Guest: Dr. Henry Lambright. Topics: Dr. Lambright's book "Why Mars" & the politics, policy, history, & methodology of our Mars program. Please direct all comments and questions regarding Space Show programs/guest(s) to the Space Show blog, http://thespaceshow.wordpress.com. Comments and questions should be relevant to the specific Space Show program. Written Transcripts of Space Show programs are a violation of our copyright and are not permitted without prior written consent, even if for your own use. We do not permit the commercial use of Space Show programs or any part thereof, nor do we permit editing, YouTube clips, or clips placed on other private channels & websites. Space Show programs can be quoted, but the quote must be cited or referenced using the proper citation format. Contact The Space Show for further information. In addition, please remember that your Amazon purchases can help support The Space Show/OGLF. See www.onegiantleapfoundation.org/amazon.htm. For those listening to archives using live365.com and rating the programs, please email me as to why you assign a specific rating to the show. This will help me bring better programming to the audience. We welcomed Professor Henry Lambright of Syracuse University to the show to discuss his excellent book "Why Mars: NASA and the Politics of Space Exploration." During the first segment of this 1 hour 33 minute program, Dr. Lambright introduced us to his book and what prompted him to write it. Dr. Lambright then described three main motivating factors for having our Mars program starting with before NASA with the belief and cultural components suggesting some sort of life on Mars. Next as a motivating factor dating back from the Von Braun time frame of humans going to Mars. His third motivating factor had to do with political issues and competition. Since we were talking about the possibilities of life on Mars, I asked our guest about Viking and the more recent pronouncements by Dr. Gil Levin who has been on TSS several times over the past few years. Later, Dr. Lambright had many good things to say about our science and robotic program but said our human spaceflight program was in disarray. Dr. Lambright got several listener emails & phone calls. He was asked for the WHY behind human spaceflight and that led to a discussion about Big Science. I asked him to define Big Science which he did. We talked about the NRC Pathways HSF study, then our guest talked about triggers leading to big events and progress, plus the more typical method of moving forward which he called slow evolution. Jumping forward to our second segment, we talked about the Clinton years in the 90s for policy, Mars Observer & how that loss was turned into a plus for our Mars policy. Other topics included astronaut risk taking, the void in leadership for space, Mars, and things in general. Doug called to consolidate all the motivating factors and issues to just one, the need for more money. He made a good case for this consolidation. We also talked about the challenges for getting alternative theories seriously considered by NASA, Congress, and policy makers. The NASA to NACA suggestion came up, we talked about the privates taking over LEO with NASA focusing on BLEO & advanced technologies. As the program was ending, I asked our guest about the Syracuse student interest in space and Mars, plus our guest left us with an important closing comment. Please post your comments/questions on TSS blog. If you want to reach Dr. Lambright, you can do so through me. Finally, if you buy his book from Amazon, do so through the OGLF Amazon portal so that Amazon will contribute to The Space Show. Instructions are in each archive write up and on the blog, plus both The Space Show and OGLF websites.
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