Guest: Taylor Dinerman. Topics: Falcon 9, commercial space, ISDC, SSP. We welcomed back Taylor Dinerman and learned that he is no longer writing for The Space Review but is now writing for the Hudson Institute New York. You can find his new posts at www.hudsonny.org/mt/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=1&id=138. In our first segment, Mr. Dinerman started out by commending the Falcon 9 for a near flawless launch and Space X. Taylor talked about the U.S. launch development process and the quality of U.S. launchers going back to EELVs. We started talking about policy and a listener asked about the balance between space as a jobs program and a space policy for the good of the nation. Don't miss how Taylor responded to this question. We also talked about the affordability of the Program of Record as compared to the administration program and Taylor was asked how human spaceflight was in our national interest. Don't miss Taylor's response to this question. We continued talking space policy in this segment and asked how the US was viewed by China, Japan, and India. Mr. Dinerman brought up the fact that there were people in congress and government that did want to end human spaceflight and have wanted to do so for years. This discussion then included an assessment of OMB and human spaceflight, then a listener asked what our guest thought of the idea of an international body making decisions for human spaceflight. This was an interesting discussion with Taylor, myself, and the caller agreeing that such an international body would probably not be a good idea. In my comments, I used a NEO as an example and an international body that might make the decision to deflect or take the hit of the NEO. These comments led Taylor to suggest that no matter where a NEO was going to hit on Earth, no US president would allow the hit to happen. In our second segment, Bruce brought up many of the U.S. problems suggesting they would interfere with our space program development. See what you think of Taylor's answer. From here, we went to SSP as Taylor was part of an SSP panel at ISDC and will also have a panel at the coming NewSpace Conference in July. In discussing SSP, we talked about the DOD war avoidance concept, closing the business case, time lines, technology, demos, and much more. Mr. Dinerman updated us on the Indian view of SSP and how NASA, our DOE and most of our government views SSP. In response to some of my questions, Taylor did say investment capital was starting to flow into SSP business projects but that for the moment they were still very private and under the radar. In and our third and final segment, we spent some more time on the SSP subject and when such technology would be ready for prime time. Terrestrial solar and wind were mentioned and we all agreed that these forms of energy were not reliable for base load electricity. Taylor repeated that our Dept. of Energy had a bias for nuclear fusion projects. In the remaining minutes of the program, Rules of the Road and military space came up as Taylor had recently attended a conference on these subjects. There are differing perspectives on these issues among space nations and regions so listen to what our guest had to say about the U.S. position as compared to the position of other space nations. In summarizing the program, Mr. Dinerman said the space debate for the remainder of the year would be very spirited but there was a chance that the forces supporting the POR and those supporting the administration program would self-destruct, thus allowing those that want to destroy human spaceflight to win out. This was a theme our guest repeated at different times during the program. Finally, we talked about space as a policy tool for manipulation and influence. Don't miss these comments. If you have a question or comment for Taylor Dinerman, please email me at drspace@thespaceshow.com and I will forward it to him.
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