Guest: Eduardo Jezierski. Topics: Emergency and disaster relief and the roll of space resources. Our guest today, Eduardo Jezierski of InSTEDD (www.instedd.org) talked with us about disaster and emergency relief around the world, how technology is used, brought into remote areas, and the role space resources plays in bringing help to the areas that have been hit by a disaster such as Haiti with the recent earthquake. This program unfolded in three segments but our conversation was a continuous theme so this summary will not reflect the actual segments since our themes overlapped throughout the entire show. Eduardo started out describing an emergency situation, Haiti for example, how resources were deployed, who deployed them, how all teams going to the site were self-contained with resources, power, etc. Much of what was and is used is very advanced technology to achieve bandwidth so note what he had to say about beach ball like inflatable antennas and other very advanced technology. We were introduced to BarCamps which we discussed at length and which The Space Show is now considering doing along with help from Eduardo. If you want to know more about BarCamps, check out this introductory Wiki site, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BarCamp. Eduardo received questions about bandwidth issues, generating power and even the use of space solar power. You will want to hear what he had to say about these subjects. As our discussion evolved, we talked more and more about space awareness issues among the emergency organizations as well as the people in the countries needing the help. Compare what you hear to the average space awareness of the general population in the US or your own country. Later in the show, Eduardo talked about the importance of going to space and as you will hear, he connected dots differently from what we space cadets normally here and the case we normally make for spaceflight. He said that being space fairing means better community living here on Earth. Learning to live in space and supporting space life support systems help our ability to live a better life here on this planet. We discussed this at length throughout the show so make sure you hear our discussion in full. What do you think? We then talked about the cost of the space program and the idea that space funds should be spent to help people on Earth with food, etc. Eduardo talked about the need for portfolio planning and what space expenditures mean for people here on Earth. Again, listen carefully to this discussion. Text messaging, satellite imaging, innovation and even risk taking were all part of this discussion. Toward the end of the show I asked our guest about the view of the night sky in the countries he goes to for emergency and disaster relief. We also asked about people looking up and their awareness of the night sky and space. Eduardo had some very interesting things to say about this. I believe this to be a very important, interesting, and even fascinating discussion. If you have any questions or comments for Eduardo Jezierski, you can email him at edjez@instedd.org.
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