The Space Show

pending

John and I talked with Doug Messier for a single Hotel Mars program on SpaceX launches, the latest with Starship, including troubleshooting recent launch failures. Doug also talked costs, testing, technical problems, and timelines going forward for essential SpaceX and Starship related programs. Doug reviewed Block 1,2, and 3 for Super Heavy though he said things were not yet clear fro Block 3. Doug was asked about an ongoing risk for debris falling on populated areas. Don't miss his comment on this potential risk factor given he said they had a very thin and narrow needed to fly through over the Gulf. See the review on TSS site for this show and on our Substack page, doctorspace.substack.com.

Pending

We welcomed Casey Dreier of The Planetary Society to discuss what is termed the Skinny Budget cutting NASA programs and science. Casey went through the issues and concerns in detail. You can hear the audio archives on our website and our Substack page, doctorspace.substack.com. The video will also be archived on our Substack page.

Pending

The Space Show hosted a discussion with Dr. Saralyn Mark, focusing on space medicine, human spaceflight, and the challenges of long-duration space travel. The conversation covered topics such as the impact of space on human health, advancements in space technology, and the potential for space research to benefit medical treatments on Earth. Dr. Mark emphasized the importance of international collaboration, ethical considerations, and continued funding for space exploration to address challenges and unlock new possibilities for human health and space colonization. See the full summary at both www.thespaceshow.com for this program and the same on our Substack page, doctorspace.substack.com.

Summary is upcoming

Dr. Robert Bishop of Texas A&M was welcomed to the program to discuss and cover a range of topics related to space exploration, technology, and education, with a focus on Texas A&M University's involvement in these areas. Discussions included technical issues, SpaceX developments, radio show logistics, and the structure of Texas A&M's engineering programs, particularly their new space engineering initiative and research partnerships. The conversation also touched on broader themes such as national security, commercial space activities, and ethical considerations in space exploration, highlighting the interdisciplinary nature of current and future space endeavors.

Summary forthcoming

John and I welcomed back to Hotel Mars Eric Berger of Ars Technica for a one segment update and discussion regarding SpaceX, Musk & Starship. Eric was asked what the SpaceX testing success of Starship would look like. Our guest said he did not know. We talked about the upcoming Demo Test #10, possible hardware issues and even the possibility of assembly issues. Our guest expanded on this part of our conversation. Starship and the planned Moon launch were mentioned, we talked about testing ins LEO and the need to develop and test fueling in LEO. Eric also mentioned the fuels that Starship would use and need testing concerning possible boil off and more. Before ending the segment, he was asked about the feud between Musk and President Trump. Eric said it was hard to predict but probably Musk would walk back some of what he said regarding President Trump. He pointed out how important SpaceX was to the government on both space and national security. While the FAA could slow walk permits in retaliation for some of what Musk said, he did not see that happening at this time.

We welcomed Dave Barnhart, CEO and Co-founder of Arkisys, Inc., back to the program to share updates since his last appearance on May 2, 2023. The conversation focused on developments in the growing field of space servicing and the evolving commercial space industry. Dave provided a comprehensive update on Arkisys’s Port project, highlighting increased interest from the U.S. Space Force, the Space Development Agency, and other key government and private stakeholders. He discussed concepts such as deorbit augmentation and post-launch integration, offering specific examples of potential business opportunities emerging from these efforts. R&D and funding were key parts of the discussion. Dave explained how Arkisys is reducing risk through terrestrial experimentation, with a strong emphasis on rendezvous and transport capabilities via their Cutter vehicle. Listener questions focused on space logistics, satellite servicing markets, and the economic implications of declining launch costs. Dave noted that as launch prices continue to fall, the economics of on-orbit servicing become significantly more challenging and competitive. Later in the program, Dave introduced two major industry consortiums: COSMIC, a U.S.-only initiative, and CONFERS, which has a global scope despite being based in the U.S. He emphasized the importance of establishing industry norms and standards—an area of growing importance as the space economy matures. As the discussion wrapped up, Dave outlined Arkisys’s five-year plan, which includes deploying up to three Port modules, potentially connected, along with using the Cutter vehicle to ferry payloads to and from the Port. While human spaceflight is not currently part of their roadmap, he expressed interest in supporting human spaceflight companies with the Port platform in the future. Dave also addressed the use of AI in Arkisys operations—be sure to catch his insights on that topic. Before concluding, he shared updates on internships and future hiring plans. Earlier in the conversation, he enthusiastically described Arkisys's mentorship of student teams focused on in-space construction, noting a significant year-over-year increase in participation, underscoring growing interest in this sector.

