Talking Space

Episode 703: Don't Shoot the MESSENGER

 This week we look at the impending demise of NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft after being on orbit since 18 March, 2011. We also examine the SpaceX Cargo Resupply Mission Number 6 and discuss the science cargo on board, and the results of the Stage one landing attempt, critical to the company's booster re-usability formula. United Launch Alliance was also in the news, announcing it's booster replacement for the Delta IV and Atlas V, called "Vulcan" by popular vote. The team discusses Vulcan's roll out and implications. Also look at the progressthat OrbitalATK has made in getting Antares and Cygnus back to space.  

We turn our attention to the Northeast Astronomy Forum that took place at Rockland Community College in Suffern, New York. Some of the Guest speakers included NASA's Bill Gerstenmaier, Associate Administrator, Human Exploration and Operations Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC and Dr. Jim Green, NASA's Planetary Science Division Director. Other speaker's included: Dr. Matt Penn Associate Astronomer of the National Solar Observatory, in Tucson AZ who introduced a plan to recruit the amateur astronomy community to track the 2017 US Solar Eclipse called Citizen Cate.  Ellyne Kinney Spano, Image Processing Lead of NASA'sOSIRISREx mission with ways how you can also get involved on the Mission to Asteroid Bennu. Dr. Jon Morseformally the director of NASA's Astrophysics Division and instrumental with the Hubble Space Telescope porgram, now Board of Director's Member of the BoldlyGo Institute  discussing the Institute's  Astro-1 Telescope. Kassy Showcases a set of Binoviews by a company called Denkmier that turns the sky into a 3D viewing experience. 

The team gives the final moments of the show to pay tribute to Jan DuRaine, Tireless STEM Educator and one of the first supports of the program.

Host This Week: Sawyer Rosenstein. Panel Members: Gene Mikulka, Kathryn Robison and Kassy Tamanini aka Craft Lass with a message from Mark Ratterman

Show Recorded 21 April, 2015.

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Episode 702: Much Ado About the Moon

On this episode of Talking Space, the team discusses the International Space Station One Year Mission. We also mention that the New Horizons spacecraft is just a little over 90 days away from its destination: Pluto. We then look at the ramifications of an article by Eric Berger of the Houston Chronicle making an assertion that NASA is looking at leveraging the Moon as a true stepping stone to Mars. We also cite The Examiner's Mark Whittington, and a rebuttal to Mr. Berger's piece by Marcia Smith at SpacePolicyOnline . Mr. Berger stood by his piece in a later blog post. NASA Chief Scientist Ellen Stofan said during a public panel aired on NASA TV, “I believe we are going to have strong indications of life beyond Earth in the next decade." We discuss what that really means for us and how some main stream media outlets have reported on this story. Mark Ratterman wraps up his involvement with the First Robotics Competition  and what do the Mars Exploration Rovers have in common with Major League Baseball? We'll tell you in this week's NASA Spinoff Segment. 

The outro song is "Familiar Frontier " by Craft Lass. It is used with her permission. To purchase the file, visit https://craftlass.bandcamp.com/track/familiar-frontier. The song is also available on iTunes and Google Play.

Show recorded: 4/9/2015

Host this week: Sawyer Rosenstein. Panel Members: Gene Mikulka, Mark Ratterman, Kathryn Robison and Kassy Tamanini aka Craft Lass 

Episode 701: Return to Flight

In our "Return to Flight" episode we discuss NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission   and it's implications for learning more about how space weather impacts life here on Earth. With the new International Space Station Commercial Cargo Contracts coming, two new players have come on the scene but with very familiar names. Sierra Nevada Space Systems puts its new entry, a cargo version of the Dreamchaser Spacecraft into consideration and Lockheed Martin puts its Jupiter Exoliner hat into the ring.The controversial Mars One program gets placed under the microscope as the team discusses the fallout from Elmo Keep's piece on the Medium web site. We launch a new segment, exploring how NASA technology impacts everyday life hear on Earth profiling medical spinoffs. Finally we look at a NASA sponsored program, FIRST Robotics. Our  Mark Ratterman is leading a team of students, Team 3556 " Get Smart" competing in the event.  

