Mark Whittington was the guest for this Space Show program. We began the interview by talking about his book, "Children of Apollo." He explained the alternate history theme, how he came up with the idea to have Pres. Nixon continue with the Apollo program through Apollo 23 which lands on the Moon with a woman astronaut. As a result of questions from listeners, Mark explained how he portrayed famous people in the book at various times in their careers including Bill Clinton, Sen.. Proxmire, and many more. Mark was asked many questions about space policy and our program to return to the Moon and go forward to Mars. We talked about space advocacy, making it more effective, Congress, learning from history to better serve the present and future with space development. He talked about Hubble and completing the ISS, and then told us about his film script that he is currently submitting to Hollywood, television, and independent film companies. You will want to hear what Mark says about "The Last Moonwalker." As a result of a different line of questions, we discussed the pros and cons of robotic space missions versus human missions and Mark used history to help make the case that human missions are far more desirable. This discussion also contains lots of humor, you will for sure want to hear it. As a result of a listener's comments, we entered into a discussion of the benefits of having women on space mission crews. Comparisons were made with the way women perform in scuba diving versus men and the issue of single sex crews to Mars was brought into discussion and downplayed, at least as part of the US space program. Listeners can contact Mark Whittington at mwhittingt@sprynet.com.
Guest
The Space Show
