Guest: Robert (Bob) Zimmerman. Topics: Recent space news and announced projects. 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 Bob Zimmerman back to the show. Check out his blog at www.behindtheblack.com. We started off our first long segment (90 minutes) by mentioning the 50th anniversary of Telstar 1, the death of our friend, Al Zaehringer, AT&T and our early space program, plus the word coming from CERN that they may have found the Higgs-Boson particle. I then asked Bob to comment on the global warming statements being made about the current East Coast heat wave, followed by comments by Newt about the power grid outages and a taste of what an EMP would be like. We then turned to space and Bob talked about the recent success with Dragon and Falcon 9. He then talked about government space programs as compared to private programs. Throughout our 135 minute discussion, he reiterated his opposition to space programs, making it clear that he does not want a "program" and why. Let us know on the blog if you agree with him. Bob suggested we were in a period of space revolution and that it would be very exciting over the next five years. He talked about SpaceX compared to the Russians and the Chinese. He did say we were in competition with them for control of space and this led us to a discussion about culture and the space frontier. We talked about recently announced projects, Planetary Resources, Mars One, and one by the B612 Foundation. He thought B612 was the only real one of the three. Terry called from Texas to discuss using an Orion for a LEO mission, the Falcon Heavy for a Moon mission, Delta IV heavy and SLS. Jerry called in from Florida and among our topics were frontier development, the Oregon Trail, the CERN reactor in Switzerland rather than in Texas, and more. No space programs per Bob's preferences again came up. Let us know your thoughts about these issues on the blog. As the segment ended, Bob was asked about Skylon which was the subject of yesterday's program. Tim's call started our second segment & he asked about a lox paraffin hybrid rocket motor. We also talked about the space shuttle & its capabilities. While Bob praised aspects of shuttle, he said the program was a failure. I did not agree with him but listen and let us know what you think regarding this issue. Note that as the program ended, Martin sent us info on the hybrid motor mentioned earlier by Tim so check out www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9erCLJ5KVg as Brian Cantwell delivered a presentation at Stanford on the state of the art of hybrid rockets. Bob then updated us on the bat situation with the white nose fungus. As our program ended, Bob talked about upcoming events starting with Orbital's Cygnus/Antares debut, Dream Chaser and other competitors. He had some brief comments about the suborbital industry and citizen science projects and concluded by saying we were no longer in a holding pattern re commercial space. If you have comments/questions, please post them on our blog.
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The Space Show
