SSP

Guest : Gene Meyers, CEO of the Space Island Group (www.spaceislandgroup.com), was the guest for this Space Show program. We started our interview with Gene providing us with background and updates for both a historical overview of Space Island, plus an update with its current activities. Most of the overview addressed the Space Island Group's plan to use shuttle external tanks for a space station or other commercial purposes.

Guest: Dr. Donald Rapp was the guest for this Space Show program to discuss his book, "Assessing Climate Change: Temperatures, Solar Radiation, and Heat Balance." This was a factual discussion of Earth's climate, climate change history over time, the Little Ice Age as a baseline, the hockey stick graph, and much more. Dr. Rapp takes a hard look at the climate talk and you will not want to miss what he has to say. He then defines the real problem as one of having sufficient energy for Americans and the world in the future.

Guest: Dr. David Criswell (Golden Oldie Replay from 12/7/04): Dr. David Criswell spoke to Space Show listeners about the realities of space solar power beamed to Earth, specifically from the Moon. So far this was the most thorough discussion yet on The Space Show for this topic. All aspects of the space solar power issue were examined, including solar power from Mercury, LEO or other orbits above Earth, and the Moon. The benefits, costs, and risks were discussed in detail.

Guest : Frank Stratford, CEO of MarsDrive (www.marsdrive.com), was the guest for this Space Show program. We started out by having Frank update us as to the purpose and mission of MarsDrive, then we talked about the MarsDrive petition, especially the version placed on the Space Cynics website (please see http://spacecynic.wordpress.com/2008/04/15/peer-review-comes-to-the-spa… for more information).

Guest: General James B. Armor, USAF (Ret) was the guest for this program. General Armor discussed his policy recommendation that now is the time to create a special Space Corps within the Air Force. This position is explained in detail in Astropolitics, Volume 5, Issue 3, September 2007, pages 273-288, in his article entitled "It is Time to Create a United States Air Force Space Corps." I highly recommend that you read this article as it's excellent and Gen.

Guest: Dr. Robert Conger was the guest for this Space Show program to discuss the upcoming Responsive Space Conference, April 28-May 1, 2008 at the LAX Westin Hotel, Los Angeles, California. Dr. Conger started out with a definition and explanation for the term "responsive space", then later he did the same for operationally responsive space.

Shubber Ali was the guest for this Space Show program. We covered many discussion topics from the accident at Scaled last week to the problems reported with NASA, including possible shuttle sabotage and possible drunk shuttle crews. The points made by Shubber on these topics are interesting and to the point so don't miss them. We also talked about SSP and its possible R&D development by the Air Force or the military in general. Shubber went through the economics of SSP and talked about from the perspective of a future investment for our nation and the world.

Marshall Martin was the guest for this special Space Show program. Marshall is a faithful Space Show listener, an unaffiliated space advocate, and a listener that asks exceptionally good questions to a wide variety of Space Show guests. This interview started out by asking Marshall about his interest in space and how he comes up with so many unusually high quality questions for Space Show guests on a wide variety of topics. As you will hear when listening to the program, Marshall applies some engineering rules to his question process.

Dr. Brad Edwards returned to The Space Show to discuss energy issues from space, SSP, alternative energy, and of course to update us on the space elevator. The first part of the program focused on space solar power and the need to be starting the development of an SSP test station along with other alternative energy programs given the long lead time to the establishment of commercial working alternative energy systems. Dr.

Howard Bloom was the guest for this special program to discuss the importance of having a space vision, the idea of a "killer application" for inspiring the public regarding space, and a four point program that could form the basis for the needed space vision. The four point program he discussed includes biofuels, space solar power, lunar development, and going to Mars. We talked about economics and several listeners asked questions about the economics and the priority of SSP or the other components of the program before having developed affordable and routine LEO access.