energy

Guest: Dr. Marshall Kaplan was our guest for today's show. We started our discussion with an introduction to his teaching, training, and education company, Launchspace (Please see http//www.launchspace.com/ ). We talked about his upcoming classes, Space Principles and Space Vehicle Mechanisms, plus other courses offered. Dr. Kaplan told us about the market for these courses, who teaches them, and many of the topics taught. In addition to talking about Launchspace, we talked about U.S. space policy, its importance, the risks it faces, and more.

Guest: Shubber Ali was our guest today in order to discuss our economic situation and its fallout for civil and private space, space solar power (SSP), space investment, venture capital, and much more. Several callers asked Shubber questions ranging from how NewSpace Companies should strategize for survival or moving forward given our economic crisis and one caller even asked for models of how aviation companies did it in the 1930s.

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.

Guests: Dr. Robert Zubrin and Chris Carberry of The Mars Society were our guests today to discuss the upcoming Eleventh Annual Mars Society Conference to be held in Boulder, Colorado from August 14-17 (Please see www.marssociety.org/portal/c/Conventions/2008 for more details). Both Dr. Zubrin and Chris took us through the list of major speakers and programming and we elaborated on many, including the unusual religion and space panel which will be held on Saturday, August 16th.

Guest : Gene Meyers, CEO of the Space Island Group (www.spaceislandgroup.com), was the guest for this Space Show program. We started our interview with Gene providing us with background and updates for both a historical overview of Space Island, plus an update with its current activities. Most of the overview addressed the Space Island Group's plan to use shuttle external tanks for a space station or other commercial purposes.

Guest: Dennis Wingo was the guest for this Space Show program. We started out discussing energy which, as Dennis stated, is a very complex problem. This led to our discussion of the Moon as a microcosm of the Earth's macrocosm environment. Dennis also described the process for lunar construction for solar power hardware and then getting it to Geo from the Moon. As you will hear, listeners asked him if it would be humans on the Moon doing the hardware construction or robotics. You will want to hear what Dennis has to say about this.

Gene Meyers was the guest for this program but he does not appear on the show until 75 minutes into the program. Prior to Gene's arrival on the show, we do Open Lines with listeners and callers. Gene talked about his latest plans for Space Islands Group which involve solar power satellites, building a heavy lift launcher, external tanks and World Bank and foreign financing. We discussed his ITAR risk, SSP technology, environmental programs and risks, energy independence and much more.

Dr. Michael Duke, Director of the Center for Commercial Applications of Combustion in Space at the Colorado School of Mines which is a NASA Space Commercialization Center, was the guest for this Space Show program. Dr. Duke explained what a NASA Space Commercialization Center is and talked about the variety of space programs in his department and at the school. He also talked about the need to go back to the Moon and what the plausible commercial possibilities are for the Moon. We also talked about commercial opportunities on nearby asteroids, nearby space in general and on Mars.