Space policy roundup – Mar.3.2020

A sampling of links to recent space policy, politics, and government (US and international) related space news and resource items that I found of interest (find previous space policy roundups here):

Webcasts:

** The Space Show – Fri, 02/28/2020David Rich, of The Space Resource Report, “spoke about commercial space, mining, resource usage and more”.

** Christopher Dreyer – Space Resources Program at the Colorado School of Mines – CSP S02E22

Dr. Christopher Dreyer is the Associate Director of Engineering and co-creator of the Center for Space Resources at Colorado School of Mines. The School offers an exciting Space Resources Program and Dr. Dreyer has played an integral role in developing it. Chris meets with Cold Star Project host Jason Kanigan to discuss the Program.

** In Search of 100 Earths – Planetary Society

With your support, we hope to discover enough Earth-like exoplanets to eventually understand whether life is out there. Together, we can change our world  by discovering other worlds. Please make your gift today.

See also this recent Planetary Radio program:

Yale astronomer Debra Fischer has spent decades hunting for exoplanets. Now she leads the 100 Earths project that includes the Lowell Observatory and astrophysicist Joe Llama. Debra and Joe join us for a conversation about this search for worlds that could be like our own. There’s big space news in this week’s edition of The Downlink at the top of the show, and Bruce Betts takes us on his weekly tour of the night sky, though it’s the pre-dawn sky that may hold the most wonder. Try your hand at the space trivia contest!

** Weekly Space Hangout: February 19, 2020 – John Thornton, CEO of Astrobotic

We record the Weekly Space Hangout every Wednesday at 5:00 pm Pacific / 8:00 pm Eastern. You can watch us live on Universe Today or the Weekly Space Hangout YouTube page.

Tonight we are airing Fraser’s interview with John Thornton, CEO of Astrobotic Technology. John earned his Master of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. While at Carnegie Mellon, John led the build of Scarab, a NASA concept robot for lunar drilling, and the first robot to carry a prototype of NASA’s RESOLVE payload. He also founded Carnegie Mellon’s Advanced Composites Lab, a research, training, design, and manufacturing lab specializing in high performance, lightweight composites for robotics. Astrobotic Technology, headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA, was spun out of Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute in 2007.

Astrobotics is a lunar logistics company that delivers payloads to the Moon by accommodating multiple customers on a single flight. It is a partner with NASA through a Space Act Agreement under the Lunar CATALYST program, and has 22 prior and ongoing NASA contracts. The company has 10 payload delivery deals in place for its first mission and dozens of customer negotiations for upcoming missions. Additionally, Astrobotic is developing advanced space robotics capabilities such as terrain relative navigation, mobile robotics for lunar surface operations, and reliable computing systems for mission-critical applications.

To learn more about Astrobotics and their projects, visit their website at https://www.astrobotic.com/.

The interview starts at around 40:20 into the video:

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