I introduced Marcus Chown, an award-winning writer and former radio astronomer at Caltech, to discuss his latest book "A Crack in Everything: How Black Holes Came in from the Cold and Took Cosmic Center Stage." Marcus shared his personal journey into astronomy, inspired by his father's gift of an astronomy book and witnessing the moon landing as a child. He discussed the evolution of black hole science, explaining how they were initially considered fictional but became central to understanding the universe. Marcus detailed the discovery of the first black hole in 1971 and its connection to Cygnus X-1, a binary star system where a giant star is being pulled into a black hole, emitting X-rays. He also explained how supermassive black holes were discovered before stellar mass black holes, with the Hubble Space Telescope revealing their prevalence in galaxies. Marcus clarified that light from black holes does not escape from within but is emitted by matter swirling around them before falling in. Much more was discussed during this 77 minute listener and guest discussion.

John and I welcomed Casey Dreier from The Planetary Society to the program to go over the proposed NASA space and science budget cuts and project eliminations. Casey suspected the direction for the cuts originated out of OMB without much space guidance or thought. He identified several of the projects and programs identified for either a budget cut such as the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope to the New Horizons and Venus missions being totally eliminated. Casey also talked about the bleak future for SLS and the Gateway for their demise post Artemis 3. Casey talked about their being a shift to commercial Moon missions but with little detail and clarity. Cislunar development, cargo and resupply to the ISS, the future for the private space stations, Mars and EDL for Mars plus demos all were part of our discussion. In Part 2, John talked about the robotic missions including existing missions plus the future missions, all of course depending on robots. Casey worked in commentary about cuts and changes for both JPL and Goddard, two very important and key Nasa centers. Before concluding the program, our guest was asked about the impact of the layoffs for NASA scientists and engineers. Casey suggested they would have an uncertain future ahead of them as their might not be abundant job opportunities for these important skills. Read the full summary at The Space Show website, www.thespaceshow.com and also at doctorspace.substack.com.

We welcomed Jim Meigs from the Manhattan Institute to the program to discuss his paper, "U.S. Space Policy: The Next Frontier", space news including a changed in the proposed NASA Administrator plus the argument with President Trump and Elon Musk. The meeting considered the potential impact of the dispute and administrator change on space policy and projects, including NASA's future leadership and priorities. Jim, along with program participants on both Zoom and the live stream explored various challenges and uncertainties surrounding NASA's human space program, including budget concerns, mission timelines, and the need for private sector involvement. The group also discussed potential alternatives for U.S. space exploration, including more collaboration between different commercial space companies, while addressing the ongoing feud between Trump and Musk. Programs such as Artemis, Starship, timelines, even the need to restructure the FAA for both aviation and space plus NASA as a more entrepreneurial organization were both part of our discussion and Jim's paper. Please read the full summary of this program on The Space Show archives and our Substack page, doctorspace.substack.com.

We welcomed Richard Easton, Lee Hammarstrom & Pete Wilhelm to This special 2 hour 16 minute program on Zoom. You should be able to see the video on doctorspace.substack.com and The Space Show Vimeo account as it will soon be posted to both accounts. This program on TSS website is audio only. Our discussion focused on the development and evolution of GPS and the PARCAE satellite technologies, along with NRO, NRL, computer tech of the time, covering their origins, technical challenges, and applications. Our guests discussed the historical context, including early proposals, declassification processes, and the interconnected nature of these programs. Understanding time, atomic clocks and even Einstein's relativity equations were crucial to this up to now classified project. The conversation also touched on future developments, potential applications in space exploration, and concerns about system resilience in various environments. We talked innovation "back in the day" along with the Grab, Poppy and the transition from strategic to tactical information. Be sure to read the comprehensive program summary on TSS website as well as our Substack page, doctorspace.substack.com.

