Dr. Lee S. Valentine, Executive Director of the Space Studies Institute, was the guest on this edition of The Space Show. Dr. Valentine began his discussion by stating that so far space has been an endless money hole, but in order for us to become space-faring, benefits and profits from space activities need to be present. Thus, affordable space access is needed. We talked about space tourism as potentially the best space business for profits and benefits for the near-term. Dr.Valentine provided us with a clear, extensive, and comprehensive discussion about energy from space, space solar power, and more. He explained how this type of energy holds the key for peoples all around the world to have the same level and quantity of energy that we in the United States enjoy - and at affordable prices. We explored together why this type of energy development is not being pursued on a more urgent basis and why space commerce was not seen as a key way to increase jobs, to develop more technical jobs, and to create jobs that would most likely not be outsourced. We talked about the political implication of space commerce economics in this year's presidential campaign and we also explored why it is not talked about by California leaders as a way to foster economic growth which certainly would benefit the state in this period of financial and economic crisis. Dr. Valentine spent some time discussing the importance of understanding how we can live in a closed biological system and we used the Biosphere experiments that were conducted in Tucson, AZ as a model of what not to do in such experiments. Yet, as Dr. Valentine pointed out, such experiments are essential to our being able to establish and live in space or lunar settlements. As part of this discussion, Dr. Valentine pointed out the difficulty in managing liquids and waste in micro-gravity. When asked how we were doing with liquid and waste management at this time, including crews on the ISS, he said that we were only at the beginning of how to understand how to work with these fields. During this program, Dr. Valentine brought us up to date regarding planetary defense issues and the need to be able to protect the Earth from being hit by an objecting coming in from space. He pointed out the statistical chances of Earth being hit by objects of various sizes and the type of damage such a hit would bring to Earth and all of us living here. We discussed the difference between an object blowing up in the atmosphere and actually hitting the Earth, noting which type of impact would do more damage and cause more deaths and injury. We discussed the state of the art in defending our planet today and what is needed for the future. Dr. Valentine addressed many important subjects and issues on The Space Show. He will certainly return to continue these discussions as these are important issues and topics and with Dr. Valentine, we have only scratched the surface.
Guest
The Space Show
