Guests: Ann Darrin, Dr. Beth O'Leary. Topics: saving space heritage sites, lunar landing sites, museums, artifacts, special engineering. Our guests for this program, Ann Darrin and Dr. Beth O'Leary, are the editors of the book, "Handbook Of Space Engineering, Archaeology, and Heritage." This is a must-have cutting-edge book for your library, and is available on the One Giant Leap Foundation book page so if you buy it through this link : http://www.amazon.com/dp/1420084313?tag=onegialeafou-20 a portion of the proceeds go to The Space Show. We started our first segment with an explanation of the structure and the organization of this 1,000 page book. As we learned from this discussion, this book could serve as an introductory graduate level text to rocket science and orbital dynamics in addition to the basics pertaining to archaeology and heritage. Near the end of the first segment, we focused on space archaeology, the legal regime that would be necessary to preserve sites in space and on a celestial body and potential conflicts with the Outer Space Treaty. The World Heritage Convention, the Apollo 11 landing site, Launch Complex 39 at the Cape, and the experiences our guests had talking to NASA about historical preservation are all part of this first segment. In the second segment, we learn the genesis for this book and how they brought such a book to fruition. This book addresses cutting edge subjects and merges science, physics, and engineering with archaeology and social science. As you will hear Ann say, she knew next to nothing about archaeology when starting and was surprised to learn that archaeologists follow the scientific method as well. Both Ann and Beth commented on the differences they had with comparison terminology and used in-situ as an example since it means one thing in space science and engineering and quite another in the field of archaeology. Our discussion soon moved towards orbital debris and our guests were asked what constituted orbital debris vs an artifact and later, Beth was asked about the difference between anthropology and archaeology. You certainly want to hear this discussion. I asked both our guests about graduate level education in space related fields merging these disciplines together. As you will hear, those opportunities are far and few between. We also spoke about the degree of development for the space industry and whether it was moving toward maturity or if it was still in its infancy? Listen to what our guests had to say about this. As we entered the final segment, we talked about the Cold War and how we took risks then and the launch rate was significantly higher than today. The question was asked if we needed something like a Cold War to accelerate space development or at least a crisis or stressful situation. Beth mentioned her interview with former astronaut Frank Borman who said his mission was a battle in the Cold War, not really a space mission. This discussion then took us into the world of the high cost of space access, the need to get to space much cheaper and the comparison of robotic missions versus manned missions. This is a very important discussion with our guests so don't miss it. Later in this segment, we talked about private collectors and how that takes important artifacts out of the potential research domain. Near the end of the program, I asked both guests for their favorite parts or chapters in the book. You will definitely want to hear what they have to say. Our guests did say the LCROSS impact site was now a new archaeological heritage site. We talked about the preservation value of NewSpace and space tourism and the upcoming Lunar X Prize effort. It was said that when humans explore, we litter so we have to take care of this as part of our exploration efforts. For your questions and comments, please contact Ann Darrin and Dr. Beth O'Leary as follows: Ann Darrin: ann.darrin@jhuapl.edu. Dr. Beth O'Leary: boleary@nmsu.edu .
Guest
The Space Show
