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Dr. Madhu Thangavelu, Perry Edmundson, Monday, 10-29-12 October 30, 2012

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Madhu Thangavelu, Perry Edmundson, Monday, 10-29-12

http://archived.thespaceshow.com/shows/1883-BWB-2012-10-29.mp3

Guests:  Dr. Madhu Thangavelu, Perry Edmundson.  Topic:  The Cosmic Mariner space cruise ship concept developed by Perry Edmundson. 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. We do not permit the commercial use of any Space Show program or part thereof, nor do we permit Space Show programs to be edited, placed on YouTube, or other private channels & websites. Space Show programs can be quoted in news articles, papers, academic & research work, but must be cited or referenced using the proper citation format. Contact Dr. Livingston for questions about our copyright and trademark policies.  We welcomed back Dr. Madhu Thangavelu and our new guest, Perry Edmundson to discuss the Cosmic Mariner space cruise ship concept which Perry developed while a graduate student in Dr. Thangavelu’ s Space Exploration Architectures Concept Synthesis Studio.  You can find Perry’s slides and his presentation paper on The Space Show blog.  Our first segment of this nearly two hour discussion covered the basics of the USC class taught by Dr. Thangavelu, including prerequisites and needed student background.  Madhu talked about class objectives & goals along with explaining his methodology in teaching the class.  We then switched over to Perry who began explaining the Cosmic Mariner concept.  If you follow along with his slide presentation which is on the blog, you will see terrific illustrations plus his comments will be supplemented by important visuals.  Perry explained the concept, talked about his design incorporating inflatable modules, the three main elements of style he incorporated in his design, the role of the ISS, and why he decided to make use of the ISS.  As for challenges to bringing the concept to reality, he talked about radiation issues along with other human factors issues.  One issue he zeroed in on dealt with the psychological issues faced by crews on longer missions.  Life support was discussed along with the need for far more powerful propulsion such as nuclear electric propulsion.  Perry spent some time discussing nuclear propulsion and related issues.  Madhu brought up the benefits of using hosted payloads & both our guests talked about SpaceX & its progress toward human spaceflight.
     In our second segment, Perry talked about bandwidth issues and urged the use of optical transmission as a solution path.  Trent asked about the NASA Gateway Program & we talked about using his cruise ship concept to go to Mars.  Perry explained what some of the modifications would have to include to make his concept viable for Mars.  Again, he stressed the human factors challenges.  John from NJ called in to talk about funding issues & challenges.  He also asked why the ISS was being used given it may meet its end in a few more years.  Perry suggested that his concept would provide a new purpose for the ISS.  We talked about the development of new technology for problem solving & were introduced to the concept of “technology evaporation.”
     Please post your comments/questions on The Space Show blog.
Perry Edmundson Slides
Edmundson Thangavelu AIAA Space 2012-Final

Dr. Madhu Thangalevu, Frankie Sharpe, Friday, 6-15-12 June 16, 2012

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Dr. Madhu Thangalevu, Frankie Sharpe, Friday, 6-15-12

http://archived.thespaceshow.com/shows/1796-BWB-2012-06-15.mp3

Guests:  Dr. Madhu Thangalevu, Frankie Sharpe.  Topics:  USC Moon Studio space & architectural project planning and design.  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. 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. We welcomed back Professor Madhu Thangalevu who was joined by Frankie Sharpe, one of the architectural graduate students in the USC Moon Studio program that just ended.  Dr. Thangalevu started out by telling us about the USC School of Architecture program and their space studio classes including the Moon Studio, Space Studio, and the program with the engineering department for the Engineering Space Concepts Studio.  Madhu then introduced us to Frankie Sharpe who talked about his lunar tourism project he did for the Moon Studio graduate class.  You can see some of his slides for his project at http://cargocollective.com/frankiesharpedesign/Tour-the-Moon and http://uscmoonstudio.blogspot.com.  In the process of Frankie telling us about his lunar tourism model, he talked about the learning process, the need to address engineering, cost, and human factors for his project, the solutions he developed for dealing with the new NASA guidelines for protecting and visiting the historical Apollo landing sites and more.  You will see how he creatively used holographs for the visitor to experience the actual lunar landings, how radiation issues were resolved, and much more.  I asked Frankie a series of questions about interest in his space work in the regular architectural firms has and is working for & you might be surprised by what he had to say.  You will also find it interesting that prior to being given the opportunity to enroll in the Moon Studio, space was not on his graduate school agenda.

In our second segment, Dr. Thangalevu talked about other USC space studio workshops and then we talked about space policy and the proper role for space in policy and our lives.  Professor Thangalevu talked about large global space projects that involve people everywhere such as planetary defense and climate change research.  We also talked aboutU.S. leadership in global space projects.  One of his suggestions was to consider that it might be time for a U.S. Department of Space to deal with these issues but he did say a paradigm shift had to take place for space to be fully realized.  He then introduced us to the cosmopolitanism concept.  This led us to an interesting discussion about the space “elders” passing the torch to the younger generations for their leadership forward.  During this discussion, we talked about the need to fail, to push to the design & function limits to failure so that something new & better comes from the lessons learned in the failure.  Our last topics included suborbital space, producing nuclear fuel for propulsion on orbit, hydrogen from algae on orbit, a lunar super computer connected to the aging Deep Space Network, and space & spirituality.

Please post your comments/questions on The Space Show blog. If you want to email our guests, do so through me & I will forward your email.

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