Jess Sponable returned to the program to discuss his recent Op-Ed on NASA, aerospace and the defense sectors needing more entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs. While Jess spent time with us explaining what he meant when he and others advocated for more of these folks in management and leadership, most of our program discussion was a mega-example of the need for innovation in R&D, problem solving, financing and such. Over and over again he stressed the need for the entrepreneurial type for leadership, even within the government structure of public organizations or government agencies. Jess used his experiences in the past for excellent supportive illustrations plus he talked about the early 1950's, 60's and 70's history with commercial and military jets, X-planes and flight in general. He focused on motivation while making the point that entrepreneurial type leadership would serve to motivate people. We talked about returning to the Moon, Mars, SpaceX, Musk and Starship as examples along with Starlink. The Golden Dome project was an additional large part of our focus with Jess making a call for it to be space based in design, not terrestrial or Earth-based with Earth-based infrastructure. Jess explained why he said it needed to be space developed but he was not sure this would be the approach taken by Golden Dome planners and designers. We did talk about the degree of protection we would get from Golden Dome plus obvious security gaps that would not have such protection as mentioned by one of our listeners regarding ships and port vulnerability. Dallas called as we were talking about developing a cislunar economic infrastructure plus the Blue Origin designs coming up. Jess mentioned competing rocket companies including Stoke Space, Rocket Lab and Blue as the companies driving down the launch costs which he said was absolutely crucial to get below $100/lb to LEO. Toward the end of the program our guest was asked about progress in human spaceflight medicine. Jess spent a few minutes at the end of the program to go over some the information on this subject and talked about spinning stations and more but we must get the price to LEO down and entrepreneurial leadership was what was needed. Other topics came up including the experience Jess brought to our discussion by his earlier work with DC-X, reusable VTOL Launch, DARPA and the Air Force. Before ending we squeezed in a short discussion on his New Frontier Aerospace company hypersonic flight project which would enable west coast to Asia in a few hours by skimming across the top of the stratosphere. Do not miss this concluding discussion to today's program. Jess said he would return after their demo flight next year. We wish him and our industry great success in moving forward, including handling the political, budget and policy challenges faced at this time. Check out the full summary at www.thespaceshow.com for this program plus the summary on doctorspace.substack.com.

Dan Adamo returned to the program for his Part 2 discussion on "interplanetary Synodic-Resonant Waypoints" for Earth-Mars spaceflight. Follow the discussion with his PDF document which has been uploaded to his first appearance dated May 18, 2025. This second appearance has that link in the blog for the current show. We started Part 2 with a short review of Slide 5 and then proceeded to discuss and review the additional slides in his presentation. Note that this is a somewhat technical discussion and you do need to follow along with his PDF presentation. Rather than review each and every slide as Dan talked about, this summary will focus on the larger picture and that is the purpose or reason behind Dan doing this work which is even as he said many times "very speculative." As I understand it, Dan believes the Earth-Mars waypoints may in the future play an important role in Earth-Mars and return transportation, both human spaceflight and cargo. However, waypoint discussions are not yet being talked about or made part of potential mission planning. Dan is attempting to be "evangelical" in the waypoint discussion to get them into our awareness to start playing a role in the discussions that will influence these future missions. Our guest believes that waypoints are going to be very important in the future but they need to be talked about and evaluated early on to be refined for mission planning. He is hoping and he is optimistic that by bringing waypoints into space travel awareness, additional presentations and evaluations will be offered in the coming years so that they do become part of the future Earth-Mars mission planning and possibly even the missions. Dan is looking for feedback from listeners on waypoints and his presentation. After you have heard his presentation from both Part 1 and Part 2, he wants you to email him with your thoughts or post your thoughts on our blog or Substack as he is monitoring both. His email address is in the bottom footer of each of his slides. If you do direct email Dan, please copy me on the note as I would like to stay in the loop on this subject. Email me at drspace@thespaceshow.com. Dan and I thank you for listening and we look forward to your feedback.

