Guests: Jim Lewis, followed by Brian Mosdell, are the two guests for this recorded set of interviews made while at Cape Canaveral on Nov. 17 and Nov. 19, 2008. In the first segment, Jim Lewis of Communications Concepts talks about the special documentary now playing on the Documentary Channel, "One Giant Leap - 50 Years of the American Space Program." I have seen this documentary and its one of the best documentaries commemorating the 50th anniversary of America in space. Its hosted by Corbin Bernsen and has great interviews with Hoot Gibson, Alan Shepard's daughter Laura who has the golf club Alan used for hitting the golf ball on the Moon (or the simulation model), Bill Pogue, Jon McBride, Al Worden, Jack King, and others. You can see this documentary on your documentary cable TV channel, but the DVD is available for purchase at www.spaceflightnowstore.com. It's well worth seeing and owning. During this discussion, Jim talks about making the documentary, some of the astronaut and media personality stories that are not in the program and more. A few days later, Brian Mosdell, Director of Space X Florida Launch Operations, gave me a walking tour of the work going on for the Falcon 9 pad. After driving what seemed like an eternity by various launch pads at KSC, I found my way to the Falcon 9 pad which was recently used in 2005 as an Air Force Titan pad. I was struck by how much incredible progress is being made to transform this pad into the Falcon 9 pad. It's impressive! I was also impressed by the fact this pad was used not that long ago to launch a Titan and the rust and deferred maintenance was overwhelming. This speaks to the harsh environment that our launch infrastructure at the Cape must endure and the high cost of maintenance that surely must be incurred by the Air Force and NASA to maintain this infrastructure. Brian walked me through, and over, all parts of the pad, explained everything, nothing was held back. I had totally free access to the pad, all questions were answered, and it was fascinating. I only wish The Space Show website had video and photo capacity as I would post some of the pictures that I took so you could see what Brian was talking about. However, much of what he explained can be seen on the Space X site. I do have a few digital photos from my tour, so assuming I can send them by email, if you send me a note at drspace@thespaceshow.com, I will attempt to send them to you. By the way, the sun was so very bright, I could not see a thing in the viewfinder of the camera so I was guessing at what I was taking the picture of, but some are presentable. I was mostly focused on the interview and the recording and as I was on my own for this without an assistant, picture taking was secondary at best. My hat continues to be tipped to Space X and all of the team for their amazing openness, transparency, friendship, and desire to communicate with The Space Show audience. Space X and its team really are outstanding and we all wish for their great success. As you will hear on the tape, Brian is expecting Falcon 9 to be on the pad before the end of this year. A few days after I completed this interview, they had a successful Falcon 9 engine test firing at their Texas location. I look forward to the complete renovation of this pad and successful launches of Falcon 9 from the Cape. If you have any questions or comments for Brian, you can send them to me at drspace@thespaceshow.com
Guest
The Space Show
