Broadcast 2612

Guest: Open Lines with Dr. David Livingston; Topics: Annual review for space for year 2015. Please direct all comments and questions regarding Space Show programs/guest(s) to the Space Show blog, http://thespaceshow.wordpress.com. Comments and questions should be relevant to the specific Space Show program. Written Transcripts of Space Show programs are a violation of our copyright and are not permitted without prior written consent, even if for your own use. We do not permit the commercial use of Space Show programs or any part thereof, nor do we permit editing, YouTube clips, or clips placed on other private channels & websites. Space Show programs can be quoted, but the quote must be cited or referenced using the proper citation format. Contact The Space Show for further information. In addition, please remember that your Amazon purchases can help support The Space Show/OGLF. See www.onegiantleapfoundation.org/amazon.htm. For those listening to archives using live365.com and rating the programs, please email me as to why you assign a specific rating to the show. This will help me bring better programming to the audience. Welcome to our annual Open Lines Annual Year In Review program for 2015. As it turned out, we did the 2 hour 10 minute program without a break as calls kept coming and we kept going with the program. Before taking listener calls, I updated everyone on the new website's development. We started with listener calls with Jerry's call about seeing the Falcon 9 land the first stage from his porch in Merit Island, not far from the SpaceX launch and landing sites. He described both the launch and the landing for us from his perspective of being there, plus he talked about potential and future SpaceX rockets and launches. As it turned out, the overwhelming winner for the best 2015 space event was the SpaceX landing of its first stage back at the Cape. While there was lots of discussion about the future economics of the project, reusable economics and more, including the specifics of this flight that made it perfect for the landing demonstration, there was overwhelming support for SpaceX and reusability. Several listeners even called to talk about reusability with the Falcon Heavy, they described what they thought was the customer profile for reusability, we talked about risk vs. reward ratios, payload mass and possible pricing strategies for the "used" rocket launch and what the competition may do as a result of this excellent SpaceX success. As for planetary missions for 2015, hands down for New Horizons and Dawn going to Ceres. We had a few votes for Comet 67P and some mention of Kepler. Doug, during his call, mentioned that for 2016 there might not be much happening in planetary science but he did refer to the JUNO mission which makes it to Jupiter on July 4, 2016. John Hunt called and in addition to talking about reusability and SpaceX, we talked about the new movie Star Wars. That too was a popular topic for the show. John and I pointed out lots of similarities to the earlier Star Wars and what seemed to be technology that had not advanced much since the initial Star Wars movie. Another listener emailed in with the technological advances in the fighters and other systems in the new Star Wars movie so there was tech advancement though I don't think it was easy to spot. However, we did talk in general about reaching technology plateaus and a few callers brought that up. I cited a current article from an Australian financial publication suggesting Apple Computer had "run out of ideas" which supported what some of the listeners were asking about re space technology. Michael Listner called to talk about the RD180 engine and the Defense Authorization Act. We also talked about ULA CEO Tory Bruno being on The Space Show for Tuesday, Jan. 5th. John in Fremont called about New Horizons, Dawn and 67P, then he suggested he wanted to see SpaceX go to airline type flight service & operations as soon as possible. He was challenged on that statement. He also suggested a return to the show by Dr. Bruce Damer regarding his Shepherd Project. Listener Rick suggested being on the lookout for 2016 for advances in small compact fusion technology with increased involvement from commercial investors. In addition to Focus Fusion (Lawrenceville Plasma Physics) and Polywell (Energy Matter Conversion Corp., he mentioned Lockheed Martin Skunk Works with their device. Also, Lightsail-B is one of the payloads expected on a Falcon 9 flight in 2016 and Phase Four’s CubeSat Ambipolar Thruster (CAT) plasma engine got $1 million from DARPA in November. Expected lots of development for 2016. Please post your comments/questions on TSS blog above. You can reach any of the callers or emailers through me at drspace@thespaceshow.com.