The Space Show Newsletter For The Week of January 18, 2016

1. Monday, Jan. 17, 2016; 2-3:30 PM PST, 5-6:30 PM EST, 4-5:30 PM CST: We welcome DR. GEOFFREY LANDIS to the show to discuss his exploration work pertaining to Venus and Mars. Visit his website at http://www.geoffreylandis.com/

•Geoffrey A. Landis is a scientist and a science-fiction writer.
• As a writer, he is the author of eighty published short stories and novelettes, and just under fifty poems. His novel Mars Crossing appeared from Tor Books, and a short story collection Impact Parameter (and other quantum realities) from Golden Gryphon.
•In 1990 his story "Ripples in the Dirac Sea" won the Nebula award for best short story; in 1992 his short story "A Walk in the Sun" won the Hugo award. (Now available on audiotape), and in 2003 his short story "Falling Onto Mars" won the Hugo. His novel Mars Crossing won the Locus Award for best first novel of 2000. In 2014, he won the Robert A. Heinlein award "for outstanding published works in science fiction and technical writings to inspire the human exploration of space."
•His work has been translated into twenty-one languages, and the Portugese translation of "Ripples in the Dirac Sea" won the Brazilian Reader's Poll award for best short story. His collection Myths, Legends, and True History was published in 1991 by Pulphouse as part of their Author's Choice Monthly series (now, unfortunately, out of print.)

•Aside from writing, Dr. Landis is a scientist with the N.A.S.A. John Glenn Research Center. From 2005-2006, he was the Ronald E. McNair-NASA Visiting Professor of Astronautics at M.I.T.. In 2013, he was awarded the AIAA Aerospace Power Systems Award for "developing advanced photovoltaic power systems for extreme space environments; providing leadership, fostering innovation, interfacing with the public; and contributing to an improved scientific understanding of operating solar power devices from the solar corona to the Martian surface and beyond."
•He has published 400 scientific papers in the fields of photovoltaics and astronautics, holds eight patents on photovoltaic device designs, has written dozens of articles about model rocket technology and edited several MIT Rocket Society reports, many of which can still be purchased from the NAR. He's written more technical reports that he really wants to think about, and organized and served as the technical chairman of the Vision-21 symposium (cover art). He has flown the human-powered airplane "Chrysalis" and helped build both Chrysalis and also the prize-winning Monarch airplanes. He was involved in a project called SpaceCub to design a personal rocket for the hobby flyer. He was a regular participant in the Science Fiction Age "Science Forum", and has written 12 popular science articles, including "The Demon Under Hawaii," Analog, July 1992, winner of the AnLab reader's award for best science article. He has undergraduate degrees in physics and electrical engineering from MIT and received his PhD in solid-state physics from Brown University.
•He has worked on a number of space missions. Some of the more notable of these include: ◦He was a member of the Sojourner Rover team on the successful Mars Pathfinder mission in 1997
◦ He is currently a member  of the science team on the long-lived Mars Exploration Rovers Mission, making spectacular discoveries while driving the rovers "Spirit" and "Opportunity" around on the surface of Mars.
◦He worked on a project called MIP that was intended to demonstrate manufacture of rocket propellant on the surface of Mars, as an experiment package that was scheduled to fly on the Mars 2001 Surveyor lander mission (the project was cancelled following the failure of the 1998 Mars spacecraft).
◦Other missions that he is working on include missions to the surface and atmosphere of Venus
◦ and a mission called Solar Probe Plus to send a spacecraft to approach close to the surface of the sun.

• As technical chairman of the Vision-21 symposium and editor of the proceedings, he published Hans Moravec's speculative essay "Pigs in CyberSpace", and Vernor Vinge's article on The Technological Singularity
• Long ago, in a previous life, he used to be an amateur artist.

 When I was a child, the first book I remember owning was a children's book about space You Will Go To The Moon. At the time-- I think I was four-- I didn't realize how unusual a second-person narrative was! Looking at the cover, I see that it featured a red-haired boy looking through a telescope -- that's probably why my parents bought it for me.
 
