The John Batchelor Show “Hotel Mars,” Wednesday, 6-13-12 June 14, 2012
Posted by The Space Show in Uncategorized.Tags: : John Batchelor, Cis-lunar space., Dr. Paul Spudis, Global Space Exploration Conference (GLEX), heavy lift, NASA Authorization of 2012, SLS, The John Batchelor Show "Hotel Mars
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The John Batchelor Show “Hotel Mars,” Wednesday, 6-13-12
http://archived.thespaceshow.com/shows/1795-BWB-2012-06-13.mp3
Guests: John Batchelor, Dr. Paul Spudis, Dr. David Livingston. Topics: Global Space Exploration Conference (GLEX), commercial space & Cis-Lunar economic development. 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. Written transcripts of Space Show programs are not permitted without prior written consent from The Space Show (even if for personal use) & are a violation of the Space Show copyright. This program is archived on The Space Show website, podcasting, and blog sites with permission from John Batchelor. Please visit the John Batchelor Show website for more information about this fine program, www.johnbatchelorshow.com. During our 11.5 minute discussion, Dr. Spudis talked about the Global Space Exploration Conference just concluded inWashington,DC and the focus of national space agencies on returning to the Moon and lunar economic development. We talked about Cis-lunar economic development with theU.S. leading the way in public/private partnerships. We talked about heavy lift launch capability, the SLS, and why theU.S. must be in the lead for Cis-lunar economic development. We also talked about present day capabilities for starting a lunar economic development program.
If you have comments or questions, please post them on The Space Show blog. If you want to email either John Batchelor or Dr. Paul Spudis, you can do so through me.
David,
Last weekend I went back and listened to the last appearance of Paul Spudis on The Space Show, and so I was delighted to find out today that you and he had made an appearance on The John Batchelor Show last night and that Spudis touched on some of the same points that he made on his last Space Show interview.
It is so blindingly obvious that the main goal of U.S. Space policy should focus on the moon and cis-lunar space. We need to build up our space industry and create jobs, and establish fuel depots to re-fuel satellites and to provide fuel for deep space missions. I am also intrigued by the concept of asteroid mining and bringing a near-earth asteroid into a stable orbit around the earth, as described by your recent guest Dr. John Lewis.
I also went back and listened to Zubrin’s interview when he was talking about the new edition of his book “The Case For Mars.” Where Zubrin’s argument breaks down is that he has no way to make a manned program to Mars economically viable or self-sustaining. A manned Mars program would have a bad ending like the Apollo Program did when the continuous flow of money needed to sustain a manned Mars program is inevitably cut off by Congress. The best that Zubrin could come up with on your show is that the Mars colony could export “patents.” That is ridiculous. Those people are going to have an incredibly hard time just staying alive there.
If we found an alien monolith or alien technology on Mars, and the United States needed to get to Mars in a fast and cost-effective manner, then Zubrin would be the guy that I would want planning the mission and pushing the project. But if we really want to develop incremental and economically sustainable industries and capabilities, then the Cis-Lunar Space vision of Paul Spudis is absolutely the way to go.