Guest:  Open Lines with Dr. David Livingston;  Topics:  Multiple space topics, space advocate conferences, Mars reality check through film, Dream Chaser toys, Earth lava tubes for Moon landings and much more.

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Welcome to our Open Lines program.  Our first call was David from Seattle.  We talked some general things based on my introduction of the show including college football and the Tune-In app which I sometimes use for podcasting.  David and I found out we were both in the same college fraternity, David at the University of Washington and me at UofA in Tucson. Dave then began talking about his attendance at the recent Mars Society conference in Pasadena.  He did say that there was some very good programming but said most of it, perhaps up to 2/3 of sessions, was not to his liking.  He also reported that there were many no-shows for speakers but that he did appreciate the technical and science presentations.  He talked about Dr. Brandenburg's presentation, I asked him about the nuclear power presentation by Dr. Chris Morrison who is the guest this coming Tuesday, and also the Mars reality based film shown by filmmaker David Brody.  We talked about conferences in general and we both agreed that if this conference was an accurate representative of the status of the Mars Society, it needed new energy and life.  That said, I made the point in saying that I was not part of The Mars Society and that I hoped it was doing fine and the issues David raised with the conference were just localized to the event in question.  We spent a few minutes talking about conference outreach in general.  Conferences which I gave high marks to included the NewSpace Conference, Explore Mars Humans2Mars, AIAA events, The Space Foundation, and ISDC.

Our next caller was John Hunt from Ft. Worth.  He was interested in my providing more information about my meeting with Dr. Woodward regarding NIAC 2 award and mach thruster work.  I did do another update, talked about meeting Dr. Brandenburg at the office and spending the afternoon with Dr. B, and then I mentioned the upcoming Estes Park Advanced Propulsion Conference.  I mentioned that Dr. Woodward and he added me to his newsletter. I told John I would ask permission to read parts of his newsletter on air on select OL shows.  If I get that permission, I will let you know on the next OL show to be aired live on Sunday, Oct. 7.  John brought up EmDrive which does not seem to be in the news these days. I had no real updates on it.  John and I did mention that EmDrive seemed to violate Conservation of Momentum while Dr. Woodward's work seemed to be in line with general relativity.

We started the second segment by my highlighting key upcoming shows already scheduled for the balance of 2018.  I then went through a news list and mentioned several articles and stories that might have been of interest to the listeners.  One story I mentioned was that Mattel was making a toy Dream Chaser model that would be available this month.

Marshall from Oklahoma was our next caller.  He brought our attention to a Space.com article on Earth lava tubes being used as an analog for lunar astronauts.  You can see the Space.com article here:  www.space.com/41921-exploring-lava-tubes-for-moon-landings.html.  While talking with Marshall about this article and getting it off their website, I notice a story with photos regarding the Dream Chaser toy.  If you are interested in a model Dream Chaser or maybe giving it as a Christmas present to yourself or a young space cadet,  here is the story with the links for getting buying the model plus photos of the Dream Chaser toy: www.space.com/41895-dream-chaser-space-plane-matchbox-toy.html.  As I said on air, I was interested in getting one for my desk which I would place next to the Falcon 9 model that I have.  Before we ended the show, I commented that we would likely move away from Open Lines on Tuesday evening but if you think a Tuesday Open Lines show is a good idea, let me know by posting on the blog. Our next OL program is Sunday, Oct. 7.

Please post your comments/questions on TSS blog for this show.  You can reach any of our callers through me.