We're sorry for our absence over the last few months. Thanks for sticking with us, and we'll be back with plenty more episodes in 2015!

Show recorded: 3/23/2015

Host this week: Sawyer Rosenstein. Panel Members: Mark Ratterman, Gene Mikulka, Kathryn Robison and Kassy Tamanini aka Craft Lass..

Episode 619: Preparations and Evaluations

Expedition 41 is in the books and we revisit the landing and the passing of the baton to the Expedition 42 crew along with the International Space Station increment poster: a salute to  "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by  Douglas Adams.

EFT-1 Preparations are rolling forward (in a literal sense) and the team discusses the  EFT1  press briefing about the Orion mission. The European Space Agency's Rosetta mission falls under the magnifying glass as they attempt to do what has never been done: land on a comet this week.

Orbital Sciences released their "Go Foward" plan in the wake of the 28 October Antares launch mishap. We examine all the pieces  of the recovery blueprint and offer opinion.  We end with a story of survival: How Peter Siebold Pilot of the doomed VSS Enterprise escaped as the craft disintegrated over the skies of California. Also offer an update on the progress of the crash which occurred on 31 October.

Recorded: Monday, 10 November 2014

Host This Week: Gene Mikulka
Panel Members: Mark Ratterman, Kathryn  Robison and Kassy Tamanini aka Craft Lass

Episode 618: The Future Belongs to the Brave

On a sobering edition of Talking Space, the team gathers to discuss the loss of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShip Two on 31 October, 2014 over the skies of the Mojave Desertin California. The ill fated test flight of the VSS Enterprise left the pilot, Peter Siebold,hospitalized and sadly took the life of  it's co-pilot Michael Alsbury. The acting administrator of the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), Christopher A. Hart released some intriguing information during a late night 2 November Press conference that may be the first piece of the puzzle in determining the cause of the accident. Mark Ratterman offers additional insight into how the NTSB painstakingly conducts an accident investigation. 

The team then focuses back to the Eastern Shore of Virginia and discusses the information released by Orbital Sciences CEO David Thompson during an investor call on 29 October  concerning the failure of the Antares launch vehicle and the loss of the ORB3 Cargo Mission to the International Space Station. The ORB3 Cargo mission was launched on 28 October and disappeared  into a fireball over the skies of Virginia's Mid Atlantic Regional Spaceport. The Cygnus cargo ship, Donald K Slayton, was to have docked with the orbiting platform on 2 November. The team discusses was known about the accident on the record date.   

Scaled Composites has set up an on line fund to help the family of Michael Alsbury, the pilot lost in the SpaceShipTwo accident. If you wish to contribute visit the GoFundMe site at this link

Show recorded 11/3/2014

Host this week: Sawyer Rosenstein. Panel Members: Gene Mikulka, Mark Ratterman, Kathryn "Kat" Robison and Kassy Tamanini aka Craft Lass

Episode 612: All the SpaceFest-ivities Part 1

On this episode of Talking Space, we begin our two part discussion of a recent trip to Pasadena, California for SpaceFest VI. The event features astronauts, artists, and other vendors and speakers as a way to talk about current topics in the space community and meet some of the people who made the past possible. During this part, we talk about the events leading up to the event including a tour of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a visit to Endeavour at the California Science Center. We then begin talking about the opening event with the Apollo astronaut panel. Afterwards, we talk about what was on the floor of the event, and a special birthday celebration for an astronaut.

Tune in to Part 2 to hear about the panels and discussions as well as a look at another Californai conference that happened around the same time.

