Guest: Dennis Wingo. Topics: Commercial space, NASA budgets, economic space 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. We welcomed back Dennis Wingo to discuss commercial space policy & development with us. I started our Q&A by asking Dennis about his Space Ref Open Letter to Armstrong, Cernan, and Lovell regarding their open letter published a month or so earlier in USA Today. You can read what Dennis had to say at www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=1538. This brought on our discussion on heavy lift rockets & Dennis explained why he was critical of the Space Launch System (SLS). He then talked about the bifurcation of space decision making, suggesting two issues were at play. Don't miss what he had to say about this. We continued discussing NASA, policy, and budgets. Among the many things Dennis said one was that we were at the point of having to write off NASA exploration other than in LEO. Mr. Wingo went on to discuss NASA architecture, the updates he was making to his book, "Moon Rush" & more. Our guest fielded several listener questions, one of which inquired about a commercial market for DragonLab. Another dealt with what Dennis might say were he addressing people with different views and those having lost their jobs due to the end of shuttle. Dennis said some very interesting things in response to this question, including stating the shuttle workers were true heroes. In further discussions about policy, Dennis referenced the interstate highway system and said that if people, including Congress, appreciated space more, we would have a space policy worthy of development with a realistic budget just as the interstate highway system had a budget to accomplish great things. As this segment was coming to an end, Mr. Wingo talked about the value & importance of Silicon Valley to space & he expressed his views on what was needed for improving our nation's economy. As we started the final segment of our 75 minute discussion, Will called to follow up on his earlier email about the possibility of our ending HSF, but also to ask Dennis for his thoughts on the space IQ of the general public based on my earlier baseball game comments. This led Dennis to a discussion on ISRU which remained with us for the balance of the program. Lunar mining came up along with PGMs & the need for commercial projects to expand our development throughout the solar system. Such commercial development would have at least a partial focus on reducing the logistical burden to space exploration & development. In closing, Dennis affirmed the need for a commercial path to space development. If you have comments or questions for Dennis Wingo, post them on the blog URL above.
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