Episodes
Friday Apr 15, 2016
Episode 805: Changing of the Guard
Friday Apr 15, 2016
Friday Apr 15, 2016
The Kepler Spacecraft ran into trouble last Friday but thanks to heroic effort by the team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Kepler’s search for Exoplanets can resume. We discuss the SpaceX Dragon Cargo Resupply Mission 8 and it’s cargo specifically the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) to be attached to the International Space Station. SpaceX also proved at least part of their business model by landing the first stage of their Falcon 9 booster on a drone ship. We discuss the implications. At the 32nd Space Symposium, United Launch Alliance and Bigelow Aerospace announced a partnership to loft Bigelow’s B330 expandable modules in 2020, thus creating a new independent space station separate from the ISS without NASA. The team looks at this groundbreaking deal. ULA was also making news this week at the Northeast Astronomy Forum (NEAF), presenting it’s blueprint for a cis-lunar economy once more independent of NASA. All of this looks at space not just a place for exploration but economic opportunity, the team discusses and explores what a future could look like.
In the second half of the show, the team opens up part one of it’s NEAF roundup with David Shoemaker of the Advanced LIGO Project and Hans Koeningsmann of SpaceX The second half of our NEAF roundup will be coming up in Episode 806.
Host: Sawyer Rosenstein
Panel Members: Kassy Tamanini & Gene Mikulka
Monday Apr 04, 2016
Episode 804: What Price The Moon?
Monday Apr 04, 2016
Monday Apr 04, 2016
A new episode and a new crew make their way to the international space station, we highlight the members of Expedition 47 and Astronaut Jeff Williams
who will assume command of the station under Expedition 48, and break
the US endurance record for time in space during this increment. Only
weeks after they have wrapped up the OA4 mission, OrbitalATK is is
poised to launch the Cygnus cargo craft the SS Rick Husband to the ISS.
We profile one of its experiments the Spacecraft Fire Experiment or SAFFIRE which will study how fires develop and spread in a confined space.
Could the US establish its own lunar base by 2022? NASA Ames Astrobiologist Chris McKay seems to think so, and do it for $10 Billion,
about the price of a US Aircraft Carrier. The base according to Dr.
McKay’s would be established under the McMurdo Antarctic base model, and
could be set up rather quickly. Dr. McKay’s paper was first published
in the New Space Journal and in light of ESA’s Lunar Village concept we discuss the merits of both ESA’s and Dr. McKay’s vision.
Host: Gene Mikulka
Panel Members: Kat Robison & Kassy Tamanini