Guest: John Spencer. Topics: Space Tourism Society and space tourism development. 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. For more information on the Space Tourism Society, visit their website at www.spacetourismsociety.org. In our first segment, John started out with an overview and the history of the Space Tourism Society (STS). For those of you not familiar with it, what happened ten years ago when Dennis Tito became the first space tourist flying on a Soyuz to the ISS, you will find this short history to be most interesting. John then talked with us about the space tourism experience right here on Earth and cited many examples, some of which he has created through his design and architectural services and business plans. He said that space tourism had less to do with space and more to do with adventure travel. A listener asked him about the acceptance of space tourism today by NASA as compared to ten years ago when Tito was the first. John had much to say about this, talking about the old NASA astronauts as compared to the new NASA astronauts and potential future combined private and government astronaut missions. In our second segment, John discussed a humans to Mars mission as talked about by Dr. Zubrin and John was asked if he thought space tourism would be part of the first human mission to Mars. John had much to say about this and then talked about what he believes should be the grand vision for the human Mars mission. Don't miss what he had to say and his grand vision description. When asked for a time line for humans to Mars per his concept, he said the actual trip to Mars would not be as important to us all as the process that would unfold that would engage and involve people all over the world. Later in the segment, John was asked about the compatibility of space tourism with military and national security space. John had much to say about this too and then talked about the need for a future type of Coast Guard in space, the Space Guard. The balance of the second segment dealt with a need for a Space Guard. In our final segment, John talked with us about creativity and the need to bring in and embrace creativity and participation from other disciplines rather than only the space related disciplines. Questions about the comparison of yachting to space tourism came up and John talked about the super yacht model for space tourism and his early design work on the Freedom Space Station which evolved into the ISS. As we concluded our discussion, John looked to the future, both near term and 5 years out and said that the planned lunar flyby with a modified Soyuz by Space Adventures will be a breakthrough event. If you have comments or questions for John Spencer, please post them on the blog URL above. You can email John through the website at www.spacetourismsociety.org/Space_Tourism_Society/Contact.html and the listed email address, jssdesign@aol.com.
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