Other biographical details:
• Geoffrey Landis was actually born in Detroit, Michigan. He left Detroit at age six months, and moved to Arlington, Virginia; Baltimore, Maryland; Western Springs, Illinois; Morristown, NJ; Center Valley, PA; and Winnetka, Illinois while growing up. After going to college at MIT and graduating with degrees in Physics and Electrical Engineering, he worked in the Boston area for five years. He then moved to Providence, Rhode Island to attend graduate school at Brown University.
•After receiving his Ph.D. in physics, Dr. Landis worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the NASA Lewis Research Center (now renamed NASA Glenn), then worked as a NASA contractor, and finally as senior scientist at the  Ohio Aerospace Institute, before accepting his current job as a civil-service scientist in the Photovoltaics and Power Technology Branch at NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, where he works on Mars exploration with the Mars Exploration Rovers, and on developing advanced technology for future space missions. In 2005 and 2006, he was the Rodney E. McNair Visiting Professor of Astronautics at MIT.
• He currently lives Berea, Ohio with cats named Azrael and Tyrael, several teddy-bears, more books than you can count in a year, and no goldfish.

Listeners can talk with Dr. Geoffrey Landis or the host using toll free 1 (866) 687-7223, by sending e-mail during the program using drspace@thespaceshow.com, thespaceshow@gmail.com, or dmlivings@yahoo.com. To use Skype from your computer with a headset, the I. D. is thespaceshow. Skype is only available if when announced at the beginning of the program. Please note the toll free number is only available during a live Space Show program. At all other times, it is disconnected.

2. Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2016; 7-8:30 PM PST, 10-11:30 PM EST, 9-10:30 PM CST: This is a special Space Show program in which we seek your ideas for guests and programming topics for 2016. Call us or send in an email with the topic you want to hear about or the guest you want to hear on the show. Please be realistic in your suggestions.

Listeners can talk with the host by using toll free 1 (866) 687-7223, by sending e-mail during the program using drspace@thespaceshow.com, thespaceshow@gmail.com, or dmlivings@yahoo.com. To use Skype from your computer with a headset, the I. D. is thespaceshow. Skype is only available if when announced at the beginning of the program. Please note the toll free number is only available during a live Space Show program. At all other times, it is disconnected.

3. WEDS, JAN 20, INSERT HOTEL MARS WITH BATCHELOR

4. Friday, Jan 22, 2016: , 9:30 -11 AM PST (12:30-2 PM EST; 11:30-1 PM CST): We welcome back DR. William FARRAND for Mars rover updates and more.

Dr. William Farrand is geoscientist with over 20 years of experience working with multispectral and hyperspectral remote sensing data. He received a PhD in the Geosciences with a minor in Remote Sensing from the University of Arizona in 1991. Dr. Farrand worked from 1992 to 1995 for Science Applications International Corporation under contract to work on the Hyperspectral Digital Imagery Collection Experiment (HYDICE) program. In the late ‘90s, Dr. Farrand worked on various commercial remote sensing projects including an association with Earth Search Sciences and applications of data from their Probe‐1 hyperspectral sensor. Dr. Farrand was also involved in a 1997 Department of Energy remote sensing mission over the National Nuclear Center of Kazakstan. In the 2000’s, Dr. Farrand has worked on several different NASA‐funded planetary remote sensing projects. Since 2002, he has been a science team member on the Mars Exploration Rover mission and has been a lead scientist on interpreting multispectral data returned from the Pancam instruments on‐board the Spirit and Opportunity rovers. Dr. Farrand has also worked with hyperspectral data returned by the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) on‐board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Listeners can talk with Dr. Farrand or our host using toll free 1 (866) 687-7223, by sending e-mail during the program using drspace@thespaceshow.com, thespaceshow@gmail.com, or dmlivings@yahoo.com. To use Skype from your computer with a headset, the I. D. is thespaceshow. Skype is only available if when announced at the beginning of the program. Please note the toll free number is only available during a live Space Show program. At all other times, it is Mr. Strickland has been an active member of space and science-related organizations since 1961, when he joined the American Rocket Society as a student member. In 1976 he joined both the National Space Institute and the L-5 Society ­ the "parents" of NSS. He was the founder of the Austin Space Frontier Society and has served as its chairman from 1981 to the present.

5. Sunday, Jan. 24, 2016: 12-1:30 PM PST (3-4:30 PM EST, 2-3:30 5PM CST): We welcome back JOHN STRICKLAND for a look at more of his commercial space, space settlement, and space transportation work.

