Broadcast 1390 (Special Edition)

Guests: Dr. Mark Lewis, Dr. C.F. Lance Chenault. Topics: AIAA Joint Propulsion Conference, current and advanced space propulsion. We welcomed Dr. Mark Lewis and Dr. Lance Chenault to the program to discuss this important AIAA Joint Propulsion Conference along with the 8th Annual International Energy Conversion Engineering Conference to be held July 25-28, 2010 at the Nashville Convention Center & Renaissance Hotel in Nashville, TN. For more information, please visit the conference website, www.aiaa.org/content.cfm?pageid=230&lumeetingid=2347. Our program was in two 45 minute segments with Dr. Lewis being the first guest followed by Dr. Chenault in the second segment. If you are interested in checking out the conference agenda which we talked about during this program, please visit the 56 page preliminary agenda at http://aiaa-mjpc10.abstractcentral.com/societyimages/aiaa-mjpc10/AIAA-M…. We started our discussion with Dr. Lewis with a description of the conference and the sponsors to it, plus the joint conference sharing with the International Energy Conversion Engineering (IECE). We talked about the conference contents and the availability of advanced or out of the box future concepts being represented in the conference. Dr. Lewis said that there was such research included but such presentations and papers had to stand the basic test of adhering to the known rules of physics. Listener questions asked about chemical rockets and new solutions for space access. This prompted Dr. Lewis to talk about rockets, exotic fuels and more. We spent considerable time talking about the advantages of attending this conference for students including favorable student pricing. All students should definitely consider attending this conference and all AIAA conferences. Dr. Lewis highlighted some of the keynote speakers and we concluded this segment with a discussion about the need for heavy lift vehicles if we are to do anything beyond LEO and conference presentations on the subject. We started the second part of our show with an introduction to Dr. C.F. Lance Chenault who spent considerable time highlighting both keynote speakers and special panels on each day of the conference. You can follow this discussion and find out more about the keynote speakers and the special panels by using the above URL to the conference preliminary agenda. We talked about conference logistics and were told that there were about 700 papers accepted for the conference out of about 1200 papers submitted. Toward the end of this segment, we talked about hypersonics and scramjets, then conference logistics between the AIAA part and the IECE parts. As you will hear, they are completely interchangeable and transparent. Toward the end of the show, Dr. Chenault fielded questions about solids versus liquids for human spaceflight and solar sails. If you have questions or comments for our two guests, please send them to me at drspace@thespceshow.com and I will forward them to the guests or AIAA so you can get a prompt answer/response.