Vision for Space Exploration (VSE)

Guest: Open Lines with Dr. David Livingston. Topics: Rachel Maddow statement, capitalism, company profits, space policy, Small Sat, STEM education. 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.

Guest: Bretton Alexander. Topics: Commercial Spaceflight Federation, commercial space, suborbital research flights. Please note that 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. You can find out more about the Commercial Spaceflight Federation by visiting www.commercialspaceflight.org.

Guests: Dr. Paul Spudis; Tony Lavoie. Topics: Their paper titled "Mission and Implementation of an Affordable Lunar Return." Please note that 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. We welcomed back Dr.

Guest: Dr. John Logsdon. Topics: U.S. space policy, Augustine Commission, JFK and more. Dr. John Logsdon, founder and former director of the Space Policy Institute was our guest for this program. In our first segment, Dr. Logsdon discussed the times in our history where our space policy was at a crossroads, starting with the transition from President Eisenhower to President Kennedy, then to the post-Columbia period and the VSE.

Guest: Dr. Jeffrey Hoffman. Topics: space walks, space tourism, solid rocket boosters, space policy, space vision. Dr. Jeffrey Hoffman was our guest for this Space Show program. In our initial segment, we discussed the Hubble Space Telescope and its repair missions, training for the repair missions, and what its like to do work in space outside the spacecraft. We asked Dr. Hoffman about any sense of speed or height when doing a space walk and if space tourists could do an EVA.

Guest: Dr. Paul Spudis. Topics: Return to the Moon, VSE Mission Statement, lunar science, NASA, Mars, U.S. public and space exploration. Dr. Paul Spudis returned for this special two hour program to discuss why we should return to the Moon. In Segment 1, Dr. Spudis talked about the Moon as a transitioning resource and our training ground for how we can learn to live and settle in space. He said that the way the VSE has evolved, its gotten away from the true mission of our return to the Moon. This is a discussion that you must hear and its repeated throughout this two hour show.

Guest: Dr. Patrick Collins was our very special guest for this 1,000th Space Show program! Dr. Collins joined us from Japan as he was also the very first Space Show guest on June 13, 2001. We started our discussion with a type of report card for space tourism in 2001 and now in 2008. We both went through a list of milestones, accomplishments, events, and developments in order to ascertain the level of progress made in developing space tourism over the past seven years. Dr.

Guests: Dr. Jeff Foust and Charles Miller returned to The Space Show to discuss their three part series, "The Vision for Space Exploration and the retirement of the Baby Boomers," in The Space Review. We started the discussion today with the introduction to the problem as they see it. Baby Boomers will soon be retiring and taxing the entitlement and other support aspects of the U.S. budget. Thus, there will be fewer funds available for the discretionary budget including NASA and programs such as the VSE.