Obama

Guest: Dr. David Livingston hosted an Open Lines Space Show program for this election night special program. The first segment featured my personal thoughts, opinions, and analysis regarding space solar power (SSP). If you want to know what I really think about SSP, listen to what I have to say about it. As this was election night, we talked some with the listeners about the election, about how space might fair with the new administration and Congress, and what U.S. space policy might be like in coming years.

Guest: Robert (Bob) Scaringe was the guest for this Space Show program to discuss the long-term goals which are needed for the public support of our space policy. Bob has defined the type of both short-term and long-term goals needed to create more grassroots support of our space policy. Referencing several studies from the public, he shows that such grass roots support is currently not there to take the NASA budget to a 1% of the federal budget, which would allow for research and the types of programs and goals that he talks about in his AIAA paper and presentation.

Guest: Robert Zimmerman was the guest for today's Space Show program. We started our discussion with updates on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and the shuttle repair mission to the HST. From there, Bob told us about the waiver obtained for allowing NASA to continue using the Soyuz to access the ISS and the letter written by Dr. Griffin to Barack Obama thanking him for his help in obtaining the waiver. Bob speculated that Griffin might be showing Senator Obama that he wants to remain NASA Administrator, even in a possible Obama administration.

Guest: Open Lines was the basis for this two hour Sunday Space Show program. Many topics were discussed with callers, those on chat, and through email, including the economic problems and the impact on space, Space Cynics and the recent set of posts regarding Masten Space Systems (http://spacecynic.wordpress.com/2008/09/20/in-space-can-anybody-smell-t…), Space Solar Power (SSP), the NASA Administrator, and more.

Guest: Chris Carberry, Executive Director of The Mars Society, returned for this Space Show program. As Chris was in attendance at ISDC 2008, we opened our discussion with a review of the presidential candidates' representatives who made presentations at ISDC this year. Here we talked about the questions asked by Miles O'Brien of CNN, the lack of knowledge by the representatives about important space issues such as ITAR, and the overall disappointment felt across the board by the poor showing and low level of interest evidenced during this sessions by those on the panel.