Mr. Strickland has been an active member of space and science-related organizations since 1961, when he joined the American Rocket Society as a student member. In 1976 he joined both the National Space Institute and the L-5 Society ­ the "parents" of NSS. He was the founder of the Austin Space Frontier Society and has served as its chairman from 1981 to the present. He created the Robert A. Heinlein Memorial Award for the National Space Society in 1988, (shortly after the author's death), and has managed the award from its inception.  He is the NSS Awards Committee chair.  In 1988, Mr. Strickland was a founder of the NSS Chapters Assembly, and served as one of its officers. His involvement with both Austin environmental groups and CSI ­ a national group working for better science coverage and less pseudo-science in the mass media ­ has given him a unique perspective on such controversial issues as energy vs. environment.  Since 1976, Mr. Strickland has produced articles for The Space Review, NASAWatch, L5 News, Ad Astra, Space News, The Humanist, and other local and regional publications. His articles focus primarily on national space policy, access to space, space infrastructure and space solar power. His creation of a slide show and talk in 1990, explaining and promoting space solar power to non-technical audiences, led to the publication of his first technical SPS article in 1995, and a second in 1996. He served as the director for science and space programming (about 50 events) at the 1997 LoneStarCon World Science Fiction Convention. He contributed a comprehensive chapter on energy systems in the book, Solar Power Satellites - A Space Energy System for Earth, edited by Dr. Peter Glaser et al., and published by Wiley-Praxis in 1998. In 2005 he also contributed the chapter "Access to Luna" to the 2005 book Return to the Moon. He since has contributed many technical papers and presentations to the annual NSS conventions, to the Mars Society's conventions, the Wireless Power Transmission Conference of 2001, the Houston World Space Congress in 2002, and the Toronto Space Solar Power Symposium in 2009. Mr. Strickland lived for 30 years in western New York before moving to Austin, Texas in 1976. He received a B. A. in Anthropology with a minor in Biology from SUNY at Buffalo in 1967, and a second B.A. in Computer Science from St. Edwards University in Austin in 1986. He also earned graduate credits in both Anthropology and Biology. He worked as a professional programmer and analyst from 1980, and worked as a Senior Programmer/Analyst for the State of Texas in Austin from July, 1989 until June 2009.  He is now working on a book covering space development, and in-space transport and infrastructure.

Some online publications by John Strickland:

•The Space Review October 2014: The incredible, expendable Mars mission

•The Space Review June 2014: It’s time for NASA to abandon the Apollo mission model

•The Space Review April 2014: Humans and robots to the Moon and Mars: a unified and integrated space program strategy

•The Space Review July 2013: Revisiting SLS/Orion launch costs

•The Space Review January 2013: Cislunar transportation: the space trucking system

•The Space Review October 2012: The cislunar gateway with no gate

•The Space Review November 2011: The SLS: too expensive for exploration?

•NSS Blog August 2011: Orbital Propellant Depots: Building the Interplanetary Highway

•The Space Review August 2011: Current strategies towards air-breathing space launch vehicles

•International Space Development Conference May 2011: Access to Mars [PDF 2.3 MB]

•Space Ref June 2010: Space Tugs: Filling the Space Jobs Gap and Privatization Too!

•Space Ref February 2010: NASA and Space — The Future vs. the Past

•The Space Review January 2010: Space fetishism: obsession or rational action?

•Journal of Space Communication Winter 2010: Global Warming in Perspective: Understanding Climate Change in a World of Contradictory Information

•Journal of Space Communication Winter 2010: Space Solar vs Base Load Ground Solar and Wind Power

•Space Ref August 2009: The Space-Industrial Complex in Transition

•The Space Review January 2007: The "base first" decision: crew survival and reusability

•Space Daily May 2006: Space Advocate Reviews the Vision for Space in 2006

•Space.com October 2005: The Mega-Module Path to Space Exploration (Or: How to Use an HLV)

•Space Daily September 2005: The Urgency of a Real Vision for Space Exploration

Listeners can talk with John Strickland or the host using toll free 1 (866) 687-7223, by sending e-mail during the program using drspace@thespaceshow.com, thespaceshow@gmail.com, or dmlivings@yahoo.com. To use Skype from your computer with a headset, the I. D. is thespaceshow. Skype is only available if when announced at the beginning of the program. Please note the toll free number is only available during a live Space Show program. At all other times, it is disconnected.