Images were inserted here. To view them visit http://talkingspaceonline.com

Host this week: Sawyer Rosenstein. Panel Member: Gene Mikulka

Show recorded 06/06/2014

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Episode 611: That's My Shuttle

On our 200th episode of Talking Space, we welcome on decorated fighter pilot and two-time shuttle astronaut Bob Springer. We begin with his military career and his favorite planes to fly. We also talk about his time in the TOPGUN program. Then it's onto how he got from test piloting to being a space shuttle mission specialist. Then it's on to his flights, including two that never flew and the connection the flights, and Bob, had to the Challenger Disaster. The other flights included STS-29 and STS-38. Finally, we talk about his work with Boeing, the Kennedy Space Center, and his vision for the future.

Below is the STS-38 patch as described in the episode:

[An image was inserted here. To view it, visit http://talkingspaceonline.com]

A huge thank you to everybody who has helped the show grow to what it is today, allowing us to create 200 episodes!

Host this week: Sawyer Rosenstein. Panel Members: Gina Herlihy, Gene Mikulka, Mark Ratterman and special guest astronaut Bob Springer

Show recorded 04/17/2014

Episode 609: Mars Madness

On this episode of Talking Space, we talk with the Executive Director and co-founder of Explore Mars, Chris Carberry. In the interview, we discuss what Explore Mars is all about, and as you can guess, it has a lot to do with Mars. We begin with discussing the upcoming "Humans 2 Mars", or H2M conference coming up in Washington D.C. from April 22nd to the 24th. We then go into his thoughts on manned vs. robotic, the best way to get to Mars, and jumping off points such as the moon and the ISS. We also go into some of the STEM programs that they are participating in, and look at the future of Mars exploration.

For more on Explore Mars, visit their website http://exploremars.org/.

For more on the H2M conference, visit http://h2m2014.exploremars.org/

Host this week: Sawyer Rosenstein. Panel Members: Gina Herlihy, Mark Ratterman and special guest Chris Carberry from Explore Mars.

Show Recorded 4/7/2014

Episode 608: Safety of Soyuz and Sinkholes

On this episode of Talking Space, we talk about the recent Soyuz launch to the ISS, and the glitch that turned a few hour rendezvous into a two-day event. We look into what may have caused the event and look back at the classic "Era of Reliability" Russia declared at the end of the shuttle program in 2011. We then talk about a range outage that has delayed two launches until an unknown time and what it means for the future launch schedule for one of the commercial companies it affects. Next, we look at a wind measuring field finally getting a well-needed upgrade. On the second trip around the table, we talk about NASA's new spacesuit designs which the public can vote for, and how we probably wouldn't vote for any of them. Then it's on to our thoughts on some interesting comments made by Charlie Bolden and a discussion on the state of NASA. Then it's on to how NASA equipment helped predict sinkholes before they formed. For the third round, we discuss a record set by the mostly-classified X-37B and check out an award going to the Dawn spacecraft makers.

To vote for the next spacesuit design, visit http://jscfeatures.jsc.nasa.gov/z2/

Host this week: Sawyer Rosenstein. Panel Members: Mark Ratterman and the Spaceflight Group's Jason Rhian

Show Recorded 3/31/2014

Episode 606: Exploring the "Cosmos"

On this episode of Talking Space, we return from a long hiatus to recap some of the space news of the last few weeks that was important to us. We begin with a look at the 2015 NASA Budget proposal and what that means for some NASA programs and what we think of the cuts and gains. Next, we talk about the ISS, including the release of a record 33 CubeSats and the return of the Expedition 37/38 crew from the station. On our second trip around the table, we discuss some launches, including GPS 2F-5 which involved a lot of possums, and the Global Precipitation Measurement Mission or GPM which launched from Japan. On our final trip around the table, we talk about raining iron on a brown dwarf, and lastly review the first episode of the Cosmos reboot, Cosmos: A Space Time Odyssey hosted by Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

We want to hear from you about Cosmos. Send us your thoughts via email tomailbag@talkingspaceonline.com, tweet us @talkingspace, or post it on our Facebook wall atfacebook.com/talkingspace

Host this week: Sawyer Rosenstein. Panel Members: Gina Herlihy, Mark Ratterman and the Spaceflight Group's Jason Rhian