Guest: Taylor Dinerman. Taylor Dinerman returned to The Space Show in order to discuss U.S. space policy, the current U.S. plans to shoot down a malfucnctioning U.S. spy satellite, and much more. During our first segment, we discussed the plans to use a U.S. Navy SM-3 missile to bring down the spy satellite, NRL- 21/USA 193. This prompted several listener questions about possible Outer Space Treaty violations, space debris, and why is this OK when the anti-satellite test that China performed in early 2007 was not ok? Do not miss this discussion as Taylor answers all of these questions and more and I get in a few licks as well. Another important event which happened this week was a meeting held at Stanford University which examined the Vision for Space Exploration (now called the U.S. Space Exploration Policy). The workshop, "Examining The Vision: An Independent Look At The Future of Human Space Exploration" issued a summary statement, which can be found on The Planetary Society website: www.planetary.org/programs/projects/advocacy_and_education/space_advoca…. Mr. Dinerman discussed this workshop and the VSE, so you will have the latest information when listening to this program. During the next segment, we talked about European space policy, both civil and military, and space solar power (SSP). For our SSP discussion, we focused on the economics of it now and possibly in the future, especially with energy demand peaking and rising to new levels in many nations around the world. Taylor pointed out the type of energy demand which is going to occur in coming decades and we also talked about the likely pricing for this energy. He concludes that SSP has to be the best solution. You do not want to miss this discussion. Since we were on the topic of economics, the issue of earmarks in the federal budget became a discussion topic. Listen to why Taylor believes these are important and should not be banned from the federal budgetary process. He also mentioned testimony before Congress by Dr. Robert Zubrin a few years back and how up-to-date and knowledgeable Senator McCain seemed to be about the topic of Mars and what Zubrin was talking about. Near the end of the program, Taylor mentioned the $2 billion flagship program scheduled by NASA for 2017 to explore the outer planets, possibly Jupiter or Saturn, or maybe Europa or all the moons of Jupiter. He suggested we watch for the open discussions on how they decide the nature of this mission as he expects it to be very interesting. Listener questions zoomed in on keeping the shuttle flying past 2010 in order to avoid the gap in the U.S. manned spaceflight program which everyone is talking about as well as the possible retiring of the ISS soon after it's actually finished. You will want to hear what our guest has to say on these topics. If you have questions or comments for Taylor Dinerman, please send them to him through me at drspace@thespaceshow.com and I will forward them to him.
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