Guest: Robert (Bob) Zimmerman. Topics: Russian space industry, SpaceX, Orbital, suborbital and much more. Please direct all comments and questions regarding Space Show programs/guest(s) to the Space Show blog, http://thespaceshow.wordpress.com. Comments and questions should be relevant to the specific Space Show program. Written Transcripts of Space Show programs are a violation of our copyright and are not permitted without prior written consent, even if for your own use. We do not permit the commercial use of Space Show programs or any part thereof, nor do we permit editing, YouTube clips, or clips placed on other private channels & websites. Space Show programs can be quoted, but the quote must be cited or referenced using the proper citation format. Contact The Space Show for further information. In addition, please remember that your Amazon purchases can help support The Space Show/OGLF. See www.onegiantleapfoundation.org/amazon.htm. For those listening to archives using live365.com and rating the programs, please email me as to why you assign a specific rating to the show. This will help me bring better programming to the audience. We welcomed Bob Zimmerman back to the show for this 2 hour 8 minute discussion. During the first segment, Bob focused on the Russians gearing up to leave Baikonur, putting more and more of their space industry back under government control, plus their upcoming first test flight and launch of the Angara rocket which has been in development for 20 years or so. We addressed issues from the Russian perspective and the US perspective, talked about the ISS beyond 2020, and the fact that Russia has again said they are not interested in doing space tourism to the Moon, disavowing plans to send two tourists around the Moon despite the rumors that keep appearing. We then talked about the Falcon 9 delays and issues. Bob also explained what was behind the Orbital delay for the next Cygnus/Antares launch which will now take place in July. Evidently there are issues with the Russian rocket motor used by this launcher. The idea that the US will build a new domestic version of the Russian RD-180 engine was discussed with more questions being asked than answered. SpaceX getting USAF certification was also talked about in this segment. In our second segment, we talked about the Chinese lunar rover, Yutu, which is still alive. Bob had much to say in this update. The issue over the NASA and NOAA climate change ground data was discussed in light of the recent news stories suggesting the data was corrupted. Bob explained the use of raw data, why it is being said that the data was corrupted or possibly manipulated. He provided the website sources for this information as did caller Tim. We also talked about the latest radar images coming from Titan which seem to show an island that appears and then disappears in a methane lake. We got a question from Tony about rockets in Australia and Trent answered the questions for us via chat. Trent said the engineers and others get training in Australia, then leave the country. Trent also shared news with us about the recent Falcon 9 launch delays and reported that Arianespace said it would price compete with Falcon 9 launches. Noted space journalist Peter B. de Selding tweeted this from the Arianespace CEO: "Arianespace CEO: Our decision to cut prices to match SpaceX has resulted in handful of contracts already, to be announced in coming weeks." See https://twitter.com/pbdes/status/481482483792609280. Don't forget to visit Bob's blog, http://behindtheblack.com. Please post your comments/questions on TSS blog. You can reach Bob through his blog or me.
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The Space Show
