Broadcast 1368 (Special Edition)

Guest: David Hook. Topics: SUSTAIN, space commerce, space policy, space economics. David Hook returned for this Space Show program to discuss several topics pertaining to commercial space development and policy. In our first segment, we reviewed the SUSTAIN conference from last year and talked about the Technology Roadmap that was developed from the conference but not activated. This led to a listener question about a news article about one Franz Gayl who was one of the leaders of the SUSTAIN conference and roadmap development but is now under fire for being a whistle blower about Marine and GI troop safety in combat. The listener said the the story came from an AOL News article at www.aolnews.com. Not only did Mr. Hook discuss this but several callers provided us with comments about Mr. Gayl including Dr. Jurist who worked with him at the SUSTAIN conference. Don't miss the praise bestowed upon Franz Gayl. In our second segment, listeners finished the Gayl story and then we turned to the recent Space Economy Leadership Summit that Mr. Hook attended on May 5 in Austin, Texas. You can find out more about this special meeting at www.spaceeconomyleadership.org. Human spaceflight was a major pat of the agenda and Dave shared with us some of the economic analysis for commercial spaceflight referenced at the Summit. He also talked about risk assessment and the idea that we are too risk averse. Several listener questions dealt with the risk subject but it was not until later in the final segment that a listener asked about protecting the people from the risk of a runaway regulatory happy government. During the third and final segment, Mr. Hook talked about the comments made by several of the speakers including Patti Grace Smith, Greg Pelton of Cisco, George Sowers of ULA, and Buzz Aldrin who spoke at the end of the meeting. Listen to what these people had to say as reported by our guest. These are comments you do not want to miss. As we neared the end of the show, we talked more about the regulatory risk and Mr. Hook commented that small businesses growth was to some degree dependent on the larger spaceflight industry so to the degree that it may suffer in these economic times, so might small space business development. If you have comments or questions for David Hook, please email him at david.hook@planehook.com. His website is www.planehook.com.