Embedded below the fold. This was another 40 minute extended appearance, four segments covering planetary science, commercial space (two segments), and the politics of climate science.
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Embedded below the fold. Tonight was a special double podcast, lasting almost 40 minutes. The first segment looks at the September 1 SpaceX launchpad situation, the second segment looks at Blue Origin and its new proposed rocket, the third segment looks at the state of Virgin Galactic and the Russian space industry as well as the Mars rovers, and the last segment looks at Mars, the Moon, earthquakes, and the coming end of Rosetta.
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Embedded below the fold. Beyond the normal science and space stuff, we also talked aboutStar Trek’s 50th anniversary. Batchelor also played audio of Jupiter’s magnetic field from Juno, and then compared the sound with the soundtrack from the 1956 film, Forbidden Planet. Trust me, if you know that move’s sound track, you will be amazed.
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Embedded below the fold. I like John’s take on the finding of Philae: “Brave Little Philae Awaits Bruce Willis Rescue Mission.”
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Embedded below the fold. I am sure that no one will be surprised that the focus was the Falcon 9 launchpad failure. Talked about other stuff though, including some of the neat planetary discoveries this week.
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On Sunday evening I will be doing another long appearance on Coast to Coast with George Noory. I expect the first hour will talk about SpaceX and commercial space, and the second on some of the more recent planetary missions, both on-going and forthcoming.
Embedded below the fold. The phrase of the day: “Flight-Proven!”
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Embedded below the fold. Lots of new vaporware stories, plus some heroic engineering in the planetary program.
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Embedded below the fold. Batchelor’s title sums it up: “NASA Asteroid Vaporware. Roscosmos Lunar Vaporware.”
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Embedded below the fold. We discussed the journey of Curiosity of course. I also spent some time elaborating on some of the engineering advantages SpaceX has because of its success at vertically landing its Falcon 9 first stages.
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Embedded below the fold. Commercial space and planetary science, as usual, were the topics, with a focus on Curiosity’s upcoming journey (which shall get an update by tomorrow at the latest).
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Embedded below the fold. Lots of science. Lots of uncertain science. We then finish with a discussion of commercial smallsats and the politics of NASA.
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Embedded below the fold. I started with the Chinese and North Korean space programs, and ended up comparing them with the competitive and chaotic American system of private enterprise which is forcing down the cost of getting payloads into orbit while pushing the entire industry to greater innovation.
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Embedded below the fold. I like John Batchelor’s description of our discussion about NASA’s fantasy asteroid manned mission: “Vaporware.”
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The podcast is now fixed and available! John Batchelor thanks Willi for spotting the problem.
Embedded below the fold. John Batchelor titled this appearance very accurately: “Condemning Orion.” He likes to say that I am sometimes cranky. I was especially cranky tonight in reviewing why I think the way NASA is selling Orion is an outright lie.
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Embedded below the fold. The main topic was Curiosity and its journey into rougher terrain as it climbs Mount Sharp.
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Embedded below the fold. I especially like the title that John Batchelor gave this segment: “Would you buy a used booster from SpaceX?”
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Embedded below the fold. Spent a lot of time talking about Curiosity’s future route up Mt. Sharp, including the possibility of getting a closer look at the balanced rock seen earlier.
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Embedded below the fold. I spent a large portion of the podcast talking about the medical problems caused by long-term weightlessness, and how it might limit our ability to send humans to other planets. We also touched on the possible consequences to space policy should Donald Trump pick Newt Gingrich as his VP.
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Embedded below the fold. John Batchelor was especially thrilled by the Curiosity image of the balanced rock.
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Embedded below the fold. Not only did we talk about Juno and other recent science news, we also discussed the absurd banning of Doug Messier from the NasaSpaceFlight.com website.
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Embedded below the fold. Lots of planetary science to start, followed by commercial space.
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My two hour appearance on the Space Show with David Livingston is now available as a podcast and can be downloaded here.
I spent the first half hour outlining the general conclusions drawn by me in writing my policy paper, Exploring Space in the 21st Century, for the Washington think tank, the Center for New American Security. I then spent most of the rest of the show discussing and debating my conclusions with various callers. If you want to get a taste of what that policy paper will say, you should definitely listen to this podcast.
Embedded below the fold. Batchelor’s title focuses on our Russian discussion, but I also talked about the Chinese space program, NASA’s proposed satellite refueling mission, and a whole bunch of recent planetary discoveries.
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Embedded below the fold. Not only did I get to describe my talk at CNAS in greater detail, but this week’s space stories tied into that talk perfectly!
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Embedded below the fold. Lots of science in this segment.
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Embedded below the fold. Batchelor was really fascinated by the net gun to catch space junk.
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