Guest: Open Lines with Dr. David Livingston. Topics: A variety of topics suggested by the host and driven by listener phone calls. 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. Welcome to our July Open Lines program. I suggested numerous discussion topics including at the start including the New Space 2011 conference, ATK and the Liberty rocket, business plans, plus topics related to CCDEV, the Space Act Agreement (SAA), the Federal Acquisition Rules (FAR), and more. Our first call was from Marshall in Dallas who wanted to talk about the recent NEO discovered at L4 and his idea to attach an ion engine on it to move it away from an Earth trajectory. We also talked about ramping up interest in planetary defense and related topics. In addition, I asked him for his opinion on the ethanol subsidies which are a discussion point in tax loop hole reform with our government as Marshall has been in the ethanol business and I wanted to hear his thoughts on the subject. His phone line was breaking up so we did miss some of what he had to say, but we were able to hear most of his comments. After returning from our break, Charles in Las Vegas was back on the phone to tell us that Microlaunchers now had an interplanetary plan. Like so many others, I told Charles to start building something rather than talking about it all the time. He got a few emails from listeners telling him similar things. Charles talked about Meetups in Las Vegas & promoted his as the only rocket science meetups in the area. Later in the segment, I talked about the uniqueness of Silicon Valley. I was hoping a few listeners would call to tell us why Silicon Valley is so special and unique. The idea that Marshall presented on diverting an asteroid took hold and we had other callers talking about it & a few listener emails. I believe this subject ended up being #1 for the day as there was little interested in my list of suggested topics. Later, Tim in Huntsville called in to continue expressing his opinion on radiation which is more or less akin to the Zubrin statements. This despite his being given solid space radiation info from multiple sources. In fact when he was winding up his comments, he said we should be able to go one way to Mars or do it despite the radiation if we are fully disclosed. I actually agree with that part of the statement but said it would never happen in the modern world of today. We then talked about why space appears to be the only arena where people cannot exercise free will re risk taking ventures. Tim also talked about space property rights, saying we need them to have real commercial space. I challenged him on that as there is definitely another perspective on the issue. There are hours of Space Show programming available in the archives on space property rights. One could easily do a global search using GuestSearch for those programs. Our calls lasted a long time so I am thinking of making them shorter to have more diversity on the calls. Also, as much as I try to get new callers and broaden the appeal on Open Lines, it seems that the we attract the usual callers. I am open to your suggestions on how to broaden the calling base for Open Lines shows as well as topics discussed. If I do anymore Open Lines programs, I will not throw out discussion topics. Again, I welcome your suggestions on broadening the appeal of calling during Open Lines, especially for new callers. If you have comments or questions based on any of the discussion topics or caller topics, post them on the blog URL above.
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