Broadcast 1772 (Special Edition)

Guests: 1st Segment: Col (Res.) Yoram Ilan-Lipovsky with George Vamos; 2nd Segment: George Vamos. You are invited to comment, ask questions, and discuss the Space Show program/guest(s) on the Space Show blog, http://thespaceshow.wordpress.com. Comments, questions, and any discussion must be relevant and applicable to Space Show programming. Transcripts of Space Show programs are not permitted without prior written consent from The Space Show (even if for personal use) & are a violation of the Space Show copyright. This program consists of two recorded interviews from the Reinventing Space Conference 2012. The first interview for an hour is with Col (Res.) Yoram Ilan-Lipovsky . Yoram has been interviewed in earlier years at this conference, still serves with the IAF though he is retired, and is still part of the Israeli Space Program. We were joined by George Vamos who was attending the conference as he was most interested in Yoram's plans for air launch for Israeli satellites and missions. Col. Ilan-Lipovsky told us about his plan to use cubesats for disaster management including wild fires as well as a host of other natural and man made disasters. He talked about the interest in this project in Japan, the U.S. including the states most subject to wild fires, Europe and Israel. We went through his satellite plan, the use of air launch to quickly get the satellites up for a specific disaster, and debris issues when the small satellites reach the end of their mission. Later in this interview, we talked about space and the average Israeli, the Kepler Space Telescope and STEM issues in education in Israel and around the world. In the second segment, George Vamos proposed several questions to us and hopes that listeners to this program will offer him comments, information, or ask questions on the blog. George is looking ahead to the day when he believes there might be a government space program leaving all space exploration, including deep space exploration, to the private sector. Thus, he is looking at a new model to finance deep space missions using philanthropy. He is wondering what the price points might be for deep space mission, perhaps to Mars, and then can such a mission be financed through philanthropy. He said he realized that most of these types of missions would not support a commercial model since traditional investment and ROI objectives would not likely be met. Based on what he sees with wealthy people building wings of hospitals, cancer centers and even financing the Keck Telescope in Hawaii, he exploring philanthropy as a possible means of carrying, perhaps at a small level, meaningful deep space missions. See what you think and let him know your thoughts on the blog. He will be responding to your comments and questions. For all comments and questions regarding both segments of this discussion, please post them on The Space Show blog.