The Space Show

Tom Marotta was back with us to discuss the progress being made with his company, The Spaceport Company, regarding mobile launch platforms off shore. We talked about spaceports in general, the demand for them, the advantages with his off short ship based small launcher platform plus his growth and expansion plans. We talked launch competition, SpaceX and others. Tom responded to several email questions and a call from Fremont John posing multiple questions to our guest. Please read the full summary when it is available at www.thespaceshow.com for this date, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. Also, please donate and support The Space Show during our campaign that runs through Dec. 31. We still need your donations so use PayPal, Zelle, or mail us a check to One Giant Leap Foundation. Remember we are a nonprofit so if you pay US federal taxes, you get a federal tax deduction for your gift. See the PayPal button in the upper right corner of our home page, www.thespaceshow.com. Thank you.

Bob Zimmerman was back for his final 2024 Space Show program. Bob had much to say about the potential new NASA Administrator, Jarrod Isaacman, and how he might change the focus of the space program. He has a two part series on this on his website, www.behindtheblack.com but he discussed it in detail with us. Comment on it on our blog. We also talked about the private space stations and he ranked them in order of making progress. We talked about other launch vehicles, the international scene for commercial space and stations, economics, the naysayer movement and more. Don't miss this program. As a reminder, please donate to us now to help fund us for 2025 as we are a 100% USER supported program. See PayPal in the upper right corner of our website. Read the full summary of this program when made available at www.thespaceshow.com for this date, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2024.

Dr. Paul Jaffe was back with us for a terrific discussion focusing on power beaming, SSP, grid power, nuclear, thorium, and all forms of energy. Paul made clear the important distinctions between power beaming and SSP. In addition, lots of time was spent looking at the potential economics of SSP which as he said are and will be challenging moving forward. He also made the national security and geopolitical very important point about the benefit of a nation state being to beam power electronically to any country on Earth which would be a huge advantage for them in the Great Power Struggle and Competition we now face. Paul had lots more to say so don't miss this program. Remember, if you like our programs, please donate during our annual campaign to help us fund our 2025 broadcasting year. Read the full summary of this program when available at www.thepsaceshow.com for this date, Sunday, Dec. 15, 2024.

Alan Smale was welcomed to The Space Show to discuss his latest hard sci-fi alternate history book, "Radiant Sky." We also talked about his first book in the series, "Hot Moon." The story line picks up after Apollo ends with both the US and Russia having their own bases on the Moon. Alan tells the story from Boook 1 to Book 2 and hints at the continued story in the third book which is being written at this time. We talked about reality space, China on the Moon, space policy, technology, reusability, nuclear propulsion, Mars and more. Read the full summary of this program when available at www.thespaceshow.com for this date, Friday, Dec. 13, 2024.

Joh and I welcomed Amir Notea from Israel to discuss space activities in Israel. John focused on the attempt by Israel to go to the Moon with the Beresheet project which crashed on the lunar surface in 2019 Beresheet 2 is underway looking for final funding for a second attempt at landing their lunar mission. We also talked about other aspects of Israel's space industry including launch sites, launching to the west and why, commercial space and more. Please read the full summary of this program when available at www.thespaceshow.com for this date, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024.

John and I welcomed back Anatoly Zak for updates with Russian space news. As we approached the anniversary of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Flight and build up to it, Anatoly talked about the Spyuz-16 flight program in April and August of 1974 to practice for the mission. These were mostly secret flights with very little press coverate. Anatoly went through the history, what the Russians did to make sure Apollo could dock with Soyuz, astronaut spacesuits and much more. Anatoly featured this article on his website, https://russianspaceweb.com. Please read the full summary of this program when it posts at www.thespaeshow.com for this date, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024.

We welcomed back Dr. Namrata Goswami to discuss her researh and paper (see our blog) on the current space race, space great and lesser power nations, China, American commercial competition and much more. This was a very thorough discussion with our guest A standout to me was near the end of the program when I asked her to provide us with the strategy to best compete with china given their system advantages as compared ours plus disadvantages. Namrata provided us with what I thought was an excellent strategy. Let us know what you think by commenting about it on the blog. Do read the full summary of this program when it posts at www.thespaceshow.com for this date, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024.

Mark was back with us to talk about space with the new administration. He had much to say with the new proposed NASA Administrator selection which led to commentary about Artemis, SLS, Musk and politics, Musk and conflicts of interest and more. He talked about Artemis, lunar and Mars focused goals for the coming years, when to shut down Gateway bases on Starship success and what should be a simpler regulatory climate moving forward, something that would facilitate Starship testing. Mark had good emails on a variety of topics and near the end two excellent phone calls. Please rear the full summary at www.thespaceshow.com for this date, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024.

We welcomed back Reid and Maxine to discuss their recently completed Mars analog, their Winter Solstice Analog which is the fifth such venture by their company, Mars Ocean Analogs. We discussed this voyage in detail and talked at length about a sailing venture as an analog for a Mars trip and astronaut crew training. Many issues were brought up, we easily saw the relationship to a space voyage to Mars with a sailing cruise in the open ocean. Both Reid and Maxine explained the ocean challenges and how they relate to space travel challenges. Toward the end of the discussion we heard from one of the crew members regarding his perspective on the cruise and his interest in doing a Mars trip. Please read the full summary of this program when available at www.thespaceshow.com for this date, Monday, Dec. 2, 2024.

