Guest: Sharon Weinberger, author of "Imaginary Weapons," was our guest for the first hour followed by a half hour of Open Lines. Sharon provided us with the history of her research regarding her book and we began our discussion with nothing less than the hafnium 5 kiloton hand grenade. From this point, we discussed how such projects are funded, the dream of an isomer bomb, DOD and DARPA standards, and much more. At different points in the discussion, we extrapolated to NASA and space expenditures using Ares 1 and other space projects. Some of this discussion took us to the subject of crackpots and whack-job inventors and projects and why such projects get funded. Sharon told us about her crackpot index which is on pages 230-231 of her book. This index or test could easily be applied to space projects so check it out as I strongly urge you to obtain and read this book. Sharon us told us about her new book written with her husband, "A Nuclear Family Vacation: Travels in the World of Atomic Weaponry." Many more examples from the book, from the space field and from related fields, were discussed as part of the imaginary thesis. Some of the examples were cold fusion, zero point energy, certain types of futuristic weapons, and more. You can learn more about Sharon Weinberger and her work by visiting her website, http://www.sharonweinberger.com/ . If you have questions or comments for Sharon Weinberger, please use her website and reference The Space Show or send them to me and I will forward them to her. For the Open Lines segment, a caller asked about peer review and listeners wanted to know if I had any information about the next NASA Administrator. One listener asked about my thoughts on Mrs. Clinton as Secretary of State and redoing ITAR. You can hear my responses to these listener comments and questions in the Open Lines segment.
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