Guest: Dr. Pat Hynes; Topics: The upcoming Personal & Commercial Spaceflight Symposium, NASA issues, Spaceport America, solar eclipse, Space Grant organizations & more. Please direct all comments and questions regarding specific Space Show programs & guest(s) to the Space Show blog which is part of archived program on our website, www.thespaceshow.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.
We welcomed back Dr. Pat Hynes to discuss the 2017 upcoming International Symposium For Personal and Commercial Spaceflight (ISPCS) to be held in Las Cruces, NM from Oct. 11-12, 2017. For detailed information about the event and to follow along with our discussion of the Agenda and Speakers, please visit https://ispcs.com. During our 96 minute one segment program, we covered many different topics, starting with the recent total solar eclipse and the participating Space Grant organizations in the university research high altitude balloon eclipse project to view and study the eclipse as it moved across the country. Dr. Hynes spent several minutes talking about this experiment, the Space Grant participants, what the experiment was about and the outcome. She also talked about having streamed it live plus she provided some interesting stories and background regarding this unique research project. Don’t miss what she had to say about it.
Dr. Hynes then told us about her serving on a regional panel regarding NAFTA and how she connected her work there with what goes on in the space community. You do not want to miss her excellent analysis and why it is so important for us in the space community to talk to a larger audience than just the inside space community. This was an important discussion so don’t miss it.
Pat said the theme for the 2017 even was “Go For Purpose” which she explained in detail, then she linked it to most of the presentations and speakers over the two day event. For 2018, the event theme will be “Tipping Point.” From this discussion, our guest talked about the naming of the new NASA Administrator, Congressman Jim Bridenstine. Our guest was very supportive of the choice, I was less so and explained my objections in detail. We talked about who might be the Assistant or Deputy Administrator as that will be key to keeping programs going, continuity, and operating NASA. The current acting Administrator, Robert Lightfoot, was discussed and supported by both of us for that position though I said there might be lots of others qualified for the position that are currently under the radar.
Our guest then talked about Spaceport America, the former director that many were unhappy with and the new director, Dan Hicks. Mr Hicks seems to have wide support and an excellent background for the job as spaceport director. Pat had many interesting things to say about Spaceport America and its challenges, giving up opportunities to Florida, and much more. Don’t miss her comments.
Next, we focused on the agenda and speakers for this year’s ISPCS. Please check out the agenda at https://ispcs.com/full-agenda. You can see the list of speakers and their affiliation at https://ispcs.com/speakers. Dr. Hynes took us through the programming day by day, speaker and topic in order for each day,. In discussing each speaker and topic, she provided important background information for us so I strongly suggest you follow along with the Agenda on the website for this part of our discussion. Toward the end of the discussion, an interesting additional topic came up which focused on the history, use, and meaning of the designation NewSpace, especially when compared to the term Old Space. I had some things to say about this given I remember how all this happened years go so I related some of my Space Show experiencing around the transition to NewSpace.
Please post your comments/questions on TSS blog for this program. Dr. Hynes can be reached through The Space Show or the event website per above. If you attend this year’s Symposium, please call an Open Lines show and talk with us about the event.
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