were part of this discussion) and more. One of the questions Rand was asking focused on would someone be able to sell something taken from the lunar surface.  Don't miss this discussion. Space mining and resource usage was an important part of this part of our discussion, especially in terms of policy permitting real commerce, including the possibility of being able to finance lunar projects with a lunar asset as collateral. 

In talking about the right way of doing things in space, Rand referenced the essay by the former Chairman of the Board of General Electric, Ralph Cordiner.  His article/essay, "Competitive Private Enterprise In Space" can be found here:  https://rjacobson.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/cordiner-article-1961.pdf.  If you have not previously seen or read it, I strongly advise you to do so.  This article was written in 1961.  Once again, let us know your thoughts about this visionary article by posting on our blog for this show. 

During our 91 minute discussion, Rand talked about polling numbers regarding people thinking the Moon is important, we should or should not return to it plus some other questions that were asked of the targeted folks.  Listen to the stats he provided us.  Your thoughts?  If the Moon and returning to the Moon is important to you, please tell us why by posting on the blog. 

Rand provided us with a summary around Evoloterra and why it was important when they wrote and why it is important today.  As many of you know, today much of our collective history is under attack.  Evoloterra details an incredible history that I believe we should all know, teach to our children and carry forward.  It is both valuable and important.  Live it so we can hold onto it.

Please post your comments/questions for Rand Simberg on our blog for this show.  You can reach Rand through me or his blog Transterrestrial Musings at http://www.transterrestrial.com/.