Dr. Lee Valentine returned for this special Monday evening Space Show program. We began our discussion by inquiring about the upcoming Planetary Defense Conference scheduled for March 5-8, 2007 in Washington, DC. Visit www.aero.org/conferences/planetarydefense to learn more about this conference. To read some of the papers being presented at the conference, visit www.aero.org/conferences/planetarydefense/resources.html. After talking about the basics, Dr. Valentine explained the need to have a planetary defense. We asked Dr. Valentine about the U.S. going it alone to fund planetary defense and research and about who has the responsibility for it, the U.S. or all other nations. This is an interesting discussion, don't miss it. I asked Dr. Valentine to rank the priorities for space for 2007 and if planetary defense was not the first, where would it be on his priority list. Interestingly, Dr. Valentine said cheap access to space was the most important and then he related that issue to planetary defense. We then discussed cheap access to space and fielded several listener questions on the subject. In the following segments, we talked about the character, the courage, and the soul of the New Space investor. Listeners wanted to know about the most common misconceptions regarding the risks involved in alt.space investing. I think you will be surprised at the risk item cited by Dr. Valentine. We also discussed the importance of spousal support in making New Space type of investments, the risks involved, etc. This issue came up because of a few comments about the current movie, The Astronaut Farmer. One listener made the statement that the most unrealistic part of the movie was the unending support by the wife and that brought about the real life discussion of potential family life stress resulting from the New Space industry and investing in it. Dr. Valentine was asked about humans going to Mars, the importance of the VSE, and the markets for rocket engines he talked about being made by the New Space/Alt.space entrepreneurial community. You can continue to comment and ask questions of Dr. Valentine regarding investing in New Space and related issues by sending them through me at drspace@thespaceshow.com. Also visit the Space Studies Institute website for more information on the topics discussed tonight, www.ssi.org.
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The Space Show
