Broadcast 1552 (Special Edition)

Guests: Classroom: Dr. David Livingston, Joe Carroll, Dr. John Jurist, Dr. Jim Logan. Topics: Manned artificial gravity research station in LEO. Please note that you are invited to comment, ask questions, and discuss the Space Show Classroom program/guest(s) on the Space Show Classroom blog, http://spaceshowclassroom.wordpress.com. Comments, questions, and any discussion must be relevant and applicable to Space Show Classroom programming. This two hour plus Classroom program was continuous without a break. For this program, refer to the Power Point presentation by Joe, "Design Concepts for a Manned Artificial Gravity Research Facility." Mr. Carroll took us through this presentation slide by slide, plus he responded to listener and co-host questions throughout the program. You can find this presentation plus his longer IAC Conference paper on The Space Show Classroom blog under Presentation Materials for our Classroom program for May 3, 2011. Rather than writing a summary of this program, let me say that Mr. Carroll has given considerable thought to the engineering and human factors/human physiology issues regarding an artificial gravity research station in LEO. Listener questions addressed technical issues relating to spin, center of mass/gravity, hits by orbital debris items and more. Throughout this Classroom discussion, Joe took us into the technology, operations, and why's regarding his artificial gravity research station. Many issues were discussed including but not limited to Mars & lunar gravity, .06 G, spin rates, the Coriolis effect, the Gemini experiments, a Moon/Mars Dumbbell Concept, Airbeam tunnels, radial structure lengths, and much more. Toward the end of the program, we discussed the economics, costs, and who might pay for and deploy such a station. You will hear Joe talk about the present economic, cost, and R&D uncertainties for such a project, but you will also hear him talk about the commercial potentials, who should be given "free" access to the research station and why, the use of it with Space X as well as Bigelow, and why not doing it as a NASA project makes sense though he advocated NASA as a customer. At the very end, I asked Joe about building some small models to help those of us who are not engineers in understanding and even visualizing his concept. He liked that idea, talked about larger models of the size of a Boeing 737 cabin (he used this cabin size throughout his discussion and presentation), and possibly locating it at a company such as Space X. As we concluded our discussion, all of us said that after 50 years of human spaceflight, to not be able to answer any of the questions regarding the issues discussed in this program was criminal. Furthermore, as you will hear Dr. Logan and the others say, you can determine the credibility of a human space program by the speed and determination of the commitment to understanding the necessary gravity needs for people, plants, and animals in space. If there is no commitment to understanding these issues, the program is more likely a rhetoric only program. Post your comments & questions on the blog URL above. You can email Joe Carroll at tether@cox.net. All participants can be emailed through me at drspace@thespaceshow.com.