Guest: Mark Whittington. Topics: Commercial space news updates, mid-term elections & space policy/budgets, & much more. 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 Mark Whittington back to the program for a wide ranging discussion on space news, policy, & technical matters. You can follow Mark on his blog, http://curmudgeons.blogspot.com. During the first segment of our 1 hour 46 minute program, Mark focused on the SpaceShipTwo accident, the Orbital Antares loss, the Mid-Term elections and what that may mean for space policy, Texas and the commercial space industry including the planned SpaceX spaceport, plus the space interest level of Texas Republicans taking over in the Senate and continuing in the House. He also spoke the NASA Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) as a possible program to be cancelled referencing the work by Dr. Binzel at MIT who wants it cancelled in favor of finishing the NEO survey. Later in the segment, Mark mentioned the Falcon Heavy to Mars, Inspiration Mars, and SLS. He also talked about possible renewed interest in some sort of return to the Moon program. In segment two, Dr. Doug called to talk about a Lunar Cots like program & a reusable lunar lander. We addressed Dr. Dava Newman of MIT being nominated for the position of NASA Deputy Administrator. Dava was a January 2014 guest on The Space Show and as you will hear, I think this was an excellent choice for the position. We spoke more about SLS, then Mark mentioned the recent Whitehouse.gov call for feedback on lunar & space policy by Tom Kalil, the Deputy Director for Policy for The White House Office of Science & Technology. Dr. Doug and Mark talked about the ULA-Masten Zeus lander. Mark updated us on the Lunar XPrize , we spoke about the book "The Martian" and concluded by talking about upcoming Sci-Fi TV channel space related programming . As the program was concluding, Mark said space tourism will survive the Virgin accident but Virgin's survival will come down to investors and customers. He also suggested their might be congressional hearings which he thought would be fine providing they did not go to the extreme to strangle the industry with regulations & oversight. Please post your comments/questions on TSS blog. You can reach Mark Whittington through his own website or me.
Guest
The Space Show