We welcomed Clay Mowry, the new CEO of AIAA, to the program to discuss the "new" AIAA and the health of all aspects of our space industry. We started the 66 minute discussion with a detailed look at the dynamite new AIAA logo and the story about it told by Clay. First, check out the new logo. Visit AIAA.org to see it. Next, listen to Clay's story while you are looking at the new logo. If you are so inclined, post your thoughts about it on our blog for this show or in the Substack comments section (doctorspace.substack.com). By the way, how many of you remember the BellX-1 and its sound breaking history? If not, this would be a good time to learn and seal to your memory this important part of our nation's and really the worlds history. We moved on to talk about the split with AIAA between Aviation and Space. Aviation has always dominated the AIAA but as you will hear, space is becoming a more and more significant part and focus of the organization. Clay was asked about his plans going forward for the organization. In just a few words, AIAA is reaching out to its younger membership, students and going digital with most of their product. Clay told us the story about his trip to many of the nations finest aerospace engineering and science programs to interview the students to get a handle on how to focus the "new" AIAA. After telling us all about what they are doing for student and younger folk retention, a listener asked him what they were doing for the older crowd, even the "geezers." Don't miss this part of the AIAA new outreach program. In addition to the AIAA part of our discussion, Clay was asked about his views on the space economy, the continued availability of investment and risk capital, Artemis, Starship, the SLS-Gateway program and hardware plus Mars and the possible increase in attention to human spaceflight by NASA. We talked about the potential science and other agency budget cuts, we switched over to hear about the new changes and improvements for their great magazine/journal, "Aerospace America." Also, the AIAA book publishing division. He suggested we all sign up for "MyDailyLaunch (see he program to find out. Thank you. Dr. Spacehttps://aiaa.org/news/newsletters/my-daily-launch). Near the end of our program, Clay was asked what his biggest surprise was in becoming the new CEO. Well, its a surprise. Listen to the program to find out. Thank you. Dr. Space.

John and I welcomed DR. Robin Andrews from the UK to discuss planetary defense with us. Robin introduced us to the term "City-Killer" which pertains to the size of an asteroid that could potentially hit and damage Earth. This type of asteroid, were it to hit populated area, could do serious damage and injury to the area of impact. The damage would be considered localized rather than global. Robin provided us with a few examples of such asteroid impacts over history, plus the size of such a rock hitting the Earth would be around 140-160 meters across. Our guest talked about the recent NASA DART mission which sent an ipactor to an asteroid to test if it could be moved, possibly out of the way of hitting Earth. The DART mission was successful. Robin pointed to the U.S. as the main researching entity on such dangerous impacts though he did shout out to ESA and a few other organizations. He was asked about the decision making process to possibly absorb an impact in an area or to evacuate the area, a decision nobody wants to make. Robin was asked questions about rubble pile asteroid along with other kinds of rocks, plus he talked about other potential interceptor missions including nuclear and using the idea of a gravity tractor to tow the asteroid out of the way. Robin supported others in this field by saying the warning time to get involved in defending Earth from an incoming rock was critical as we needed to get to the potential dangerous asteroid when it was still fairly far from Earth. In the second part of our program, John asked Robin what he would do with an unlimited budget for planetary defense. Robin spoke to having infrared observations, testing nuclear interceptors and having rockets and missions on standby if needed bo te used. He commented on existing and soon to be existing hardware that would be useful in the search for the "City-Killer." Vera Rubin was one such tool he mentioned. When asked if a nuclear interceptor might trigger an EMP, he said no because the nuclear explosion would be millions of miles from Earth.