Broadcast 979 (Special Edition)

Guest: Eva-Jane Lark was the guest for this special Space Show program. Given Eva-Jane's financial and investment expertise (see her website bio below), we began our discussion with the historic approach used to finance major exploration efforts, eventually moving forward in time and extrapolating to space. Ms. Lark has a terrific paper on this subject which I am able to send to listeners, or since it is available on the web, you might find it using Google. This paper is entitled "Investment Financing of Exploration to New Worlds: Historical Investment Financing of Exploration for New Worlds, Current Analogies to Other Industries, and Ideas for the Future" and was written for the 2006 ISDC. Using Eva-Jane's research and this paper as the jumping-off point, we looked at how to spark space investment and in what segments and communities. We talked about opportunities, markets, launch costs, investor needs, business skills, and more. We spent a significant amount of time on space solar power as Eva-Jane Lark was a participant in creating the NSSO SSP report that was issued this past fall. During the program, we fielded many listener questions about SSP and included an important phone call. You will want to hear what she has to say as this is a must hear discussion. We talked about the need for a demo plant, finding means to justify an SSP demo plant, and finally closing the business case for space solar power. We talked about much needed space infrastructure and who might best be in the position to finance it: the public sector, the private sector, or public/private partnerships. Another listener asked about academic and private partnerships, a structure our guest and I both liked. You will want to hear this wide-ranging financial, historical, very informative, and most entertaining interview because it's grounded in reality and looks forward with vision on how to carry on meaningful and relevant space commerce. You can send your comments or questions for Eva-Jane Lark to me at drspace@thespaceshow.com or directly to Ms. Lark at ejlark1@gmail.com.