Glad to see that the crowd-sourcing campaign to support the recovery of images of the Moon on magnetic tape date from unmanned lunar probe missions in the 1960s has succeeded in raising substantial funding: Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project – RocketHub.
They didn’t reach their goal of $75k but $62,560 is a lot more than the $10k or so they had just a couple of weeks ago. Help from Boing Boing and others made a big difference in the final push.
Bob Zimmerman reports on the latest space news during regular weekly slots (usually Tuesday and Thursdays) on the John Batchelor radio program. See the iTunes free Podcast for links to the latest shows.
Here is the list of topics discussed on this week’s Tuesday show:
Segment 1: science and space:
1. Curiosity has experienced another computer glitch, this time to its BACKUP computer.
2. The collision of space junk to a Russian satellite never happened.
3. A Chinese scientist who worked for NASA has been arrested trying to flee the country.
4. After losing its federal earmark, Pan-STARRS gets private funding to survive and upgrade.
5. The Antares launch date has been set.
Segment 2: climate:
1. More fraud in climate science.
2. The person who published the climategate emails releases some more emails, and emails the world his reasons for doing so.
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On the Space Show on Tuesday, John Strickland talked about the National Space Society, the ISDC 2013 conference, space settlement, space based solar power, launcher reusability and more: John Strickland, Tuesday, 3-19-13 – Thespaceshow’s Blog
On Monday, Dr. Claude Piantodosi talked on the show about his book, Mankind Beyond Earth, human spaceflight, Mars missions, radiation, and microgravity: Dr. Claude Piantadosi, Monday, 3-18-13 | Thespaceshow’s Blog.
SEDS (Students for the Exploration and Development of Space) has opened a crowd sourcing page at Give for Youth with several projects to which you can donate: Students for the Exploration and Development of Space, USA – Projects.
Examples include:
The Space Show this week:
1. Monday, March 18, 2013, 2-3:30 PM PST (5-6:30 PM EST, 4-5:30 PM CST): We welcome DR. CLAUDE PIANTADOSI, professor & director of the F.G. Hall environmental Laboratory at Duke University. We will be discussing Dr. Piantadosi’s new book, Mankind Beyond Earth: The History, Science, and Future of Human Space Exploration.
2. Tuesday, March 19, 2013 2013, 7-8:30 PM PST (10-11:30 PM EST, 9-10:30 PM CST): We welcome back JOHN STRICKLAND for the second half of his space discussion from his Jan. 22, 2013 Space Show appearance.
3. Friday, March 22, 2013, 9:30-11 AM PST (11:30- 1 PM CST, 12:30PM-2:00 PM EST): No Space Show program today as I am in Billings, MT to moderate an astronaut panel for Rocky Mtn College. The panel particpants include Walter Cunningham, Gerald Carr, Harrison (Jack) Schmitt, and Loren Acton. The panel discussion will be 10AM-12PM PDT (11AM-1 PM MDT, 12-2PM CDT & 1-3PM EDT). You can see the panel discussion at http://live.rocky.edu. The live stream audience will not be able to ask questions. It is possible that Rocky Mtn. College will allow The Space Show to archive this program on our Vimeo channel. Details to follow.
4. Sunday, March 3, 2013, 12-1:30 PM PST (3-4:30 PM EST, 2-3:30 PM CST). We welcome back Dr. Alan Stern who will be discussing his new Golden Spike venture. Dr. Stern will be with us for only the first hour. The last part of our program will be open lines for a discussion about Golden Spike & other matters. For those of you wanting to talk to Dr. Stern, you must call early as he can only be with us for the first hour.
See also:
/– The Space Show on Vimeo – webinar videos
/– The Space Show’s Blog – summaries of interviews.
/– The Space Show Classroom Blog – tutorial programs
The Space Show is a project of the One Giant Leap Foundation.
John Kelly points to a survey that finds most people put space near the bottom in a list of spending priorities for the government : Taxpayers sour on space during the budget crisis – Florida Today.
Saying that taxpayers have soured on space implies that they were once sweet on space. Polls going back to the early 1960s, however, have always given the same basic results – the public likes space in a general interest way but they don’t see it as a big priority for spending their tax dollars. It’s this mile wide – inch deep attitude of the public that has always bedeviled space advocates who try to push for more spending on NASA. Politicians just don’t see any votes being gained for supporting increased spending on space.
Until the public sees (1) the cost of space activities drop dramatically and (2) lots of people like themselves going to space and involved with space activities, this attitude isn’t going to change.