Kathleen Connell, Principal of the Connell Whittaker Group, LLC, was the guest for this special program on The Space Show. We began our discussion by asking Ms. Connell about lessons learned and her cutting edge research based on her work with the award winning videographer Michael Danty in their film about societal impacts from Apollo. Ms. Connell discussed this subject in detail in three different categories: Culture, technology, and economic. This is an important discussion based on solid research and analysis. Don't miss it! We also embarked upon a detailed and very thorough discussion regarding benefits from the space program and space in general. For example, we explored the concept generating societal returns from space including far more than just economic or ROI returns. This generated many listener questions for Kathleen. Its a discussion you will certainly want to hear. Furthermore, we broadened this discussion to include more than just the US space program. I think many of you will be surprised by some of the comments about this subject regarding space in other countries. Later in the show we explored the relationship of society and space with Apollo, then other public, private, and foreign space programs. While we all have the sense of the Apollo program being a strong driver for our space interests and space programming, we asked Ms. Connell if her research had shown other space program drivers that could be useful for society or even a leader for society and its future space presence. We discussed the latest NASA program for returning to the Moon including the lunar outpost and the time table of 2024 in reaching the Moon. I shared some of the stories regarding audience participation from the recent Houston AIAA conference on the VSE, especially some of the feedback from the excellent panel chaired by Pete Worden at the end of the conference. We had a listener email in his comments from Denver as he too was at the AIAA conference. This listener strongly supported our emerging discussion thread that people want to see real benefits, even more so than OMB Johnson talked about in his recent speech on the subject. Also, the listener pointed out the extreme negative opinion of people regarding the proposed timeline of getting back to the Moon by 2024. Ms. Connell supported the listener comments from what her friends and associated reported from the conference. I believe her word for it all was "underwhelming!" Toward the end of the program, Ms. Connell discussed the term space social entrepreneurship. If this peaks your interest, listen to what she says about it and how it is applicable to what so many of us are doing and talking about right now. If you have additional comments or questions for Ms. Kathleen Connell, please forward them to me at drspce@thespaceshow.com and I will pass them on to her. In addition, check out her Center for Humanity and Space Exploration (CHASE) website which we talked about during the program as it is full of important information you will want to know about. The URL is www.humanityandspace.org.
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The Space Show
