engineering

Guest: Paul Breed of Unreasonable Rockets was the guest for this Space Show program. Please visit his blog http://unreasonablerocket.blogspot.com/ for more information. We started our discussion with Paul talking about the history of Unreasonable Rocket as to how he started it, how he got his son interested in working with him building rockets, and even why he named the company as he did. We also talked about his efforts to compete in the Lunar Lander Challenge over the years up to the current year and why he did not enter this year.

Guests: The Space Cynics, Shubber Ali, Tom Olson, Dr. John Jurist, and Dr. David Livingston, came together for this conference call round table discussion on the topic of the day, Space Solar Power (SSP). In keeping with the true Space Cynics fashion, this was a hard-hitting program addressing some of the fundamental challenges facing SSP and why the Cynics do not share the joy of seeing a future SSP world as do those promoting it.

Guests: Retired General Bob Dickman, Executive Director of AIAA, Col. Richard White, USAF SMC LAAFB, and Maureen Heath of Northrop Grumman Corporation were our guests tonight regarding the upcoming AIAA Space 2008 Conference to be held in San Diego, CA from Sept. 9-11. For conference information and registration, please visit www.aiaa.org. We started our discussion with Ms. Heath and the Civil Space Day programming that she has been organizing for Wednesday, Sept. 10th.

Guest: Jim Greenhaw, team leader of the Tech Ranch team in the recent Lunar Regolith Challenge, was our guest for today's show. Jim's team was the first place winner in this year's Lunar Regolith Challenge held a few weeks ago at Cal Poly University. We talked extensively about his robot and you can see it and follow our discussion by going to http://www.techranch.com/tornado/photos/. We explored the robotic construction, what other teams did, how he came up with design and much more.

Guest: Glen Robertson was the guest for this Space Show program to discuss the upcoming The Space Propulsion & Energy Sciences International Forum (SPESIF) conference in Huntsville, AL from Feb. 24-27, 2009. Please visit http://www.ias-spes.org/SPESIF.html for online registration and details. As we learned, this conference is the successor to the very well-known and established STAIF conference previously sponsored by the University of New Mexico and held in Albuquerque, NM.

Guests: Andrea Seastrand and Janice Dunn with Matt Everingham of the California Space Authority (CSA), followed by Ken Davidian of NASA, followed by Jim Buenrostro of the team Technology Ranch at the NASA Lunar Regolith Challenge at Cal Poly were our guests for this set of taped interviews. We start this set of interviews with a message from me, your host of the Space Show, regarding the Falcon 1 launch attempt and my comments about it. As you will hear, I relate these comments and events to the Challenge which took place at Cal Poly this weekend.

Guest: Dr. Pat Patterson returned to The Space Show to discuss this year's SmallSat conference from August 11-14 in Logan, Utah (www.smallsat.org). Dr. Patterson started out with a general description of the conference and provided us with an update with what is new from last year's conference. We then addressed the programming, specifically the keynote speak from ATK Systems, plus the panels, the audience participation programs, the award opportunities for students and much more.

Guest: Homer Hickam was the guest for this special Space Show program. Mr. Hickam, author of "Rocket Boys," which was made into the acclaimed movie "October Sky," spoke with us about many topics and all of us had lots of fun while learning from someone who is, in my opinion, a true American hero. We started the discussion by asking him about his discovering two Tyrannosaurs in Montana. This took us directly to his early rocket launching days in Montana and putting Barbie dolls into space or near space. You have to hear this discussion to believe it.

Guest: Rand Simberg, who blogs at Transterrestrial Musings (www.transterrestrial.com/), was the guest on the show. Rand recently wrote an article about the possible space policies from each of the three leading American presidential candidates and we wanted him to talk about his views on this subject right here on The Space Show. This was a comprehensive discussion on space policy, not just the possible policy of each of our presidential candidates, and you will find this information most valuable.

Guest: Joan Horvath. Joan Horvath returned to The Space Show to talk about her new book, "What Scientists Actually Do." You can learn more about, look at the table of contents, and even read an excerpt at the website, www.whatscientistsactuallydo.com. Joan explained why she wrote the book, the need for it, and what readers are the target audience. Our discussion soon turned to education with Ms Horvath providing a broad look at science and engineering education in our country, both with schoolchildren and adults.