Guest: Chris Carberry. Topics: Explore Mars programs, space policy & presidential campaigns, HSF to Mars. You are invited to comment, ask questions, and discuss the Space Show program/guest(s) on the Space Show blog, http://thespaceshow.wordpress.com. Comments, questions, and any discussion must be relevant and applicable to Space Show programming. Transcripts of Space Show programs are not permitted without prior written consent from The Space Show (even if for personal use) & are a violation of the Space Show copyright. We welcomed Chris Carberry back to the show to update us on new Explore Mars programs and also to talk about space policy & issues as part of a presidential campaign. You can follow along on their website, www.exploremars.org. In our first segment, Chris started out talking about the Curiosity rover on Mars and its impact on policy and programming back here on Earth. He also told us about a website created by Explore Mars, www.getcurious.com. This additional site focused on Curiosity, but also as you will hear, described their Mars boulder program, what happened and where the thousand pound boulders went after Curiosity landed. During this segment, we had a lengthy discussion about space as a political priority in presidential campaigns and Chris told us why in his experience space policy does not typically enter a presidential campaign. Later we both said that the biggest issue facing our space program and HSF to Mars is the lack of political will. Chris went on to tell us about their upcoming Space Blitz on Capitol Hill on Sept. 12, 2012, a joint program and effort with the NSS. Chris concluded the first segment by telling us about an Explore Mars upcoming conference on Mars education scheduled for May 6-8, 2013. In the second segment, a listener asked Chris why Explore Mars targeted women in its programming. Don't miss the explanation offered by Mr. Carberry. By the way, as far as I know, Explore Mars is one of only a few, maybe the only organization, that does programming specifically for women in space and for Mars activities. Chris returned to Mars and space policy in political campaigns as well as political agendas, both in Congress and among the nation's general population. Since Chris is from Massachusetts, he got a few questions asking about congressional races in the state and the space policy/positions of the candidates competing for house and senate seats. Chris was unsure of the various space/Mars candidate positions but noted that neither space or Mars had been or would likely be a discussion topic in anyone's campaign this year. I then asked Chris if he could design a space policy for a political candidate and he said yes though he would have to be very careful about how the policy was put forth and debated. Don't miss this discussion! I did encourage him to create such a campaign and post it on a blog or website for general information available to any candidate of any party who actually is interested in space or Mars. Later in the segment, we talked about the importance of a Mars sample return mission, the potential for the private sector to fund an HSF program to Mars, and what he thought the Mars program in particular would look like in five years. As the show was ending, he was asked about a Martian moon mission to either Phobos or Deimos. In his concluding comments, he mentioned the upcoming 50th anniversary of our leaving the Moon and not returning. He said we can certainly do better than that. Please post your comments/questions on the blog. You can email Chris through the Explore Mars website.
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