Guest: Dr. Paul Spudis. Topics: Cislunar economic development, an historical overview of Mars as an HSF destination, plus more. 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 back Dr. Paul Spudis to discuss cislunar economic development per the paper he wrote along with Tony Lavoie, "Using the resources of the Moon to create a permanent, cislunar space faring system." You can download his paper at http://www.spudislunarresources.com/Bibliography/p/102.pdf. For more information and additional papers, visit http://spudislunarresources.com. Dr. Spudis frequently posts articles and comments on his blog at http://blogs.airspacemag.com/moon. During our first segment, Dr. Spudis provided an overview of his cislunar plans and we discussed technological barriers along with any other barriers that would prevent starting on this project at this time. He talked about water on the Moon along with competing theories about the water as well as the tools being used to detect and measure the quality & quantity of lunar water. Several times during our discussion he mentioned anti-space development forces within the government & even in industry that prefer only science space exploration, not human spaceflight (HSF). Later in the segment, Harry emailed in about the Moon Treaty given the current article on the subject in The Space Review (see www.thespacereview.com/article/1954/1). We talked about manufacturing large space ships on the Moon along with the costs for his cislunar development plans. This discussion also included a market assessment for the plan so make sure you hear this discussion. At one point, our guest referenced research that estimated that lunar water is worth 25 times the cost of water here on Earth coming up to the Moon. Larry inquired about his plan using humans vs. robots. As you will hear, initially Dr. Spudis referred to a robotic presence but as the program matured, humans would play an increasing role in it. When asked about launch access, Paul said the plan was vehicle agnostic. He also suggested international partners as an asset to the program. Later in the segment, he was asked about the recent Russian article about Russian plans to go to the Moon to use lava tubes (see www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/18/us-russia-moon-idUSTRE79H69P20111018). As we started the second segment, Dr. Spudis was asked about our focus on Mars as destination for HSF rather than the Moon. He had much to say on this subject, including giving us a history lesson as to how Mars evolved as the HSF focal point. Not only did he point out weaknesses in the HSF Mars objective, he talked about two competing world views for our space program. The first world view which is the main one is more or less about flags & footprints & not returning to where we have already been. The second world view involves incrementally developing capabilities, moving outward in space as we can with the goal of settlement. You do not want to miss what Dr. Spudis said about these competing world views and HSF to Mars. Near the end, we talked about public support for space based on polling. Paul offered us a new way of looking at these results & what the numbers really mean. As the program ended, we talked about the role of space tourism, the Indian PSLV rocket, SSP including from the Moon & even Soyuz lunar tourism. Please post your questions & comments on The Space Show blog URL above. Dr. Spudis can be reached as well through his website or spudis@lpi.usra.edu.
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