Welcome to our Open Lines discussion program for Dec. 1, 2024. I opened up with a fundraising appeal as we are now fundraising to support The Space Show for the new year, 2025. Please listen and do support us as we are listener supported live broadcast space radio. Donating details are part of our discussion & in the upper right corner of our home page, www.thespaceshow.com. We covered many topics in today's program starting with a lengthy call with Dr. Doug about two of his projects, then what to do about SLS and when. The SLS part of the discussion went on for the rest of the program and dominated what other callers talked about. Different ideas and time lines for retiring SLS were mentioned along with my estimation that it would be here for quite a while. Listen to my comments to hear why I said that. Please review the complete review of the program when it appears at wwww.thespaceshow.com for this date, Sunday, Dec. 1, 2024.

Jim Muncy returned to share his commercial space and policy thoughts post our presidential election. Multiple topics were discussed but we had a focus on change going forward, big visions, Starship and what it might mean, Artemis, international space relationships, SLS, Musk and politics and more. Another must hear program! Please read the full summary when available at www.thespaceshow.com for this date, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024.

John and I welcomed back Eric Berger of Ars Technica to discuss the Starship demo flight 6 plus the potential for a wild space policy in the new administration given the Musk association with Trump and probably ongoing Artemis issues. We talked about flight #6, remaining test goals for the rocket system and many different policy concerns for the new year including the status of SLS Read the full summary of this program at www.thespaceshow.com for this date, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024.

We welcomed our guest to discuss his paper, "A model for economic freedom on Mars" plus his recent book "Sovereign Mars: Transforming Our Values through Space Settlement" We talked quite a bit about a possible Mars economic system, settlement, do's and don'ts, capital usage on Marx, permissions for this or that from Earth and lots more. Toward the end of our hour, Jacob spoke to the UAP matter we have heard so much about. He was also clear that both his paper and his book were really thought experiments to get people talking about these issues soon rather than later. We talked Earth governance issues, possible timelines, Musk and how to target a larger audience for both Mars and settlement. Please read the full summary of this program at www.thespaceshow.com for this date, Friday, Nov. 22, 2024.

Welcome to this Tuesday evening-Wednesday afternoon program with Bob. For those that listened live, you know that we had some serious technical glitches during this discussion and that we aborted the program about 30-40 minutes before our planned conclusion. The technical problems were repaired and I repaired the program as best as I could plus I added in the concluding segment from Wednesday after a brief pause and short introduction to this special segment. You will hear some of the technical issues but 100% of the program and content is there and easy to listen to, including the spliced in segment from Weds afternoon. Bob had much to say on multiple issues post election, space policy, SpaceX, Musk, SLS and other timely topics. Please read the full summary at www.thespaceshow.com as soon as I can get it published. The summary will post as of Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024.

Welcome to this Open Lines discussion. I reminded everyone that we are now in our annual campaign and we ask for your contributions to help fund us for 2025. See the PayPal link in the upper right corner of the home page. John Hunt called to update us on the latest congressional UAP hearings this past week John's call was followed by Marshall re weather satellites and information changes, then John from Fremont re the new federal court decsion re environmental news, the CEQ, and in keeping with the recent Chevron decision. This is a plus for SpaceX and our industry. David from AZ called to tell us about a website to get articles that are behind paywalls. Artemis, SLS and Starship/Musk were also significant topics for this program. See the full summary of this program at www.thespaceshow.com for this date, Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024.

We welcomed Peter to discuss one of his recent blog posts, Planetocracy.org, regarding the steps needed to be completed before humans to Mars happens. Peter's article is on the blog for this program. Not only did we go over the steps Peter outlined in his excellent article, he got calls and listener questions asking about other issues for humans to Mars. Most often he heard comments about Musk, SpaceX and how the human factors or medical issues might be resolved for those going to Mars. This mostly focused on microgravity and radiation. Don't miss these discussions. Please read the full summary for this program at www.thespaceshow.com for this date, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024.

We welcomed Dr. Hank Alewine to Hotel Mars to talk about possible NASA and commercial space budgets and programs post the presidential election. Commercial space activities were a big part of our discussion. Please read the full summary of this program at www.thespaceshow.com for this date, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024.

Eric Roesh, also sometimes referred to as ESG Hound, was our guest for this 91 minute program discussing the SpaceX water deluge system for Starship and much more. Eric is up on and works with environmental regs and requirements and addressed the deluge system from the regulation and safety perspective. Our guest pointed what he thought might be sirting the rules, pushing boundaries and possible courting an industrial accident/disaster. We talked about industrial chemical and other disasters when rules were violated with our guest naming several examples. Eric also pointed out that much of rule compliance requires self-reporting. Water toxicity was discussed, the small water storage pool used deluge water for Starship and much more. Even if you disagree with Eric, I consider this an important program with an important discussion. Your blog comments are welcome, just be civil. Also, if you have different takes on the rules, policies and regs other than what our guest expressed, please put them forth on the blog. Read the full summary of this program at www.thespaceshow.com for this date, Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024.

John and I welcomed Dr. Miroslav Broz to discuss his latest research on "most meteorites traced to three space crackups." Please see the full summary at www.thespaceshow.com for this date, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024.

We welcomed freelance science writer to the program to discuss nuclear power for space including propulsion and surface power. Jon talked about NASA and DARPA plans, the SpaceX-Musk position on nuclear power to Mars as compared to chemical propulsion, plus we went over the history of the nuclear rocket. Jon talked about the work going on with government regarding legacy hardware and technology. Nuclear was talked about in terms of cislunar space, the Moon, free space and Mars. Safety was a discussion topic as were the R&D economics for developing nuclear propulsion and power. Jon had more to talk about with the callers and email questions. Please read the full summary at www.thespaceshow.com for this date, Sunday, Nov. 10, 2024.