Broadcast 1463 (Special Edition)

Guests: Dr. June Scobee Rodgers, Dr. Scott Parazynski. Topics: Challenger Center For Space Science Education followed by Open Lines. Please note that you are invited to comment, ask questions, and rate this program on the new Space Show blog, http://thespaceshow.wordpress.com. Additionally, you can learn more about the topics discussed in today's program by visiting The Challenger Center website at www.challenger.org, Dr. Parazynski's website at www.parazynski.com, and the Star Challenger book series website, www.starchallengers.com. You can also purchase the book, "Moonbase Crisis" through the One Giant Leap Foundation Amazon partners website and Amazon will make a contribution to The Space Show. www.amazon.com/dp/1934857289?tag=onegialeafou-20. As said on air, this book will make an outstanding holiday gift for your child of any age. Our guests, Drs. Rodgers and Parazynski were with us for the first hour to share with us all sorts of information about the Challenger Center For Space Science Education. Having inspired over 4,000,000 school children worldwide and about 400,000 kids a year through 50 global centers during their 25 year history, this is an outstanding organization with amazing facilities and programming. Having been fortunate to attend the opening of the Challenger Center in Downey, CA during the AIAA Space 2010 conference and meeting June Scobee Rodgers, I urge all of you to visit a center near you, encourage students, teachers, classrooms, and parents to do field trips to a Challenger Center as there really is nothing finer that I have come across for teaching, inspiring, and leading kids to STEM education and space careers. As you listen to our discussion and visit the Challenger Center website, you will see why I am so positive toward this organization. During our hour with our guests, many calls and questions came in about how the Centers work, the programming, their mission manuals, even starting a Center in an area where there is currently no center. We also talked about the Star Challengers book series and the first book which is now available, "Moonbase Crisis." There will be three books in this series and the next one is due out in January. Since Dr. Parazynski is a medical doctor, he was asked about life science issues at the Challenger Center rather than a focus only on engineering and propulsion. As you will hear, Challenger Center programming does pay attention to human factors for space missions. We also talked about using metrics to follow the Challenger Center alumni to measure the impact of this training and these experiences as these students go through college and develop their careers. If you have questions or comments for our guests or about The Challenger Centers, please post it on the blog URL above. You should also direct them to the Challenger contact page, www.challenger.org/contact.cfm and reference The Space Show in your note. Questions for Dr. Parazynski can be directed to his website listed above. In the second hour, we had a vibrant Open Lines discussion, mainly about educational problems in the U.S. There was some bleed over from the Friday show on science fiction movies as well as from a few earlier programs where RLV topics were discussed. John from Montana talked about the need for having a more productive and unified space enthusiast effort with a common voice, sort of a United Way for Space Organizations. See what you think of the idea. Your Open Lines comments are welcome to be posted on the blog as well. If you would like to contact any of the Open Lines participants, please send your note through me at drspace@thespaceshow.com and I will forward it to the person you wish to contact.