Guest: Open Lines with David Livingston. Topics: Augustine Panel, space policy, economics. Tonight was an Open Lines program. We started out discussing the preliminary Augustine Panel report, national space policy, and my recent visit to ATK to find out first hand about the Ares 1 rocket. In addition, I talked about media bias and cited a few examples in the space media. This discussion took up most of the first segment. We started Segment 2 with a call from Marshall regarding an article in an Oklahoma paper about the Japanese astronaut on the ISS not changing clothes while on the station. This led to a discussion about washing clothes in space, a space washing machine, and a high school space project about a washing machine for microgravity that I saw at an X Prize Cup event. Charles then called the show and updated us on the N-Prize as well as the new details for this year's Lunar Lander Challenge. You can see the information about the Lunar Lander Challenge by following the instructions I provided on the show for visiting www.hobbyspace.com. Charles also answered the listener's question about the Russian engines and multiple small nozzles versus one large nozzle. Listen to what Charles had to say about this. As we moved to Segment 3, a question came in regarding the deficits being piled up in the country right now and why that would adversely impact space companies per a comment I said in the first segment. This led me to doabout a 25 minute quasi-Econ 101 lecture on deficits, inflation, printing money, tax policy and investing. I apologize in advance for running off on this subject and since it was off the top of my head, I did ramble. However, its an important topic and all of us should be able to understand how our current economic situation will likely impact space development, both in the private and the civil space program. If you would like a program on this subject, I will organize my thoughts much better and see if I can bring on an economist to help us examine what is happening and then apply this to businesses that have risk and need to attract capital. If this type of program interests you, please let me know. Also, if you have someone to suggest as the guest for this program, please forward your suggestion and contact information for this person to me. Throughout the show I encouraged people who continually invite themselves to be guests on the show to call in and tell us about themselves and their work. Unfortunately, they do not call in which is too bad. Again, the path for being on the show if you invite yourself is to first call and tell us about yourself and work in an open lines program. Many have done that and that is the path for being a guest in this situation. If you have any questions or comments about this Open Lines program, please contact me at drspace@thespaceshow.com.
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